Things you should know about Switzerland (Zürich Edition)

I've spent the last three weeks in Zürich and Switzerland, dancing the role of the fool/maid/general comedia dell'arte baroque dancer in the short comic opera "Der Handwerker als Edelmann" or "The Craftsman as a Gentleman"-- you know, one of those ha ha someone is trying to rise above their class kind of things. He's much more sympathetic than the Bourgeois Gentilhomme, though.

But I digress.

It's been actually really great. I'm staying in a beautiful house with generous hosts (no cooking! no cleaning! all the cheese you can eat!) and my very own bathroom. The audiences for the shows (9 shows! in 11 days!) have been pretty good, laughing and having a good time at the old-school gags.

I just can't overemphasize my amazement of how much food costs in Zürich---

I don't know if Jeremy really conveyed the insane expensiveness of food in his previous entry, but let me make it easy for you: a Burger King value meal costs $12.66. A plate of pasta in a restaurant: $22.

I began to lose sense of the normal. And when I say normal, well, what I am used to-- It might be completely true that with all the hidden costs of producing food that a plate of pasta should be $22. Maybe we should all get used to that and only eat out once a year. Butter churners unite!

Oh, dear, I seem to have lost the thread. Here look at some pictures of the cool stuff I saw in Winterthur and Zürich:

This "grafitti knitting" was done by a middle school class! This kind of thing (but not so spectacular) has been showing up in Cologne too-- mostly on bike racks and telephone poles.

Oh, the Easter Bunnies. So very very many chocolate easter bunnies in so many adorable and ingenious creations. I had to restrain myself from buying them to bring to the US for Easter (!!) because I was afraid they would be destroyed in transit.

outside the jeweler's

outside Winterthur City Hall

random rubber ducky congregation in the public fountain