First off, the Street Parade, back at the beginning of August. Mainly, we decided to brave the crowds to find food, 'cause you know how much I love street food. Sadly, however, the Street Parade is less about culture and more about techno music, and all of the food and drink vendors are run by the same people, and offer the same cruddy things...but at least there are the costumes. Holy smokes, the costumes make braving the 950,000 attendees worth it. My favorites were these guys dressed like an early 80s glam band, complete with fishnet tights and platform knee boots and spiky wigs, but entirely in fluorescent colors. Sadly, I wasn't fast enough to get photos of them. I did get a few shots of other interesting people, however...
Family of smurfs, having a snack and an intense discussion ("Still Life with Hoodlums," you might call this).
Crazy body paint and hot pants.
Dudes in quilted skirts and tights and bunny ears pulling a sleigh, 'cause why not? (This could have actually been a well-timed stag party, or just more Street Parade nuttiness.)
Love the green, buddy.
And then, this guy. My phone couldn't quite capture his grandeur, but check him out. (Also, he reminded me a little of Dee Snyder in the face...)
My second favorite costumes: two tall men, dressed head-to-toe in all-white drag queen get-up, carrying parasols. Sadly, I wasn't fast enough to get a photo on the go, but they were delighted to be photographed, and I just barely caught this one waving to me. Glorious.
The down side of Street Parade: so...many...people. Most of whom are drinking and leaving trash everywhere. But at least they're relatively happy and focused mainly on the music.
The terrible, terrible, thumping techno music. Don't get me wrong...I've been known to enjoy a little techno myself, but that loud, and all day? Not for me. This is what it sounded like 300m away from all the action.
Definitely going back next year, if we're in town, with the real camera. The sartorial insanity is just too good to pass up.
Next up in August was something we'd managed to miss two years in a row: the Zürcher Theaterspektakel, in which they basically set up a small city in a park on the west side of the lake, and fill it with restaurants, bars, street performers, indoor and outdoor theater venues, and all sorts of interesting diversions (spectacle, if you will...). And this time, the food was glorious: we had giant plates full of tremendously tasty African food* including beef skewers with flatbread, super delicious salty fried plantains (not too sweet!), a couple of curry-like dishes with various coconutty and pumpkiny/squash-y flavors (one spicy!) and chickpeas, a really good hot sauce, and fresh beignets for dessert. We will absolutely have to eat there again next year, and try more of whatever's on offer. (And before you ask, nope, we didn't bother seeing any of the stage performances: we were just there to eat and to see the buskers!)
Theaterspektakel city by the lake.
Meat skewers grilling over an open flame at Mama Put (which, sadly, does not exist as a restaurant outside of this festival...sigh).
We saw lots of jugglers as we were roaming around, but this guy was the best, with his five flaming torches. (That's my "wow" you hear.)
This, however, was my most favoritest thing at the Theaterspektakel: a living carousel, I suppose, is how one might describe it. It's actually being propelled by the guy with the pole, and the music is provided by the live band in the center. I love this so much...and the music is fantastic.
In September was another something we'd managed to miss two years in a row: Zürich's Lange Nacht der Museen, in which most of the museums in the city open at 7:00 in the evening and stay open until 2:00 AM. For the bargain price of CHF 25, you get a wristband that lets you into all of them, and most of the places serve food and beverages and host special exhibitions and tours. Good stuff. We rendezvoused with our friends Alice and Mark at the city's succulents collection, which I'd never visited before, and which I loved. As usual, when it comes to plants, I went a little nuts with the photos.
Some lovely orchids.
My favorite kind of cactus (various flavors of Euphorbia)**, but all twisty.
I like these little star-shaped guys, too.
Neat.
Kinda want a room in my house like this...especially with the giant crazy tree.
Baby barrel cacti! They had loads and loads of baby cacti, aloes and related spiny things, lithops-es, and hens and chicks-type plants (sempervivum). Want.
Love this flower.
Next up, we took a ferry across the lake to Mühlerama, a milling and grain museum in a 100-year-old industrial mill, which they still use to produce limited quantities of a flour that's actually available in some grocery stores (the idea of which I kinda love). During the Lange Nacht, though, they were also hosting a special exhibition on sausage ("Sausage: a story with two ends," ha, ha). We got to see them run the mill, learned about the history of wurst in Switzerland (and some important historical events involving sausage...!), and then got to eat some of the brats they were hand-making inside. YUM.
