End of the Swiss chapter

I’m flying back to Brussels from Zurich at the moment, watching the snow-capped Alps to my left fade into the distance as we turn to follow the Rhine to the sea. This weekend was an emotional one, as I spent it helping my dad move out of his Swiss home.

He is moving back to the US this week, his company has transferred him back there. And with that, a very significant chapter of his life – and mine – has come to a close.

Switzerland was where I began this European adventure six years ago, so it was a bit jarring to see my dad’s empty house today and walk out the door for the last time.

Life In the Dark

If you've never tried eating in the dark, I highly recommend it. Last night I went to a blind restaurant here in Zurich called Blindekuh. It's an establishment where all the waiters are blind, and all the patrons eat completely in the dark, without being able to see a thing. Considering I had just been made redundant/laid off from my only steady freelancing gig an hour before we went to eat, it was hard not to see the experience as a metaphor for the state of the world right now.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from the blind dining experience. I went with my father and some of his friends, apparently they had to make reservations for it four months ago. It's pretty wild. When you go to the table you are guided in by your waiter into a large dining room that is completely pitch black. You go through the entire meal and then are led out without ever having seen the room you were in. It's interesting how being in the dark heightens all your other senses. You suddenly become aware of the tone of people's voices, the feel of the objects around you and the taste of the food. Eating is a bit of an adventure. You have to move your hands very slowly around the table to make sure you don't knock anything over. You have no idea what it is you're putting in your mouth, so you just have to guess from the texture. Sometimes I would bring the fork to my mouth to find there was nothing on it! I speculated that it would be hilarious if there was a night-vision camera trained on us and at the end of the evening we could all watch ourselves hanging our heads over our plates, dragging our food into our wide open mouths and eating like infants. Actually, maybe that wouldn't be so pleasant to watch!

Of course I was a little distracted throughout the evening because just before we left I got a call from the web company I do my regular writing shift for saying they're having money problems and could no longer have a Europe correspondent. It's not a huge big deal as it's just one of my sources of income, but it was the only one that came with a regular daily schedule and a regular paycheck. But times are tough and I can understand why they can't afford to have foreign contractors any more. I was going to stop doing it in the next few months anyway, assuming I can find a full-time job soon. But it was a rather startling reminder of the state the world is in right now.

By my count 15 of my friends in the US and UK have been laid off in the past month (judging from Facebook status updates). They're not alone. US unemployment rose 159,000 to a record 4.78 million Americans this week. The Eurozone unemployment rate has risen to 8 percent. The predictions and analysis coming from the World Economic Forum in Davos this week have been truly frightening. And nobody seems to be quite certain of what's coming next, all they seem to agree on is that it's going to be bad.

Sitting there helpless in the dark last night, at first I felt quite anxious. But soon I realized I wasn't alone, we were all in this together. Me, my table, and all the other diners were also trying to navigate their way through this new uncertain world. But by working together, advising each other on where the obstacles in the dark lie, we made it through. By the end of the meal it almost felt normal to be eating in the dark. As we all feel blindly around the table in 2009, perhaps it will be good to keep in mind that we're all in the same boat.

It's going to be an interesting year in the dark.

Happy 'Switzerland Joins Schengen' Day!

After so much anticipation, I rose early this morning at dawn to creep down to the fireplace and see if I had received a visit from Schengen Clause. I gasped with joy to find it was true, he'd come! The border check with Germany had disappeared!

Ok I can't really see the German border from my dad's house in Zurich (although I can see the border with the next Canton), but I did eagerly check the news this morning to see if it had indeed come to pass. I have no idea why, but the moment which countries open their borders with other countries really excites me.

At midnight CET this morning Switzerland joined the Schengen Zone, the 25-member European block that allows passport-free travel between the member states. Switzerland is not technically in the EU, but it has a series of bilateral treaties with the EU which make it in many ways a "virtual member," bound to follow EU regulation although it has no representation in the EU parliament.

Swiss weekend

I had a very nice relaxing time visiting the family in Switzerland this weekend. I definitely needed it, as the last few weeks have been not entirely pleasant.

Saturday we spent just lounging in the lake. My dad got this hilarious big inflatable gazebo imported from the states that he can put outside the house in the water and take a little raft out to. The Swiss going by in their yachts seemed to react to it with a mixture of befuddlement and horror, which we found quite amusing. It just needed a big American flag at the top. But it was nice to lie out there with the geese and the ducks, it was eerily quiet on the lake Saturday, maybe everyone was at the Caliente festival in downtown Zurich.

