the hills are aliiiiiiive...with the smell of onions.

Seriously. There's this type of wild onion-relative that lives on the hillsides, next to water, and since they're in bloom right now, the creek trail and the Botanic Gardens smell like onions right now.  It's WEIRD, and oddly delicious.

All these little white flowers? Onions.

In other news, today's the royal wedding over in the UK. Last night, before going out for our girls'-night Indonesian food, we met up at the Viaduct market for some cheese sampling and discovered that a big group of English ex-pats was having a wine-and-cheese-and-fancy dress party to celebrate the wedding, complete with giant foofy hats. Sadly, I didn't get any photos of the hats. Happily, here's a photo Jen took of me with the royals.

They're much shorter and more two-dimensional than I had imagined.

My only regret is that I can't be in a pub somewhere in the UK right now, watching the whole thing go down. How fun would that be?? It's a singular cultural event that's totally unique and interesting, that happens maybe once every thirty years or so, and I'm SO CLOSE, and yet so far away... But practicality prevails. I have my German test today, and goodness knows I'm not going to miss that.

So. On to dinner last night. We ate at Dapur Indonesia, a cool little place up in Oerlikon (north from here) that's only been open for a few months. Jen and I both had a chicken dish that had been cooked with onions and red peppers and some sort of herb in coconut milk, then grilled, and it was delicious. (I ordered mine spicy, and it started out fairly tame, but got HOT towards the middle. Still good, though!) Our friend Eva ordered a fried fish with some sort of peanuty, curry-like sauce, which was also quite fantastic. We had fried rice on the side--very different from its American version, but still good. The service was truly great, and they actually offered to package up the leftovers for us to take home! This was a momentous event, as I've learned that in Europe, they really don't do doggie bags. Which saddens me to no end, 'cause I LOVE leftovers, but also leads me to overeat, since I feel compelled to at least attempt to finish whatever's in front of me. At any rate, yaaaaay, leftovers!

Finally, I FOUND THE SHEEP. They are on the hillside which is one row of buildings away from my apartment. You can actually see them from my balcony, provided you know where to look and they are standing in the right place. Apparently, that's just where they live and graze in the summertime. And I thought we lived in a CITY. It's utterly bizarre.

This is maybe a third to half of their total number...!

AHHHHH, LITTLE BABY SHEEPS!! 

And this is what I've been hearing from my house. And am still hearing, even to this day.  These guys were all KINDS of noisy and interesting, until I started videoing. Naturally. But you get the idea.

 

Wish me luck, people. I'm off to study for my test. And while I realize that your wishes for my luckiness will occur approximately eight hours after I need them, here's hoping it's all retroactive.

i'm hearing sheep.

Seriously. All day yesterday and today...sheep. I think they're somewhere in some of the green space near our street, and I CAN HEAR THEM, but I have yet to see them. I might go try to figure out where they are in a bit, here, 'cause it's driving me NUTS. Baaaaaaaaaaah. Baaaah.

In other news, German class continues to go well, and I love it. It has waaaaaaay more in common with Latin than I ever would have thought, but that makes it a little easier for me to understand the grammar (and not so easy for some of my poor classmates, heh heh...). Our first test is Friday, and it's only supposed to take a half-hour, but thus far we have roughly 234 vocabulary words to remember, including several verbs (and their present-tense conjugations), tons o' nouns (and their genders and plural forms, of which there are NINE possible for each word!!), interrogative words, every imaginable type of article, and plenty of adjectives. Wooooo, foreign language! It's daunting and exciting at the same time. I've decided that since we've spent the last two weekends in French-speaking places, I'm definitely learning French next. (And then Italian, followed by Spanish, and someday, Portuguese. And then Russian.)

So. This past weekend, we went to Colmar, France, for a day and a half. What a ridiculously adorable place! (Almost nonsensically so...the "old town" part looks like a set for a peasant city in Lord of the Rings.) It's a truly beautiful little place, but it was positively overwhelmed with tourists, seeing as how everyone had a four-day weekend, AND there was an Easter market there. Ugh. Tourists. I realize perfectly well that that's what we were, ourselves, but we at least make an effort not to be the annoying and ignorant ones. At any rate, I only have a few photos now 'cause Mike took the big camera and made off to Africa before I had a chance to download...so here's what I have, for the time being.

Water tower

Sorry 'bout the lamp post. I just loved this house.

Old town: timbers!

More timbers.

