A weekend in the city

Hola, amigos. I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but I have been up to mon cou lately and have not had a lot of free time. OK, a lot of this "busy-ness" business was more of the leisure variety, but with the apartment change and all, it really wasn't until tonight that I've had any free time since my last entry. So, time to catch you up to date!

As mentioned earlier, Mike P (of the San Diego P's) is in Stuttgart for a few weeks. As he had already made some plans with work-type people for the following weeks, last weekend was the only free weekend he had to come visit Switzerland. Even though I was somewhat drained (physically as well as financially) by my visit to Stuttgart the previous weekend, I knew that it was a moral imperative to dig deep (p. as well as f.), get on a train, and meet him in Zurich. As I was making these plans though, I was contacted my Dr. Loren Swenson of Grenoble who informed me that he was free this weekend and would be making a visit to Switzerland. After a brief rearrangement of his train ticket, the three of us were set to meet in Zurich Friday night around 9pm.

Zurich, which has been called "the most boring city on Earth," is a pretty cool city. The downtown area is clean, friendly, and absolutely packed with cafes, restaurants, bars, and clubs. For the more artistically inclined, there are some beautiful churches (most of which are farely barren on the inside -- thanks Zwingli!) and the rivers and lakes that cut through the city are also picturesque. Rick Steves is not much of a fan of the place (he suggests spending one afternoon in the city if you will be in Switzerland for at least two weeks), but then again, Rick Steves suggests that you avoid Geneva and Basel like the plague, so he cannot be considered the most objective observer of Swiss cities. Further, as much as I hate to admit it, I doubt that ol' Rick spends much time hanging out in the bars and clubs -- many of which are open almost all night -- and thus he is missing out on a significant portion of the city's charm.

Our weekend was not particularly momentous, but we had a fun time and I did get a couple of good pictures. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me at all times, so I missed a couple of highlights. For example, did you know that there is a Jamaican bar in Zurich that is open until 5 AM? I highly recommend it if you are Jamaican, or if you enjoy Red Stripe, or if you just enjoy hanging out with Jamaican-Swiss people.

Fig 1: The two PhDDs. The second "D" is for the double-dose of pimping.

This was Saturday morning at a street-side cafe. There were literally tons of these places, and since the weather was unseasonably nice, we spent a good deal of Saturday just hanging out and people-watching.

Fig. 2: Il y a un bateau, et dans le bateau, il y a trois minous. Ils s'appellent "un", "deux", et "trois" ...

The flea market in Zurich was incredible: huge, well-organized, and good quality. As none of us were particularly keen on toting something back home on the train, we didn't buy anything, but it was an interesting experience to look. I took a picture of this because it reminded me of the only joke that I know that straddles two languages.

Fig. 3: That's me, the second from the right.

The Zurichois have always been known for their extreme sense of style. I was lucky enough to talk these fine people into posing in a picture with me so that I could catch up on the latest trends. If you're wondering why it looks like this picture was taken in China, it's because we were inside the Zurich-China Friendship Garden.

OK, enough about Zurich. Tschüss.