Episode 12: April 2006
We hear that it is a fact that, around the world, the most public holidays are observed in the month of April. While we are not sure whether this “fact” is, indeed, true, we certainly benefited this month from a number of short working weeks.
April started with Deb returning from a business trip to Vienna, Austria. As usual with her business trips, Deb did not have much time to explore much of the city. She did mention going to some fantastic restaurants – one that she particularly remembered was a typical Austrian restaurant which specialized in traditional wiener schnitzel, which literally means Vienna Schnitzel. While we have had our fair share of schnitzels, Deb claims that the one she had in Vienna was the biggest by far, coming in at the size of a large Frisbee! She also mentioned dining at a restaurant called Sky that was on the 40th floor of a building, providing a wonderful overview of the city center and the city’s landmark St. Stephens Cathedral.
After getting home from the week-long trip, Deb and I took ourselves out for dinner to a previously-unexplored part of Zurich that is centered on the street Langstrasse. This area is what the locals consider the “seedy” part of Zurich. The area is run down by Zurich standards and it does have the strip clubs, illegal street vendors, homelessness, prostitution, and litter characteristic of many cities’ bad areas. However, some parts of the Langstrasse area have become known as the new and hip place to be, with some trendy restaurants and interesting nightlife. Being hip and cool ourselves (ha ha), we did some exploring there. Almost by accident, we found a Spanish restaurant called El Parador that turned out to be quaint and fantastic. We both stuffed our faces with some very nice, Spanish home-cooked food!
The next day, I took part in a tournament put on by Dow’s badminton club. Although new to the game, I have taken a pretty keen interest in it, as it involves a lot more exercise than the form I played in my backyard as a kid. Luckily, the club used a handicap system to put newer players, like me, on par with the more-experienced members. After a few hours of playing, I somehow came out with a third place finish. Afterward, the club celebrated with a relaxed dinner at a local pizza place. During the tournament, Deb stayed in the city to do a bit of shopping, and headed to the gym herself before eventually joining us for a pizza that night.
The next weekend was a surprise-filled, action-packed one. For several weeks, Deb’s friends had been planning a bachelorette party for the bride-to-be. They got me involved in the planning and asked me to think of a way to get Deb out of the house Saturday morning so that they could sneak in and surprise us when we got back to start the outing. Not only that, but it was also my duty to get Tony and Julie involved on the surprise and get them over to Zurich without Deb getting suspicious. While Deb was out of town on one of her business trips, I got a hold of Tony and Julie and informed them of the plan in addition to giving Julie’s email address to the girls so that they could get her into the plan. Finally, I arranged a Saturday morning trip to our jeweler to pick up our wedding rings, which was the perfect excuse to get Deb out of the house.
As scheduled, on Saturday morning we made our way into town around 10 am to pick up the wedding rings. Tony and Julie had called Deb during the week and told her that they would come for a visit for the weekend and said that they would be at our place just before noon. (Perfect, as I needed an excuse to get Deb back home after picking up the rings!) Again as planned, after picking up the rings, Deb and I headed home to meet up with Tony and Julie. We found them on the street just outside of our apartment building and walked in with them. Upon opening the front door of our apartment, I expected all the girls to be lined up at the front entrance…but they were no where to be seen. Now I was wondering what was going on. We let Deb – still oblivious to the surprise – to go into the apartment first. She carried on like normal until she passed by the doorway to the dining room. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of about 16 people hidden behind our dining table and realized that she had been duped!
After getting over the initial shock and greeting everyone, we had a quick coffee together. At about 1 pm, the boys (me, Tony, and two of Deb’s friends’ husbands, Steve and Peter Paul) left for a bit of a boys day and left the girls to their schedule. The girls consisted of the group of friends who went to Finland with us last summer – Marike (Dutch), Jaana (Finnish), Ulrika (Finnish), Ela (Polish), Dan Thanh (Vietnamese), Eveline (Dutch), Cecilia (Chinese-Australian) – and two other close friends of Deb’s, Maria (Greek) and Daphne (French). It was like the United Nations was in our apartment!