Stay tuned...more Colmar to come.

Also this weekend, we went to church on Sunday, then came home and had some friends over for Italian food (stuffed chicken...YUMMMMM.)

This sat in front of us at church. I wanted to take it home with us.

The International Protestant Church of Zurich. Really nice people.

Nathalie and myself, being pasta trees for Mike. (She's apparently the zen master of pasta trees.) Dave and Jen snickering in the background.

And did I mention that this country loves Easter...?

Meat bunnies. 'Nuff said. (Thank you, Dave, for the photo!)

I bought these the day after Easter for half-price...it's chocolates in a chocolate egg. Yesssssss.

Mike standing next to the giant inflatable bunneh at Sihl City, just for scale. These things are delicious. (At least, the actual edible ones are.)

Ooh, just realized I hadn't caught the world up on 'What I'm Reading'. Um, as last I recall, I was whingeing about everything I'd read after Peace Like a River, which then helped me to decide that I should read some of the "classics" I've always managed to miss. (My definition of a classic is, here, very loosely, something old-ish that everyone else seems to have read, but that I've somehow avoided thus far.) So far, it's been:

• Treasure Island. LOVED IT. Fantastic, well-paced pirate romp. Brilliant.
• Last of the Mohicans. Racist? Definitely. Sexist? Yup. Super long, rambling, and mostly repetitive? You bet. At least the final chase was interesting. And also: NOTHING. LIKE. THE MOVIE. One wonders how Hollywood had the chutzpah to even call it by the same name.
• Ivanhoe. Still working on this one, but almost done. Started really strongly, lots of action and intrigue, and bogged down in the middle, where Sir Walter Scott decided that he needed to include the ENTIRE lyrics to EVERY song that EVERY character sung...which slows the plot, somewhat. Still, a fun read, and who doesn't love a good Robin Hood tie-in? (Actually, still trying to figure out why the book is called 'Ivanhoe', since he seems to be something of a minor character at best.)
• Next up: The Count of Monte Cristo. 
• After that, not sure. Stay tuned. I know you're on the edge of your respective seats.

And now, to go find some noisy sheep, just so I know I'm not hearing nonexistent sheep sounds, and then off to make the final batch of flashcards for my German test on Friday. What a life I lead...all glitz and glamor! At least there's chocolate, my dears. Good, good chocolate.  =)

big day today.

And yesterday. Well, really, a big WEEK.

Last Tuesday: broke down and wore my skinny jeans to Karaoke from Hell, and it was their 250th show--their "leather edition", as the emcee called it; a burlesque dancer; and LOTS of sparkly poppers and confetti. Kinda a goofy celebration, really, but cheesy good fun.

The emcee's leather turned out to be his lederhosen (above center), which was funny, until he he declared that he felt silly speaking English in his shorts and Alpine hat, and promptly switched to Swiss German. Booo. I think the big winner that night was the bass player, above on the left, who went for a mesh tank top and sleeveless leather vest. The poor guitar player was clearly overheating in his leather jacket, but he stuck with it. The drummer opted to go shirtless, as he usually winds up without one anyway, but he DID have a sweet fake mustache.

Thursday: vegetarian Mexican dinner with Lori and Dave. We made cheese enchiladas topped with fried eggs (kinda like enchiladas rancheros from Twisters...!!  =), and Lori brought veggie chimichangas. Ice cream with raspberry compote for dessert. YUMMMMMMM. Also got our dining room table! Wooooo!

All of our chairs fit!

It's just sooooooooo pretty!

Friday: I had coffee and assorted baked goodies with downstairs neighbor, who is Irish and extremely hilarious and awesome (and the first person I've met here without Mike's connections or assistance...!). Then went and signed up for six weeks of my first non-Google-related German class.

Saturday: chile tasting, followed by lunch of grilled Argentininan beef with fresh bread and chimichurri sauce. In this beautiful little square with a fountain and big shady trees and white wine (and, oddly enough, a built-in ping-pong table that was occupied the ENTIRE time we were there). Here's the chile shop itself is really small, but full of amazing and delicious chile-packed sauces, curries, olive oils, and all sorts of fantastic chile-related delights, mostly made by the shop owner himself. (He also stocks a small assortment of wine, but it's only stuff he likes. HOW AWESOME.) Here's his promo photo.

How's THAT for honesty in advertising! It's a chile and wine shop...get it??  

Here's the lineup of the hottest chiles in the shop. Which is, naturally, where Mike started his sampling.