Sunday we took a little road trip to the Italian section of Switzerland, which just drove home how truly bizarre that country is. The Italian section is the canton of Ticino, which is the part of Switzerland below the Alps. It’s right at the exit of the mountain pass that people from Northern Europe have used to get down to Italy for centuries. During the height of the Swiss consolidation period in the late 15th century the Swiss confederacy obtained it through conquest, attracted to its strategic location as the north-south crossroads of the Alps. It was actually the last area the Swiss obtained through conquest.

Lessons from an Alpine water park

On our last day in Switzerland Pierce and I decided to do the most relaxing thing we could think of, visit Europe's largest water park, Alpemare, on an Alpine ridge outside of Zurich. We didn't really know what to expect, but it was definitly impressive. Tons of water slides cascading down the mountain, thermal iodine baths, a wave pool, a lazy river, everything a water park should have. And all on the edge of a mountain in the Swiss Alps. It was very cool.

One of the more interesting things I observed during the visit was yet another example of the completely different environment Europeans operate in in terms of legal liability. We were shocked to find at the water park that there were pretty much no attendants, anywhere. When you got on the slides, the only thing that kept you from going down whenever you felt like it and plunging into the person in front of you was a little traffic light. You could in theory go down whenever and in any way you wanted. And the slides were crazy! I came out with literal bruises! Same thing with the wave pool. With our wave pools in the states, there are lifeguards literally every five feet, and they're constantly blowing their whistles telling people not to do things. At this one, there was only one for the whole pool, and he was barely paying attention. He didn't even have a whistle.

Switzerland

I gotta say it is really amazing to be here. I just got in from swimming in Lake Zurich, my dad has a little beach area out there with a table and some chairs. The water is incredibly clean, you can see right to the bottom, it's like swimming in the Caribbean. There's virtually no pollution here. I was just swimming in the water and a swan literally came right up to me. It was a little freaky! I got a picture of it though...

I've been keeping busy. Yesterday I went to the art museum, which was pretty cool. There was this amazing exhibit that I just sat and watched for 20 minutes. Can't even describe it to do it justice.

Today I met with a guy at the IP office at a Zurich university, mixing a little business with pleasure. I figured it would look good to my bosses if I made the effort to meet with some IP people here to prepare for covering European IP from London. It was a good talk actually, I learned a lot and the guy was very helpful.

Photos from Zurich

So far, Zurich has not been disappointing. I'm sitting here out on my dad's balcony overlooking Lake Zurich, watching the boats go by. Kind of like Roosevelt Island, except...so not. What a gorgeous city, if a little small.

I haven't slept since Monday night, so I should probably get to bed soon but I wanted to post some pictures of my trip so far. Up above is a picture I took today from the steeple of the Grossmunster cathedral, which affords a great aerial view of the city. I spent the day just walking around and exploring the city, trying to get my bearings. It actually reminds me a lot of Prague, especially the narrow, winding pedestrian streets. Very picturesque.

Moving to Switzerland?

It’s been quite some time since I’ve written. The reason is I’ve been incredibly busy at work, which certainly isn’t a bad thing. It tends to be feast or famine here, the feast (of work, or famine of free time, depending on how you look at it) comes around deadline time, and then after deadline passes it relaxes again. That sounded remarkably gastrointestinal.

Interesting side note, my friend Alison just got hired as a new reporter here. I’m officially recruiting people for my publication. Go me.

In other interesting news, my family is moving to Switzerland. Strange eh? Not my entire family to be precise. My father and 16-year-old brother are moving there. My parents are divorced and my mom lives in Connecticut with her husband.

The city they're moving to is Zurich, Switzerland's largest city in the Northwest of the country near the border with Germany. I actually just wrote an article last month about how the city was just named the best in the world for quality of life (Geneva was second). My dad was going to have to move to Zurich eventually, he works for a Swiss company in an executive position and has moved up over the years to the point where he should really be operating out of the company’s headquarters in Zurich. But, he had convinced them to allow him to work out of his Connecticut office until my brother, who lives with my dad, graduated high school. About a month ago they changed their mind, and said he had to come to Zurich. So they’re going to do it.