Weekend as a Tourist Guide

This weekend friends were visiting Zurich. So I acted as a guide. It was not so difficult since I have had three excellent guides on my own. I simply combined their wisdom into a two-day tour through the city and some nightlife. We did some very touristy things (Chagall, Bahnhofstrasse, Limmatboats), and we had a good time doing it.

StreetView in the US

Google lauchned a new product in the U.S.: StreetView, a panoramic view of a city. You get a much better impression of a place than from satellite images alone. To preview it from outside the U.S. append the "gl=us" tag to your maps query: http://maps.google.com/?gl=us (source)

Running

Today was the first step towards getting used to Zurich and doing non-touristy things. I was running. For the first time in three weeks. So I kept it low and ran few kilometers only along the Sihl river. Amazingly, after 10 minutes from my place I was already outside the city in nature. Not spectacular but still decent: A couple of smaller lakes, some creeks, lots of places where you can have barbecue or picknick. And many people did. If I had walked 10 minutes in the other direction I would have stood in the center of the banking quarter. Such are the advantages of a small city.

On the way back I took a rest in a small park a minute from my apartment. During the night it is a meeting point for flaming homosexuals (citing Eric Cartman). Even though I was there around 2pm with some families around barbecuing there was an old guy in Birkenstock who kept staring at me for a while. I put on my most heterosexual face and he returned to his book.

Stauffacher 149

Readymade

[NZZ Verlag, near the opera]

Saturday

There was an environment and developing world public awareness campaign along the lake. Large, colorful photographs of mostly cute animals with a caption that was designed to inflict feelings of guilt in the reader: "20% of the world population consume 80% of the world's energy.", "1 out of 4 animals in the rain forests are endangered species.", and so on. These campaigns are usually annoying since they lack any recommended action and are thus inconsequential: The reader does not learn what he should do or, beware!, whether he should take political action. So the campaigns are public relations for the sponsors. But in this case the photography was at least good and I learned a surprising fact about the honypot ant.


The funny part was the poster on public waste processing. Among all the bad news the poster said: "In Switzerland more than half of city waste is recycled." When it comes to being tidy the Suiss have done their homework.

In the evening I was at the opera. The Zurich ballet ensemble under Heinz Spoerli danced to the music of Gustav Mahler. It was excellent in every aspect. Living in Zurich also has the privilege to have the very best artists in probably the best conditions of the world close by.

Street Art on Sunday

Last Sunday there was an artist who put slices of toasted bread on the street near the lake. Like a mosaic the slices depicted Leonardo da Vinci. It was funny to observe the people passing by and the doves slowly taking away the image.


Unfortunately, the artist kept invisible. There wasn't a sight of him, nor of his equipment or anything. Maybe he was taking a break.