Deb got whisked away into our bedroom where three of the girls started to dress her into the day’s first outfit: a skimpy cat outfit. Deb emerged from the bedroom to find the dining table covered with a lunch buffet of Indian food that the girls had prepared, as part of their Indian theme for the day. As with previous bachelorette parties, these girls had done their homework. They managed to find a lady in Zurich who does traditional Indian henna tattooing. This lady arrived at our apartment during lunch and began decorating Deb’s hand and arm with a beautiful henna tattoo. The girls had a fantastic lunch and then changed Deb into outfit 2: a belly dancing costume. The next visitor to the apartment was a belly dancing instructor, who just happened to work at Dow as well. The instructor taught the girls some moves. Little did Deb know exactly why she had to learn the routine….
After an hour and a half of dancing in the living room, Deb was sent to change into her third and final costume: a princess outfit, complete with veil, tiara, wand, and pink wig. And it was in this costume, that the girls took Deb out of the apartment and into the outside world. The first stop was a bowling alley near the airport. Apparently, Deb had mentioned how much she likes (or was it hates?) bowling, so the girls thought that this was a perfect thing to incorporate into the day. They had a great time at the alley, having some drinks and a few games. (The bowling shoes really complimented Deb’s princess outfit). Through it all, the girls grilled Deb with some carefully chosen quiz questions designed to test her knowledge of Hinduism and my home country, the United States.
After a few hours of bowling, the girls left for their last destination: a restaurant called La Tante Rouge. This place is literally a tent erected on the roof of a car park in the ex-industrial (and now uber-cool) part of town. It is decorated in Moroccan-style furnishings and serves the same type of food and drink into the wee hours of the morning. The dinner started innocently enough with the typical drinks, dinner, and conversation. But soon thereafter, the show began. To Deb’s surprise, a professional belly dancer turned up on stage and then asked Deb – in full princess costume still – to join her on stage and put on a show for the 80 restaurant guests. Good thing Deb was paying attention at the lesson earlier in the day, as she put her new skills to the test.
Following the dinner, Deb and girls came back to our apartment where they met up with me and the boys. While the girls were out, the boys passed the time with a bit of go-karting, billiards, and pizzas and beer. We were truly surprised when we saw the girls and Deb, to say the least!
Tony and Julie stayed over that night, and we all got up late the next morning. We decided to spend a leisurely day, starting with a nice breakfast. I took a shower and was just about the start making breakfast when the doorbell rang. To my surprise, five of my friends showed up to hold a bachelor’s party for me! I was completely floored by the surprise, and I thought that Deb had pulled this whole thing off under my nose. But, funny enough, the guys had not gotten Deb involved as that might have raised suspicions about her night out. So instead, the guys worked through Tony and Julie to keep us in the house long enough for the surprise.
We got the guys started with some coffees and then finished off the leftover Indian food from the girls’ lunch the day before. After that, the boys and I got into a car to go to our outing. I had no idea where we were going, and when they told me that the place was about an hour’s drive from Zurich, I was even more confused. We eventually ended up in the town of Schaffhausen, which is best known for the Rhinefalls, Europe’s largest waterfall. However, we were not there to see the water. Instead, we were there for some indoor rock-climbing! The boys figured out that this is something I have always wanted to try, and they arranged for us to try it out at a very nice center. We showed up, got fitted for some shoes, and then went thru a short training lesson with our instructor. After a few minutes we were ready to climb. The walls were about 15-20 meters high and varied from ones that were straight up and down to those that with angles and even some where you were upside down at points. We stuck with the ones that were straight up and down. It was amazingly tough work to climb up the walls, but I really enjoyed it. The biggest learning of the day was that my future father-in-law, Tony, is basically a human version of Spider-Man. He was scaling each and every wall faster than all the other guys, and he even almost made it up one of the walls blindfolded! After our afternoon of exercise, we came back to Zurich and had drinks and dinner at a hamburger joint outside of the city, where Julie and Deb joined us. It was the perfect ending to a great weekend of surprises.
