Fraumünster Church, Zurich
We made the train trip to Zurich today as it was their spring holiday, Sechseläuten (or Sächsilüüte in Swiss-German) – the literal translation is ringing of the bells at 6pm. The holiday originated in medieval times where the guilds would celebrate the beginning of summer that gave them some non-working daylight hours.
Throughout the afternoon, the 26 guilds move around the city in a parade of costumes, floats, flowers and horses. At 6pm the entire parade (of thousands) and even more spectators gather at Sechseläutenplatz for the lighting of the bonfire (13m high), complete with Böögg (i.e. giant 6m paper mache snowman packed with explosives). We felt for the horses who had to be ridden at pace around the fire whilst the startling explosions from the burning Böögg went on.
The time it takes from lighting the fire until the Böögg’s head explodes is inversely proportional to the length of the upcoming summer. This year after 12min 55sec the crowd cheered as the head of the Böögg to exploded, indicating Switzerland is in for a average warm summer. (Last year it took 26″01 – almost the slowest time on record).
Parade gathers around the Böögg
Hey team – we’re back in Brisbane now. The two weeks seemed to stretch for ever, but it was fun for the whole time. We’re fairly disoriented now, today being the first full day back at home. Trying to work out what we should do.
Dunno how you guys are going to cope when you get back. Just hope that you don’t have the same babies on the plane that we had – they didn’t take to the ear popping descent very well, and screamed louder, longer and harder than any baby I’ve ever seen. And we know how you guys feel about crying babies
Let us know what your plans are for Singapore. How long are you there? Do you know where you are staying?
We’re thinking we’ll send our Miele Guide (think Michelin guide, but for Asia) over there to meet you, so you can sample some awesome food. We’ll also send our train tickets over, so you don’t have to buy paper tickets (think Go Card, but a million times better). All you’ll have to do is charge it up with a few Sing Dollars, though there’s about $4.50 on them both still, so that will probably see you through a few days. The trains will take you to Chinatown, Little India, and the Arab quarter, so you’ll be laughing.
Enjoy
Dave.