Part of the mill apparatus.
Here's where the flour comes out.
Knitted sausages and assorted meats for the wurst exhibition. Sooo fantastic.
Then it was over to the tram museum, which had been a five-minute walk from our old apartment, but which, of course, we'd never bothered to visit. As it turns out, the place is totally worthwhile. Once again, I may have gone a little nuts with the photos...except that they didn't label any of the trams with any information, so I have no idea how old any of this stuff is or when it was used. At least they let us climb around on everything.
Too bad they don't use this thing for the fondue tram.
Old city bus.
Bus interior...look how cushy and spacious!
Triple steering wheel...!
Old-timey tram interior.
Piano bar set up in the tram museum. This guy was good.
"Upon exiting, left hand on left handle."
Tram interior: the tables fold up, and the seat backs can swivel horizontally so that the seats can face either direction. Extremely clever.
Love this little green guy (the "Zürich-Oerlikon-Seebach" line, apparently).
Tram and bus line signs, and the flags they put on the vehicles for special occasions.
For the Lange Nacht, the museum runs some of its vintage trams on a short route down to Bellevue, so we took one. Both the driver and this random guy on our tram were dressed like this. (I'm guessing he was there to prevent any hooliganism on the older trams, but that's just wild speculation.)
Finally, we headed over to the Rathaus, parts of which I don't think are open to the public most of the time. Whether or not that's true, it was totally worth the visit 'cause they gave us little chocolates with photos of the Rathaus on them both on the way in and on the way out (and you don't really get anything for free here, so hey, chocolate!). Plus, the building dates to the end of the 17th century, and the view from inside is insane.
Big ol' fireplace in one of the council rooms, I think from 1697.
Gigantic tapestry with all of the Swiss canton shields, and Zürich's in the center.
View from a conference room. Sheesh.
Post-Rathaus, Mike and I headed up to the Archaeological Museum for a quick viewing, but that place is super fantastic and deserves another visit, in order to really do it justice. Plus, I didn't take any photos (are they allowed? I don't know), so there you have it.
Next in September came Knabenschiessen, or as we like to call it, "Little Boys' Shooting Day." This is actually a real holiday in Zürich, wherein everyone gets a half-day at work because there's a shooting competition for kids (just up the hill from our apartment, no less!), accompanied by a truly giant carnival, with all sorts of market stands and midway games and huge rides. Yet another event we hadn't yet attended, although we missed the actual shooting and were only really there for the food.***
And then there was the plant auction booth, which was the most crowded place in the whole carnival. (We'd seen one at Züri Fäscht, too, but I had no idea we'd see it again.) The best part was seeing people walking around toting strange things like banana trees and cannas as tall as they were.
If Mr. Burns were mushroom aliens, he'd look like this. (Some sort of wall-hanging-selling booth.)
Gigantic rides and food booths! (We ate a fantastic Berliner donut, corn on the cob, massive slabs of garlic bread, and a shaved pork sandwich. And I had a couple of genuinely decent mojitos. My only regret is we missed the hand-cut potato chips and the Hungarian food. Mmmmmmmm, carnival food.)
More carnival. I was genuinely impressed with the size of this thing, so here's another photo of it. You're welcome.
In September, I heard rumors of a grand craft supply market in Oerlikon, and so with Alice in tow, I set off to find it. As it turned out, the craft market (which wasn't so grand) was attached to a gigantic home improvement/furniture/gadgetry/food/everything-under-the-sun expo (which was truly grand), and so we had no problem keeping ourselves entertained. We watched a girl make Torino chocolates (accompanied by free samples!); talked to a man about his display of absolutely gorgeous Persian rugs and ceramics; chatted with a lovely Italian gentleman about Italy and America and his sisters and antipasti; tasted some wine (and ended up buying a little red moscato, who even knew there was such a thing!); ate a flammkuchen and free samples of just about everything on offer; and saw vast displays of vacuum cleaners, in-home massage technology, portable fireplaces, perfumes, clothing, furniture, hot tubs, gluten-free foods, wine, nougat, spices, teas, and all manner of things. And their giant, creepy mascot. (Yes, the home improvement expo had a mascot...go figure.) It was completely weird and totally glorious.
And did I mention that there were livestock and a wee chalet-restaurant out front? They had not one, but two highland cattle, as well as some goats, miniature horses...
