Zurich Day 2

I began today with a big mistake. Not stopping to question the oddness of playing a concert on a Friday at noon, I bought a 60 CHF roundtrip ticket to Zofingen. Very charming town and a charming ride, but as it turns out my concert is tomorrow. At least now I know precisely how to get there, and I took the extra precaution of pre-purchasing a ticket for tomorrow as the machines don't always accept the bills you feed them.

Despite the not inexpensive mistake, it was difficult to stay angry at myself for long since I suddenly had a day to explore Zurich. I’m sitting now by the corner balcony of the lovely African Lodge Room on the sixth floor of the Hotel Otter, listening to a lengthy concert of swinging bells coming from perhaps two churches northwest. The named penthouse room had better be a free upgrade, because it’s slick--a masterful blend of African savannah and cosmopolitan neo-Baroque. What is it with me and penthouse upgrades? It’s evident from here that the Swiss love plants. Every spare bit of rooftop is lined with them, more so than with lawn furniture. Densely built as this old city is, everywhere you look (presuming you do a good job of looking up) there is green.

My first stop was the Migros Museum, Kunsthaus, and surrounding galleries, all tucked into a sleekly designed former factory space. After a delicious cheese sandwich, I happened upon an exhibit on urban renewal at the ETH Zurich--how I’ve missed these European topics presented in their modern European designs. The Law Library of the University was difficult to find, but as the Wallpaper City Guide mentioned it multiple times, I kept looking. Everyone I asked on the block remarked that the photo was beautiful but they had never seen the space. I hope they seek it out, because the moment I walked in I felt as if this Santiago Calatrava building had changed my life (and I hadn’t even opened a book)! An eye-shaped receptacle of natural light framed by wooden beams, and dramatic glass elevators that whisk you past each eye-shaped level lined with studious aspring lawyers to the top skylight. I’d been skeptical of spending my time in Zurich finding an academic library, but the guide was right to mention it multiple times. Few buildings have caused me to smile.

A stop by cash-only vendor of used designer purses SecondBag and I was trotting down the Bahnhofstrasse with a cheap orange Longchamp (boy will Ingrid have a fit!) in near-perfect condition on my shoulder. The Champs-Elysées certainly defines class and bling, but I wonder if Zurich’s most expensive shopping drag couldn’t give it a run for its money. Gorgeous Burberry blondes and high school girls with designer purses I haven’t even considered buying yet mingle on the tram with backpackers and immigrants, cyclists ride perilously between trams on tram-only roads, bike messengers with wing-like reflective yellow backpacks wave to each other, and a bespectacled man rides calmly and quietly alongside my tram on a Ducati 900 Supersport. On the winding cobblestone streets leading south to Grossmünster, I am pulled to and fro by delicious smells emanating from chocolateries and crêpe stands. Several photography postcards and musical stamps later, I’m back in my room impatient for my roommates to arrive two hours late. I suppose they did me a favor hurrying me wide-eyed through the Bahnhofstrasse to meet them on time, but I rather wish I’d spent more time there... and was eating now.

The only thing that has bothered me so far about this place is the abundance of fake blondes (is it that desirable?) and shoe stores. Expensive shoe stores. Zurich has a citywide shoe fetish. Why?

As if the world wasn’t small enough, Sue has elderly relatives living in Zofingen. I hope they enjoy my concert tomorrow if they can hear it.

It’s half an hour after I started writing (19:00), and another bell has started ringing. I could sit here listening all day.

Carillons and poppies aren't important only in Belgium. This article on Remembrance Sunday with carillon music in Loughborough brings back memories of Ieper (Ypres).

England days 3 + 4

Naomi rushed into the train station to meet me a few minutes after I arrived, although to be honest I'd been dallying around and figured I was probably the one keeping her waiting out front. She'd had several appointments in the morning, but what kept her was the alarming news that John had not just been ill, but experienced a minor heart attack at some point over the past couple days, and neither of them had put all the symptoms together. Nevertheless the perfect hostess, she made lunch and tea for me at John's place and afterwards let me amble around town while she made the first of several visits to John in the Yeovil hospital.

I was utterly taken by Sherborne Abbey's golden-hued Hamstone and vast and varied fan-vault ceiling, lingering the better part of an hour wondering and reading while someone provided a soundtrack on the organ. A brisk walk up Cheap Street (the oddly-named main shopping thoroughfare) turned up no florists still open as I'd forgotten the time in the abbey, but finally I came upon a delightful music shop at which I could buy a gift for John to ease his time the hospital. I chose a new Joseph Jongen/Flor Peeters album to make the connection a bit more personal and ensure I wasn't doubling something in his extensive library.

