Not a great weekend
Lexi and I woke up late on Saturday and went down to the longstreet carnival to get some lunch. Though the ads showed that it would start at 2pm, not much was happening when we arrived at 3pm. We were able to find a sausage and a crepe for breakfast, which were so filling we had to take shelter at the cinema and watch War of the Worlds. We would come back after the film to see if things had ramped up at the carnival by then. The movie was about what I expected. Tons of pretty CG city demolotion which was hard to see with Tom Cruise always getting in the way.
First bad thing. After the movie, I got an IM from the coordinator of the New in Zurich meetup group. I was expecting it to be the address for the dinner event that night, but instead it was a message to let me know he had cancelled my membership in the group because there wasn't a good fit. Lexi and I were floored. We had a great time talking with Paul and Candace at the last event and as far as I could tell, they had fun too. Candace was even trying to get us to go back to the Netherlands with her and Delia sometime. We hardly even spoke to the organizer that night, as we were sitting at the other end of the lounge. There wasn't anything we could figure out that we did that was so horribly wrong that he would kick us out of the group. Maybe there is some cultural misstep we made without knowing it. Still, the sting of rejection clouded the rest of the evening as much if not more than the gathering rain clouds.
We wandered the street fair, which wasn't much more than alcohol, food and souvenir venders mixed in among a bunch of DJs playing techno or American rap. No one was dancing yet. People all seemed to be huddled into groups. We weren't feeling very social by then so we went home.
Once we got home, we decided we would try to go to St. Gallen early. They advertised a Texas holdem contest on sunday on their website and they also said they had a table of texas holdem at the casino so we figured we'd get in an extra night of play before the tournament the next day. Well, once we got to St. Gallen and checked into a pricey hotel room (the price of being spontaneous) we went down to the casino. There was one, empty, roped-off poker table. The floor manager explained that they don't have any players for open play so they only use the table for tournaments. And as they only have one table the tournament the next day was full (should've called first-Doh!).
We went back to our hotel room, which was totally IKEAfied and watched them evacuating Birmingham England on CNN and British news (the only English stations).
After a good nights sleep (the bed was very comfy and came with 2 blankets so there was no blanket tug of war as we usually have) we woke up and went down to have breakfast in the Hotel restaurant. The restaurant turned out to be really nice. There was live piano music and the buffet (which was all you could order) was great. There was chocolate mousse, sushi, sausages, croissants, watermelon, and a roast ham rapped in bacon. It was all really good and some prosecco was included as well.
We wandered down museumstrasse afterwards and went to 2 museums. One had some nice local landscapes, some disappointing modern canvases (all one color, black with a white dot, green with one line of tan across it, etc.), and a room full of TVs all playing one of 3 videos to a soundtrack that sounded like someone took a muddy waters harmonica riff, merged it with the death rattle of a sea lion, and scratched it to the rhythm of a bad break-beat trip hop mix. It was so monumentally bad that it was actually entertaining.
The other museum had a bunch of swiss history and some artifacts from other cultures as well. In the courtyard of this museum, they were setting up for a concert that was part of a culture festival, but it was raining so much that the band was playing to the beer venders only.
We caught a train back to Zurich and joined the rest of the Zurichers at the Migros Supermarket under the train stations (most every other food store is closed on Sunday). We picked up some bratwurst and baguettes for dinner and went home to (ironically) play some poker.
Not a total waste of a weekend, but still some severe let downs. According to the Swiss culture book I read, making friends is not something the swiss take lightly. It takes a lot of time but then you have a friend for life, so claims the book. Americans, on the other hand, our immediately chummy with folks, opening up about almost everything very quickly with people, which the Swiss find frivolous and off-putting. They book uses the metaphor of the coconut and the peach. The Swiss are like the coconut, hard to crack and a bit rough on the outside, but really sweet once you get to know them. And Americans are like peaches, immediately sweet and soft but a little too runny for some people. I had not seen anything to confirm this and in fact found many of Lexi's Swiss coworkers to be quite friendly and talkative upon first meeting them, but now I wonder if cultural factors like these led to our expulsion from the meetup group.