Here's the shop owner dosing out some horribly hot food-like items for the chile eating contest.

In which Mike, of course, had to participate. Smiling at the start...

...and smiling at the end. He didn't even get the hiccups, flinch, cry, or sweat. It was pretty impressive. (Our friend Dave was unfazed, as well. THESE PEOPLE ARE INSANE.)

To the victors go the spoils! Travel-sized bottles of "Iguana Deuce" hot sauce with "I survived!" labels.

Last, but not least, slabs of beef on the square with the Gaucho.

Saturday evening: departed for Lausanne for the birthday party of our friend Steve's fiancee, Nathalie, who is the tiniest, sweetest, and most adorable French person I've ever met. The party was at this utterly fantastical, 2-million-franc apartment overlooking Lake Geneva. The hosts were divine, the food phenomenal, and the company extremely interesting. OH YEAH...and Lausanne is this beautiful fairy-tale type of town in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, which makes it (and the train ride south) almost surreally charming.

Sunday: got up and ate crepes by the lake (Mike's was ham, mushrooms, and cheese; mine was cheese, potatoes, and red onions...perfection in food form), in front of an honest-to-goodness stone chateau. 

This is how much was left of my crepe. 

Then Steve gave us a brief tour of Lausanne's old town and cathedral (building commenced in 1170!!), followed by a short (but entirely painful) hike up a steep hill to a villa that's been converted into an art gallery. What's really nice is that it seems like the villa's grounds are public land, so there were people everywhere hiking or lounging in the fields or playing with their kids...just a lovely place.

The cathedral is pretty massive. This is the only photo I managed to get of the entire length of it.

Who doesn't love a nice rose window?

Wisteria in old town. My new favorite plant.

Yes. Lausanne IS this ridiculously quaint and picturesque.

Biiiiiiig cathedral.

The villa. LOTS OF FLOWERS.

We stopped at the little cafe, then went into the exhibit (El Modernismo: De Sorolla a Picasso, 1880-1918). Turns out, it was probably the only exhibit I've ever seen where I truly liked most of the pieces. And then there was THIS.

The view from the villa. Green grass, leading down to the lake, with the Alps in the background.

More alps and chateau-y buildings.

I couldn't quite capture the expansiveness or drama of these views, so you'll just have to trust me. LAUSANNE IS SO BEAUTIFUL IT'S UNFAIR TO THE REST OF THE WORLD. You'd have to really not mind climbing hills to live there, though: it seemed like everywhere we went was uphill. Steeply uphill.

Anyway. After our jaunt up to the villa/gallery, we went back down to Nathalie's apartment, where we had a lovely dinner of ridiculously good French cheeses, some really nice red wine, fresh fruits and veggies, and some fancy-schmancy cupcakes (two inches of icing, people!!) that we'd picked up on the way back down the hill. Just a truly lovely way to end a food-and-beauty-centric weekend. My favorite kind.  =)

And finally, today's big event: went to my first "semi-intensive" German class. I am truly relieved that I had the good sense not to sign up for an actual intensive class: the amount of information with which we were bombarded today is more than enough for one three-hour session, and I cannot imagine doing that all week, plus several hours of homework a day, thank you very much. But class itself was enjoyable, and my fellow non-German-speaking classmates seem like a genuinely nice bunch of people, so I might actually stick with it for a while (or at least, for the twice-a-week for six weeks that I've signed on for). Wish me luck, people: I still have nightmares about being back in school, so we'll see how it goes.

just...WOW.

Turns out, this city really knows how to throw a giant street festival. Yesterday was the culmination of the Sechseläuten/Sächsilüüte, a fairly upper-crust holiday invented in the early 1900s to give Zurich's guilds something to do. In a nutshell, the male guild members ride and parade through town, giving the womenfolk and commoners a chance to cheer for them. If this sounds a bit sour, that's because it is: the portion of Zurich's inhabitants who are NOT in guilds (i.e., just about everyone) appears to be fairly bitter about the existence of this holiday. Although this was the first year that women were allowed in the parade, so...yaaay? Obviously, it's a fairly politicized holiday which celebrates the hoity-toities and alienates the working stiffs, which is all the more ironic, because the name of the holiday (which includes the German word for "six") is derived from the chiming of the bells at 6:00 PM in spring...which is when the working class finally gets to have time after work that's still daylight. It's all a bit confusing, but at least it's a good party.

