Schweizer Bundesfeier - Swiss National Day

Monday was Schweizer Bundesfeier (Swiss National Day) to celebrate Swiss Confederacy.  According to Wikipedia:
The date is inspired by the date of the Federal Charter of 1291, placed in "early August" (primo incipiente mense Augusto). The document is one of several dozen pacts attested for the territory of Switzerland in the period of the mid 13th to mid 14th century. The foundation of the Old Swiss Confederacy had been mostly associated with the Bund of Brunnen of 1315, or with the Rütlischwur, dated to 1307 by Aegidius Tschudi.


As the holiday fell on a Monday Torrey had the day off, if it had fallen on Sunday he would not get a day off in lieu.  Celebrations consist primarily of private BBQs and picnics at the lake, park, or backyard as well as fireworks. No big fireworks display, just people setting them off wherever they please.  Monday morning there was a parade, speeches and folk dancing, and of course beer and sausages.  We missed most of these events, but was fun to wander around as many people were dressed traditionally.  

 We also went to two BBQs.  The crossfit gym we joined had a BBQ on Sunday afternoon. We had brought and eaten our own meat but they had spare sausages.  I have been wanting to try the sausages here, but I haven't been able to bring myself to buy them, only being able to guess what is in them!  However, something cooked and given to you for free at a BBQ is an easy way to sample.  There are two kinds that are common here, one is a large veal sausage and the other is a small fat beef, pork,  sausage, called Cervelas.  Both tasted like very ordinary sausage, with little flavour, but they were much improved by a large quantity of Snef (mustard).  There was approximately 20 people at the BBQ, a mix of Swiss and Expats with many nations represented Switzerland, Germany, Serbia, USA, Nigeria, and Argentina.  The most interesting was an Asian guy from Austria, who went to grad school in Australia and has a girlfriend in Singapore.

Our second BBQ was on Monday afternoon with the "Nexus" group at the IPC church that we have been attending.  The Nexus group is for 18-35 (but they let us come even though we are too old), it seems more to be the group for the singles and married with no kids. That was also fun to get to know a few of those people a bit better. We hope to build deeper relationships here and so far it is much better than we have expected.  A group from church almost always goes out for dinner after the Sunday evening service, we went once, and plan on making that part of or routine. 

Flag from one of the Cantons around Zurich, which one I don't know as a I couldn't find it in a quick Google search. 

We had also planned on going hiking on Saturday with another group from church but it was postponed due to bad weather.  This was rather disapointing as we have been wanting to hike and haven't really done much so far. We have been spending most of our time setting up our household.  So we decided to buy something fun (and useful).  We bought bikes.

My bike is mountain bike style but better for riding in the city

Torrey's is a mountain bike

The end of our bike ride in Horgen.

 It took quite a while to shop for them and then when we went to pay we found out that not only do we have a daily limit on our debit card (they don't take credit card) but we also have a monthly limit (it was July 30th).  The very helpful and patient clerk at the bike store (who was born in Vancouver) was able to tell us that if we went into the bank the limited doesn't apply and we could just withdrawal cash.  He looked rather surprised that we had reached the monthly limit on our card, I felt rather sheepish and needed to explain that we just moved here and have been spending much more money than normal getting our house set up.  As it was already Saturday afternoon, the only bank open was the one at the main train station.  After a tram to the bank and a wait in line and tram back to the bike store we were able to leave with our bikes.  We then went for a bike ride along the lake. Sunday morning we went for another bike ride up the Uetliburg and of course Torrey got a flat on the way back, but we were almost home so I rode and he took the tram. 

Dinner on our patio

We also spent a large amount of time this weekend putting together an Ikea wardrobe we bought from one of Torrey's coworkers. It almost reaches the ceiling so we had to build it standing up. It was by far the most complicated Ikea furniture we have ever assembled.  Our place is beginning to come together but we still have a large amount of  cardboard (collection is once a month) and lack places to put things. Today I bought more hangers at Coop, after clearing out the cheap hangers at a different Coop yesterday. I seem to spend larger amounts of time wandering department stores looking for simple items such as the little plastic thing that goes in the soap dish to prevent it from turning to mush. The soap dish is built in, otherwise I'd buy a new soap dish.  


I have to admit I'm feeling a bit homesick today, maybe its the rain as it reminds me of home.