Day 24 - Zurich, fondue and exploding snow-men


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Europe » Switzerland » North-East » Zürich
April 20th 2010
Published: April 20th 2010
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We arrived in Zurich at about 5pm after a four and a half hour train ride.
We spent a lot of the trip looking out the window at the countryside - it is so cool here! Everything is so green, and the hills are beautiful. They have houses built in really strange spots, and everything is just lovely!
We decided to get a cab to the hotel, which was more expensive than any of the others have been, but it would have been hard to find our way since we didn't have a map or know anything about the rail system at this point.
We arrived at the hotel - it is the only one we booked ourselves, since our travel agents didn't have anything that wasn't insanely expensive, and after seeing how good it is (and not much more expensive than the crappy hostels we have been staying at in the last few cities) we are much more confident in our ability to plan our own trip next time we do it.
We have a fridge, and a kettle (which I have been wanting the whole trip just so I can make my own tea), and there aren't school children everywhere. There are proper curtains on the inside of the window, and blinds on the outside, so we can make it nice and dark! The sunlight has been waking us up really early at the last few places, so this is wonderful!
Also, the beds are huge. They must be king singles, it is fantastic after sleeping in cot-size beds for almost three weeks. Hooray!

So after spending about an hour at the hotel, with me walking around looking at everything and oohing and ahhing whenever I found something else that was cool, and saying over and over "I love this place!" we decided to go look for some dinner.
We had on our itinerary that we were meant to be having fondue, since we are in Switzerland, and the cheese is meant to be amazing. So, since we haven't really eaten many local foods on our trip, we decided it would be a great idea and headed out.
We found one that accepted euros (since we hadn't gotten any Swiss Francs yet) and got both the traditional fondue with cheese, and the meat fondue. It was fun! The cheese was a bit interesting as we had gotten a mixture of the normal one and an aged cheese, but it was still nice. The meat was cool, cooking it in the oil and then dipping it in different sauces.
A nice couple at the table next to us befriended us a little bit, even though we didn't speak the same language, so that made our impression of Zurich even better! The only rude person we have met so far is the waiter.
As we were eating our dinner we noticed some strange things going on outside. For a start, it had been very busy in the streets, even though almost all of the shops were shut, and it was a Monday night. Most of the women were carrying flowers, and people were dressed up in historical outfits. Then this huge group of horses went past the restaurant. Something weird was going on!

When we finished dinner we decided to walk in the opposite direction to everyone else so we could see where they were all coming from, and we just found even more weird stuff, and nothing to explain it. There were marching bands everywhere. I think we saw at least six different marching bands within about a half hour. And they were big bands too. We were starting to wonder whether it was a requirement in Zurich to be a member of a marching band when we saw one of them packing up a bus, and figured that they must have come from out of town.
We walked through a big square and a young lady started talking to Danny (I think in German) and seeing which shop she was inviting him in to (not a very nice one, if you know what I mean) I walked back over and held his arm while he told her we only spoke English and she said "Oh, never mind." And smiled at me. Pfft. I was not impressed! But still, she spoke English, so we asked her what was going on, and she told us something about a Festival they have in Zurich each year, where they light a snowman on fire and when his head explodes that shows how long until Summer will come.
It sounded a little bit crazy, and since her friend was laughing a bit while she was telling us this, we didn't know if she was telling the truth, but when we got back to the hotel, we looked it up on the net, and sure enough, they light a snowman on fire.

The festival is called Sechseläuten and it takes place on the third Monday in April. The main part of the festival is a costume parade on the Monday afternoon, which is followed by the symbolic ceremony of burning a cotton snowman figure, the "Böögg" which represents winter.

The Böögg is a giant three-metre high snowman made from straw and cotton wool and charged with explosives, sitting on top of a bonfire. Burning the snowman doll symbolizes putting an end to winter.
The bonfire is set on fire exactly at 6 o'clock p.m. Legend has it, that the quicker the the poor Böögg "dies" (i.e. his head explodes), the sooner summer will come, the hotter it will be and the longer it will last.

Unfortunately we missed the actual burning of the snowman, but it was so cool to have this be our first night in Zurich. We were so bewildered by the whole thing, but had such a great time seeing all the costumes and the bands everywhere. And are very impressed that they blow up a snowman with fireworks every April!


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21st April 2010

Weird
I'm surprised, seeing as its you two, that you didnt know about all exploding snowmen and alike before you left haha

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