The parade was interesting, for all of its costumes and wigs and horses and flower-throwing and (sometimes indecipherable) floats, but the best part was the exploding snowman at the end. They build a giant framework of small bits of wood and top it with a snowman effigy whose head is full of fireworks, then light the whole thing on fire and wait for the head to explode. If it goes quickly, summer will be long and warm; if not, short and cool. It's like the groundhog, but with dudes riding around a massive bonfire on horseback. I know it's a super-elitist holiday, but THAT... WAS... AWESOME. (FYI, this year's time was just over nine minutes, and apparently, that's relatively quick. Hooray, nice summer!) Sadly, I mistakenly sacrificed our prime snowman viewing for a better view of the parade, so I apologize sincerely for the crappy nature of my bonfire photos and video. LESSON LEARNED FOR NEXT YEAR: forget the parade, watch the GIANT FIRE.

Anyway. Back to the start. Naturally, I took LOADS of photos, most of which are not great, but at least they're in a vaguely chronological order, starting with the big street party upon which we accidentally stumbled this weekend while Mike's friend Greg Rhoads was in town.

Rowing crew on the river

Guild costumes apparently range from sheik garb...

...to fancy-schmancy vests, frilly cuffs, and tails...

...to medieval garb...

...to traditional Swiss gear...

...to Scarlet O'Hara...

...to tanner's aprons, and SO many other crazy things!

But anyway. There were at least 3 marching bands, all playing together.

...in the middle of this square, which was PACKED with guild members in fancy dress, and lots of other people who (like us!) were just there to see what was going on. 

Apparently, there was an actual BALL later, which you could only attend if you were A) a guild member or someone invited by one; and B) you were wearing historical dress. Also apparently, this was just the pre-party (one of many) before the big festival and parade yesterday. For which they closed stores early, shut down Bellevueplatz (which is a fairly large transportation hub) to all traffic, brought in a bunch of food, drink, and candy vendors, and set up the snowman effigy.

Mike said he thought it was maybe 40 feet tall.

Bellevueplatz looked like this IN EVERY DIRECTION.

The parade: no shortage of marching bands...

 

...weird little floats...

...guys on horseback...

...HUGE medieval-looking machinery...

...and all with the snowman burning in the background.

He started like this.

The flames were a little slow, but then REALLY picked up in the middle.

And then...THIS!!* (How I always end up next to shrieking children, I'll never know.)

Exploding snowman head! With crazy people on horseback riding around the base.

So. The festival started off as the wealthy, conservative, "establishment" holiday, but then, once the parade was over, the men in wigs gone, and the horses all stabled...out come the picnic blankets, tiny hibachi grills, and SAUSAGES. Apparently, within the last 10 years, someone in the working class decided to start grilling brats over the post-exploding-snowman bonfire, and now it's a giant, anti-establishment, weenie roast after-party. Yahoooo! As our Swiss friend Tom--who's never seen the parade or snowman, out of sheer bitterness--put it, "Now we roast our sausages over your sacred fire." This kind of crazy rebellion is a very recent phenomenon, and would have been unheard of twenty years ago, but now the plaza around the fire is PACKED with insane people who are willing to risk life and limb (or at least severe burns to said limbs) to get a shovelful of coals for their grills. Or, in our case, our patch of gravel. 

Mmmmmmmm, brats!

Niccolas and Tom, grillmasters at work.

This is how far we were from the fire, and also how far Mike and Tom had to weave their way through the crowd with our coals BALANCED ON A SHOVEL.

Coals, round two.

The spiral ones were ENTIRELY DELICIOUS. Thanks, Tom!!

This is the dirtiest I've ever seen the streets of Zurich. Honestly, it looked like the aftermath of a riot...this photo doesn't do it justice.

Bonfire, roughly 5 hours after exploding snowman. This thing is NOT getting smaller!

These are the signs (in Bellevueplatz, here) that usually have bus and tram schedules on them, but not today! Happy Sechseläuten, suckers! No tram for you!

And on that note, happy Sechseläuten, everyone. What a fantastic way to spend an afternoon. Sincerest thanks to Tom, who brought the shovel, extra brats, and the grillin' sticks to the party. Next year we'll know to skip the parade, watch the snowman explode, and bring a picnic blanket. Wooooo!

*I have no clue what the video quality is of this clip, 'cause I had to rotate it in iMovie, so if it's terrible, I'll post the original (which is, sadly, sideways) tomorrow.