The next weekend was a four-day one thanks to Easter. We chose to take advantage of the weekend by venturing outside of Switzerland. This time, we decided to drive to Italy to an area known as the Cinque Terre. The Cinque Terre is a set of five villages carved into the coastline of the Mediterranean Sea. From the first to the fifth village, the distance is about 11 km, and there is a famous hiking trail that takes you through all the villages. Our goal was to complete the hike. We left on Thursday evening after work. Our plan was to leave immediately after work, but we delayed that due to the incredible traffic into Italy. When driving from Switzerland to Italy, you have to travel along a tunnel – the Gotthard tunnel – that goes through the base of a mountain and is the second-longest tunnel in the world at about 17 km. According to traffic reports, there was about a 5 km traffic jam at the Gotthard, which convinced us that it was best to leave a little later in the evening. So, we finally set off at about 7 pm. To avoid some of the traffic, we also chose to avoid the Gotthard and take a longer route through the mountains. As it turned out, we made a very smart decision, as we encountered hardly any traffic. We finally made it to Monterosso, the most northern of the five towns and our base camp, close to 2am. We checked into our hotel and immediately fell asleep.
The next day was an absolute beauty – not a cloud in sight and lots of sun. So, we decided to do the hike that day. After breakfast, we donned a backpack, grabbed our walking sticks, and began the journey. Leaving Monterosso, we headed to the second town, Vernazza. The hike itself was a bit more challenging than we expected. First of all, the trail is not that well-groomed and gets pretty narrow in places. Also, there is some pretty serious elevation change to go through, with lots of steps to traverse. Truth be told, the “roughness” of the hike was something we really liked, as we were looking for an experience that was not so commercialized. The hike to Vernazza offered plenty of breathtaking views of the sea and some pretty incredible shots of the town itself.
Upon arriving in Vernazza, we stopped for a little lunch and ate it on some rocks along the water. It was so nice to finally see the sun again, and we need not explain how good the simple Italian food was. After a nice break, we continued the hike to the third town, Corniglia. All around the hiking trail were vineyards, lemon trees, and some rustic Italian scenery. To be honest, the most spectacular towns are Monterosso and Vernazza, and we did not spend that much time in the other towns other than to walk around a bit and grab a drink or gelato. After Corniglia came the towns of Manarola and Riomaggiore, our final stop. All together, it took us about six hours to complete the hike, and it was well worth it as we took some wonderful pictures and have an enjoyable day in the sun. Our legs were certainly tired, and we were glad about our decision to take the train back from Riomaggiore to Monterosso. Back in Monterosso, we took showers and then headed back out for dinner. That night we ate at a Restaurant Miki, which is owned by the same people as our hotel. The restaurant was fantastic – simple seafood done in an authentic Italian style. It was a wonderful end to a great day.
The next day, we chose to leave the area and visit the Leaning Tower of Pisa. We took a short train ride to Pisa and then walked from the station to the tower. To be honest, Pisa is not much of an exciting town. We found it a bit run down and nondescript; however, the square with the tower is clearly the center of the city and a pretty vibrant place. The tower itself has an impressive lean to it, and we, of course, took the requisite pictures of us trying to hold up the tower or push it over. After taking a few pictures, we had lunch near the tower and then took the train back. When we got back to Monterosso, we decided to explore the city. We walked thru the side streets and took a look at a few shops. Eventually, we found an interesting seafood restaurant, Ciak, where it looked they had some very fresh seafood and an impressive antipasto selection. But before we went there, we decided to have a glass of wine at a wine bar. The place we found had an impressive selection of wines and, much to our surprise, and even more impressive selection of bruschetta. It was a family-owned place, and it looked like the mama had set up a kitchen for herself in the back of the store where she made some light snacks. The bruschetta she made was unbelievably good, and we almost made a dinner out of it! We managed to pull ourselves away from it to go back to Ciak for a nice seafood and antipasto dinner.
On the final day, we really did not have a plan in mind. We woke up late and took a walk around the city. We bought some local foodstuffs – anchovies and olives – and a couple of bottles of wine. Then we went back to the hotel for a nap, and finished off the night with another visit to the bruschetta place, followed by a light dinner along the sea. The next morning, we left town early to try to avoid the traffic back to Switzerland. We must have had great luck, as we again had hardly any traffic, and this time we took a risk and went through the Gotthard tunnel. We got back to Zurich around 1 pm, unpacked, and spent a lazy afternoon and evening not doing too much.