First bad thing. After the movie, I got an IM from the coordinator of the New in Zurich meetup group. I was expecting it to be the address for the dinner event that night, but instead it was a message to let me know he had cancelled my membership in the group because there wasn't a good fit. Lexi and I were floored. We had a great time talking with Paul and Candace at the last event and as far as I could tell, they had fun too. Candace was even trying to get us to go back to the Netherlands with her and Delia sometime. We hardly even spoke to the organizer that night, as we were sitting at the other end of the lounge. There wasn't anything we could figure out that we did that was so horribly wrong that he would kick us out of the group. Maybe there is some cultural misstep we made without knowing it. Still, the sting of rejection clouded the rest of the evening as much if not more than the gathering rain clouds.
We wandered the street fair, which wasn't much more than alcohol, food and souvenir venders mixed in among a bunch of DJs playing techno or American rap. No one was dancing yet. People all seemed to be huddled into groups. We weren't feeling very social by then so we went home.
Once we got home, we decided we would try to go to St. Gallen early. They advertised a Texas holdem contest on sunday on their website and they also said they had a table of texas holdem at the casino so we figured we'd get in an extra night of play before the tournament the next day. Well, once we got to St. Gallen and checked into a pricey hotel room (the price of being spontaneous) we went down to the casino. There was one, empty, roped-off poker table. The floor manager explained that they don't have any players for open play so they only use the table for tournaments. And as they only have one table the tournament the next day was full (should've called first-Doh!).
We went back to our hotel room, which was totally IKEAfied and watched them evacuating Birmingham England on CNN and British news (the only English stations).
After a good nights sleep (the bed was very comfy and came with 2 blankets so there was no blanket tug of war as we usually have) we woke up and went down to have breakfast in the Hotel restaurant. The restaurant turned out to be really nice. There was live piano music and the buffet (which was all you could order) was great. There was chocolate mousse, sushi, sausages, croissants, watermelon, and a roast ham rapped in bacon. It was all really good and some prosecco was included as well.
We wandered down museumstrasse afterwards and went to 2 museums. One had some nice local landscapes, some disappointing modern canvases (all one color, black with a white dot, green with one line of tan across it, etc.), and a room full of TVs all playing one of 3 videos to a soundtrack that sounded like someone took a muddy waters harmonica riff, merged it with the death rattle of a sea lion, and scratched it to the rhythm of a bad break-beat trip hop mix. It was so monumentally bad that it was actually entertaining.
The other museum had a bunch of swiss history and some artifacts from other cultures as well. In the courtyard of this museum, they were setting up for a concert that was part of a culture festival, but it was raining so much that the band was playing to the beer venders only.
We caught a train back to Zurich and joined the rest of the Zurichers at the Migros Supermarket under the train stations (most every other food store is closed on Sunday). We picked up some bratwurst and baguettes for dinner and went home to (ironically) play some poker.
Not a total waste of a weekend, but still some severe let downs. According to the Swiss culture book I read, making friends is not something the swiss take lightly. It takes a lot of time but then you have a friend for life, so claims the book. Americans, on the other hand, our immediately chummy with folks, opening up about almost everything very quickly with people, which the Swiss find frivolous and off-putting. They book uses the metaphor of the coconut and the peach. The Swiss are like the coconut, hard to crack and a bit rough on the outside, but really sweet once you get to know them. And Americans are like peaches, immediately sweet and soft but a little too runny for some people. I had not seen anything to confirm this and in fact found many of Lexi's Swiss coworkers to be quite friendly and talkative upon first meeting them, but now I wonder if cultural factors like these led to our expulsion from the meetup group.
posted by sfphotoblogger at 7:45 PM
1 Comments:
Yo, Casteels!
What an adventure you are having. Make sure to kiss the bllarney stone before you come back. Or have you aready done that? See you soon.
Jack
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