Hey everyone! I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas this year, despite the lack of snow or the tough economic state of our country. It's weird because before I left for Zurich with my family, I had a look around town (pretending to shop for presents) and I saw that all of the stores had big 50% sales on while some have closed down, just a few days shy of the holiday. You don't even get that much of a discount over the Boxing Day sales, so it is apparent that everyone is suffering the brunt of the recession, despite the stability of things. Nevertheless, Christmas was still a success, everybody got presents, and at the end of the day, it is the thought that counts. Or at least, if they did put some thought into the presents they've given to their love ones, then the price tag is irrelevant.
Now this post isn't about my thoughts on the current economic climate of the UK. Absolutely not! Not that I don't care about it that much (I do. I am a student after all!), but I just don't have enough brain cells to fry in turn for a highly enlightened post. Instead, I'd like to share with you my holiday that I spent with my family in Switzerland! We flew out across the channel and over the Swiss alps to celebrate the birth of baby Jesus (a.k.a. my sister's Christmas Goose with all the trimmings...) with my sister who has been living there for a while now with her boyfriend. Every year, the Venturas hold an annual Christmas Eve party at our house but we thought that it would be nice to have a break and instead, experience Christmas as a complete family unit rather than to just have my sis on Skype in the background as we open presents. Wouldn't have that been depressing? So to not further impede the holiday spirit, we packed our bags and hopped on the plane (thank you Swiss Air for some fabulous cheese sandwiches and chocs!) and made off for Zurich.
I don't really know where to start. The holiday was tightly scheduled thanks to my sister's itinerary (and also for practical reasons. She's not just a manic organiser ^^) so that we could optimise the four days we had living in the city. I guess it would be easier to start with one word that summed it up for me. It was, WEIRD.
Allow me to explain. I don't mean that the holiday was WEIRD in that it was bad. No, no, no. It was just a bit odd and for a couple of good reasons. For starters, let me begin with the city itself. Unfortunately, the season was not about to grant my wish of a white Christmas. The temperature was cold but not enough to snow heavily and create an ideal picturesque postcard shot for the family newsletter, but nevertheless, Zurich was beautiful. I am a huge sucker for the old European architecture, so obviously, it was a given that I instantly fell in love with the city. For the most part of our stay, the sky was grey and it just added to the Gothic romance of the city sights. Baroque buildings and ornate Bavarian towers were in every corner, and to perfectly juxtapose the aesthetic, there were also trams everywhere. Here's WEIRD factor number one. I'm not used to seeing trams or using trams constantly, so it took me by surprise when I saw that they peppered the city centre. Nobody drove cars. Not really. The trams were the prime means of travel and they were meticulous timekeepers. Not only that, but the citizens of Swizza seem to be living in some oddly sedate state where they can dawdle around without the imminent worry that a tram is about to run them over. Okay, so maybe I'm exaggerating a little but it's true! Yes, there are traffic lights and they are obviously aware of pedestrian etiquette, but I was bemused by the fact that both tram and car would stop to let people cross the road at any given moment, for however long it takes you to cross the road. There was not one honk or a "Oii! Hurry the fuck off love!" (in German bien sur). I'm so used to waiting for ages for the green-lit man to go off so I could avoid being run over by some crazy, fast-driving maniac, that it was a welcome surprise that I was finally in a city where I could languidly stroll around in my normal pace and just be. No stress whatsoever.
Secondly, another thing I found odd was that the people were more than happy to drink off public fountains whenever the thirst got to them. Again, let me explain. In London or Paris, you don't see children running up to fountains to take a sip on a hot summer's day, let alone in the middle of winter. I'm used to seeing kids 'bathing' in city centre water installations but even that I find weird because the water is stagnant. It's unhygienic! When we got to our hotel, I realised that we didn't buy any bottled water and I was apprehensive about drinking out of the tap, well...because you can never be too sure. I didn't want to suddenly pull a Charlotte in the middle of Hauptbahnhof and poop in my pants (yes, yes I know it was the pudding, but you get what I mean). So instead, mum and I quenched our thirsts with Nespresso and waited until dawn to go out and get some H20 in the city. My sister kept re-assuring us that the water in Zurichland is drinkable, hence all the fountains around the city (it's ridiculous), but it wasn't until I saw a little boy at the zoo, who just ran like Flash to the nearest water fountain and started drinking straight from the spout. I know. I still can't get over it! I never did try to drink from a fountain but after seeing how brave (and apparently, très normale) that little kid was, I drank from the tap the whole time. Also the city was as clean as a whistle. Again, it is a sight very foreign to my English sight.