At this point you would think that we were done traveling, but we managed to hit the road again the next weekend. During the week, Deb needed to be in Belgium, at one of Dow’s offices close to Brussels. After returning home on Friday evening, she had just enough time to unpack and repack before we hit the road again. This time we headed just across the border into Germany to a wellness spa and golf resort in the town of Donaueschingen. We went with a group of friends, several of whom were involved in the bachelorette’s/bachelor’s parties. Deb and I left Zurich after work on Friday and drove to the resort, which was only 1.5 hours away. We got there, had dinner with the group, and then went to bed somewhat early. The next morning, I joined Peter Paul for a round of golf – my first in a year -- while the other ladies took a golf lesson with the club instructor. Deb chose to pass on the golf and instead spend the morning in the spa, sitting by the pool and having a massage. Deb met up with us after our round of golf, and we all had lunch. After lunch, Deb and I returned to the spa and spent the afternoon there. We tried out the saunas and the pool and also just laid out on the chairs and relaxed. Saunas here are rather different to anything either of us have experienced before. The Europeans are not nearly shy about exposing their bodies – so we were joined in the co-ed sauna with plenty of naked people. We, being foreigners, chose to wear our bathing outfits (I think it will be some time yet before we adopt the European way of life in certain areas). The next day, Peter Paul and I played another round of golf, and Deb joined the girls for another lesson. It turns out that Deb has some golf skills in her, and she impressed the girls with her ability to hit the ball straight without having any experience. Following our round, we met up for lunch and then headed back to Switzerland.
The very next day after work, we went with some of our friends into Zurich for the Sechseläuten festivities. Sechseläuten is a bit like Groundhog’s Day in the U.S. It is a 600-year old tradition in Switzerland celebrated by the gilds – the various groups of tradespeople. During the Middle Ages, it was customary for the cathedral bells to ring at 7 pm, signaling the end of the work day. However, on the Monday following the Spring Equinox the church bells would ring at 6 pm, marking the start of the summer schedule. The first day of that season was typically a holiday for the guilds and they would celebrate with Sechseläuten, which in English means “Six Ringing”. Today, people still dress up in period costumes, and the city does not allow motorized equipment into the celebration. Everything is horse-drawn. The centerpiece of Sechseläuten is the burning of a snowman – known as the Boogg – which personifies winter. The snowman is driven through the city streets where it is booed and jeered and finally is brought to a square where it is put at the top of a 5-meter stack of sticks and hay and then set on fire at 6 pm sharp. The snowman is stuffed with fireworks, and there is an impressive boom when the fire gets to them. The locals say that the time it takes for the fireworks to ignite is a sign of the coming summer. The shorter the time it takes for the fireworks to explode the better the summer will be. This year, it took about 10 minutes for the fireworks to explode, which is relatively short. We’ll see if this forecast holds true.
Funny thing about the Boogg is that this year’s snowman was an imposter of sorts. The real Boogg was stolen by a left-wing political group a few days before Sechseläuten. Luckily, the city was able to have a replacement made in time. Whew, what a close call!
After seeing the Boogg explode, we decided to stay in town for dinner. We first stopped at an outdoor beer garden for a drink. The beer garden was located very close to the square where the Boogg was burned and so we had a nice view of all the gilds as they marched back out of town. It was impressive to see all the people dressed up in their authentic costumes. There certainly was a lot of pride in what they were doing. After a drink, we went to an Australian-inspired steak restaurant. Following dinner, we walked back to the tram station and noticed that the stick on which the Boogg was sitting were still on fire. Apparently, the city lets the first continue as long as possible, and some people eventually gather around it and roast sausages late at night!
It was not until the last weekend in April that we finally had a relatively calm weekend. Once again, it was a long weekend for us, as May 1 was Switzerland’s Labor Day. On Saturday, Deb had a beauty day to prepare for the wedding, including getting her hair done. I spent the day in boring fashion by going to work. Afterwards, we met up for a Thai dinner and then saw the movie Capote. The next day, we met up with Deb’s friend, Daphne, and her boyfriend Pierre, for a leisurely Sunday brunch and then took care of some work at home.
All in all, it was quite a busy month for us, but we saw some incredible things. Now as we get into May, our minds turn to only one thing: the wedding! We look forward to writing the next Shorg Blog, in which we will have plenty of stories about our trip to Australia, the wedding, and our honeymoon. Until then, take care!