...a huge pig with fourteen piglets (poor little things, it was ridiculously hot outside for mid-September, and also, I wanted to take a few home with me)...
...and some tremendously adorable donkeys. This little guy was only about a year old. Look at his sweet, sweet face.
My favorite booth: an entire stand devoted solely to varieties of cheese on toast. Yes, please.
These guys were demonstrating various choppers and tools for making decorative veggie garnishes. They were quite enthusiastic and were drawing a rather large crowd (also enthusiastic).
Sadly, I didn't take any more photos indoors, as it was almost too overwhelmingly large and weird an event to process (and to photograph well). It was, however, entirely worth the entry fee just to go in and snoop around.
Well, there's still lots to tell you about, but I feel as though I've at least gotten a good start here, and subjected you to more than enough random (and perhaps not-so-fascinating) photographs, so... What I'm reading: finally, finally finished No Higher Honor, and while the world of the Secretary of State is super interesting (and, I have to imagine, ridiculously, insanely frustrating), I just am not convinced that I needed maybe all of the details of everything, or at least, not enough to fill nearly 800 pages. If you're into foreign policy at all, though, this might be the book for you. Next up was something entirely different: Orange is the New Black, by Piper Kerman, a true story about an upper-middle-class white lady who goes to jail for a year for having couriered a suitcase of drug money ten years prior to her conviction (and, obviously, the book upon which the recent Netflix series was based). It's a good read, and quick, and she makes some good points about low-level drug crime and sentencing. Most recently was Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, part autobiography and part ramble-y fictitious writings, by Patton Oswalt, whom I'm coming to love more and more. It's a bit weird in a few parts, and at times a little name-droppy (although in terms of music and literature, and not "ooh, look at the celebrities I know"), but also really entertaining and earnest (which is mainly why I like the guy in the first place). And finally, now I'm reading Twelve Years a Slave, by Solomon Northrup, which is a true story about a black man born into freedom in the pre-Civil-War north, who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana for 12 years. The story just came out as a movie, which I don't think I could see--it sounds far too violent for me--but it's supposed to be an important and literally breath-taking event, so I figured it was my history-major-duty to read about it. It's really compelling, and at the same time abhorrently tragic and brutal, but at least we know it ends well.
What we're watching: The Great Gatsby, which was visually just gorgeous, but a bit meh for me, overall. DiCaprio was pretty good in it, but Spider-man will always be Spider-man. (Daisy was just as irritating and worthless as I remember her from the book, so I guess that was good acting, too.) The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, which was better than I anticipated, and had some truly snicker-inducing moments, but also a bit meh. (Nice to see Jim Carrey's character get a bit of a come-uppance, though, and a fun character from Alan Arkin.) This is the End, with Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, James Franco, et al., which had some hilarious twists on actors supposedly playing themselves, but was a bit of a disappointment, considering how hysterically funny those guys can be (Craig Robinson, though: you never let me down!). The final scene (MILD SPOILER ALERT) with the Backstreet Boys, I will confess, was the highlight of the whole movie for me. Orange is the New Black, which is why I read the book, and which is downright fantastic. It's quite different from the book (as in, mostly fictitious), but they manage both to make you really care about some of the characters, and genuinely to loathe some of the others. Can't wait for the next season. And finally, Mike's discovered this ridiculous prank-y show called Impractical Jokers, featuring these four guys who are old buddies going around and making complete fools of each other. It's pretty hilarious, and the best thing we've seen in a while. Highly recommended.
What we're cooking: this delicious vegetarian pasta, which we both loved. The chopping and roasting take a little time, but it's all easy and worthwhile. Honestly, anything spicy these days is what does it for me. (Mike has very obviously corrupted my taste buds here.)
Next up: the cows come home, plus Heidelberg, Oktoberfest, and maybe even Kalamazoo.
*Yeah, it's a big continent full of diverse food, but this was African food in the same sense that most Asian restaurants here serve various curries, always egg and spring rolls, samosas, maybe some sushi, tempura, fried rice, etc., etc.
**Ok, ok, I know that Euphorbia is a succulent, and not actually a cactus, but whatever. It's got big pokey spines and that's enough for me.
***I'm sure you see the pattern emerging here. It's only partially true that I can only be roused from my cold-weather-induced laziness with the promise of festival food. I promise, I do leave the apartment for things other than comestibles...
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