The Christmas celebration was great. We had two tress; one was a bog standard, festooned spruce with presents under it and the other, a traditional Swiss tree with lit candlesticks as ornaments. Talk about a major fire hazard! My sister prepared a Dickensian feast that satiated my holiday appetite beautifully, and afterwards we opened presents with glee. I got a nice FishEye Lomography camera and a couple of film rolls, a photo album and a Moleskine journal. It was all very thematic, and it was fabulous! However, it seemed to me that the festive mood was entirely exclusive to just our party because out in the streets of Zurich was pure silence. You could hear a pin drop! Apart from the trams of course, there were no people around and you'd think because it's Christmas there'd be at least music in the air or children running amuck. The city centre was closed of course but even on the Eve, it didn't seem to faze people that it was Christmas at all. There was no rush, no stress, no city-funded music in the air. There were shoppers and Asian tourists snapping to their hearts' desire, but it was far from the claustrophobia-inducing crowds at Oxford Circus. To be fair, the Swiss seem to be quite a conservative lot so maybe they all celebrated in discretion, but the only drunken merry gentlemen I saw were the ones asking for change at Zurich Central. I do like a bit of chaotic energy during the festive season and the calm quiet of the city proved to be a little unnerving. Even at the hotel. It was like there were only us and the staff residing there at the time. Boxing Day was a bit better. No shops were open apart from those at the train stations and the supermarkets, so despite the absence of frenzied retail shoppers queueing outside boutiques, I at least got that vibe at Migros (la supermarché) which was packed with people fighting over ham joints and cheese. We also went to see Mozart's Die Zauberflote earlier that day, and much to our surprise it was a kinder version of the opera. The opera house was beautiful and ornate. The opera itself was great although it was very abridged and the children watching were just plain annoying. The matinee schedule should have been a big hint for us, but despite all that, I was thankful that my sister organised such a fun and jampacked itinerary. Oh also, I forgot to say the we also went up the mountains via cable car to have a nice stroll around the pine-covered peaks. Well not THE peak, but as peak-ish as we were allowed to go up. Because it didn't snow heavily the mountains were only mushy with bits of ice here and there, but then I probably wouldn't have wanted a lotta snow then as it would have just made walking around difficult. At the end of the day, snow is idyllic but highly cumbersome. It was all very Twilight-esque if I do say so myself. In terms of fashion and style, because of the sheer lack of people I didn't really see alot of stylish Europeans around. There was the odd one walking around inside Chanel, but most of the young people, especially the boys, look like they have been frozen in time- fresh from Eastern Europe in the 90s with yobbish hair.
Overall, I must say that this Christmas has been one of the best I've had. I've always liked the thought of travelling during the holidays and Zurich was a perfect destination. The whole family were together and we had such a great time and had so much to do that not a minute was wasted on idling. I think that perhaps the only reason I thought being in Switzerland was weird was because I have gotten so used to our traditions here in England (or at least, my family and the Filipino community's) that being in an entirely different social pool took me aback a little bit. Thinking about it now, I feel like I actually do prefer that 'laissez-faire' sense of living, not just in Switzerland but in Europe in general. Zurich was clean, organised and de-stressing, very much unlike Peterborough, let alone London and the rest of England. We were walking around empty car parks and tram stops at midnight with no feeling of anxiety that someone wearing a balaclava has a bottle ready to hit us with from behind. Especially after coming off a season full of riots and youth gang crimes in tandem with the stress of University, leaving the country was exactly what I needed. Weird is right after all.
Hope you all had lovely Christmases! See you all in the New Year!
Love,
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