The drive to Naomi's parents house in the 200-person town of Dewlish sped by as we talked and enjoyed the countryside, and her vegetarian parents fed me a veritable Turkish feast. It was one of the best (and most lavish) meals I'd eaten all summer. A peculiar combination of being at the exhausted end of my tour, relaxing into the countryside after the oppression of otherwise delightful London, knowing I was taken care of and had no schedule or priorities whatsoever, and going into food coma put me straight to sleep, though I'd promised to be up in ten minutes for more socializing. I woke up in exactly the same position on top of the covers nearly ten hours later.

Nell and Naomi took me to the hilltop ruins of the 1000-year-old Corfe Castle, where many children were running around during the "birthday celebration" of some 1950's British children's author whose books had been banned from certain libraries in the 80's for not being PC. Obviously the stories were good enough to stand the test of censorship and time and even Harry Potter. A walk around the town with its traditional stone roof tiling proved that the 21st century had even penetrated to here: a gallery sold USB keys in the shape of various animals. There was also a lavender bunny whose removable tummy you could warm up in the microwave and which would release the aroma with each squeeze, but this seemed a bit extravagant and anatomically weird.

Best of all was our picnic and walk along the seaside cliffs. The landscape was basically untouched because, ironically, it is used by the military as training ground. Signs everywhere warn you not to step off the path lest you get shot or step on an unexploded mine, but dogs seem to wander freely ahead of their owners and blackberries are just starting to ripen. Gentle and yet close-set hills of green and cliffs set against a remarkably blue ocean made for the loveliest walk I've taken all summer, through a foreign yet familiar verdant and dramatic landscape. The place names here are exotic to me. Some are also amusing -- Affpuddle and Blandford?

Naomi left for Yeovil to see John and stayed in Sherborne overnight, and I enjoyed a rice dish Naomi had made for the dinner party made by the person she'd learnt it from. Her parents talked animatedly of their big band and about Nell's amazing vegetarian farmer uncle, but I was getting comatose again, so ended the evening watching the beautiful film "Girl with a Pearl Earring". Every scene had been composed with the care of a Dutch masterwork, the gorgeous colours straight out of Vermeer's own palette. The storyline was restrained, never veering into the sex or violence that most films think they need in order to make it big. If only the characters had been better developed -- time to read the book. It's remarkable how many books Vermeer, one of my favorite artists, has inspired. And I'm fonder of this painting than of the Mona Lisa. She's more beautiful, more luminous, more hypnotic, more alive (I know this is sacrilege), and her gentle yet acute gaze will follow you wherever you are in the room in which the painting hangs (the Mauritshuis in The Hague).

I slept like a baby once more, again not disturbing the covers at all or even all the things piled up in a corner of the bed. My dreams were strange and vivid, but I couldn't be bothered to remember them. Something about hurrying to keep up with a schedule. You can never quite escape who you are, can you?

dismay

Most or all of the boxes that I had sent via cargo post from the Netherlands were been sent back last week -- because they were about 100 grams too heavy each. They have been in shipment for over a month, and now they're returned to be repackaged and then sent for the same price? Not only does this mean that I don't receive my books, winter clothes, or AKG headphones until mid-December (I think Geert resent them without asking whether I wanted a different method of shipment), but the Dutch Post has to do twice the amount of work for only the price of a tiny extra package filled with a couple hundred grams from each box.

WTF?! Who the hell would weigh those packages and send every single one of them back on account of a hundred grams? When Elvo and I brought my things to the post, only one package was slightly overweight, so the postal worker made us repackage. I cannot imagine that every single box I sent via the Netherlands was overweight without the folks at the Middelburg post office noting it when making up the postage labels. Some godforsaken loser with nothing better to do tipped the scales in a psychotically compulsive double-check. I hope they crush their digits re-lifting my packages when they come around in a few more weeks. Anyone know of rates for sending rotten apples via general mail to the Netherlands postal headquarters?

So much for my excitement about the great rates of the Dutch post. I send things by reasonably priced standard airmail in Belgium and get them delivered via Express Mail on Sundays in America even before I have a chance to settle into my apartment. I send things via cheap low-profile no-brainer zeepost and boekenpost and the Dutch botch it up completely. At least the weather felt sorry for me today and decided not to snow on me. I doubt its mercy will hold up for long.