Zurich - Back Again

Back in Zurich! (photo (c) Sheila Kunwar)

I arrived back at around 9.30pm on New Year’s Eve. From the airport, I caught the bus back home and walked to my flat. The air was cold and for the first time I really noticed all the Christmas decorations lit up in the windows along my street. Stars, shapes of Christmas trees, coloured lights, a whole array of decorations shone out into the dark night to welcome me. Blasts of fireworks echoed around me; up one of the side streets I could see a firework being lit, smoke furling in the air, and again, another misty cloud swirled further up the street where I was walking. Colourful sprays of light sped up into the night sky along with the cracks splitting the air. I had the full sense of being back, of it being New Year, of Christmas; time was defined, I breathed in the cold air, I was here, back in Zurich. It was like magic.

All the fireworks reminded me that the next day would be a bank holiday, so I dumped my luggage and went round to the shops to buy some essentials (milk, orange juice). I reflected that I must live in an area that’s particularly keen on fireworks as I couldn’t remember having heard so many before. Later, I learned that this abundance of fireworks was at least in part due to private fireworks having been banned in the city centre this year.

When I entered my flat, I felt that sense of relief I always have that everything was just as I’d left it. No burglaries. Leaflets were on my table about the fibre optic network that had been installed in my absence (on 23rd Dec – what a date to choose!), one of the orchids had now flowered in a beautiful, poppy-like, white and purple. A large box thing with handles had appeared in my kitchen. Even now I can’t remember what it is. It looks as if it might have been a hamper, but I can’t remember receiving one. It looks familiar and I think it belongs to the flat, but I have no idea where it should be. That’s the problem of living in someone else’s place – if things aren’t yours, you don’t pay much attention so you’re stumped if they turn up somewhere strange. I’d had to tidy things away since the fibre optic people were going to be coming into my flat in my absence, so it took a while for me to relocate my slippers, which are usually in the lounge or by my bed, and to find the kitchen hand towel, which I normally leave lying on one of the kitchen tops.

I checked my emails, flicked through the TV channels and settled down to watch Quantum of Solace, which, to my surprise, I hadn’t seen before. Relaxing in front of a Bond movie with a bar of chocolate is just the thing to do on New Year’s Eve. 

There was no mistaking midnight. Even with double glazing, the sound of the fireworks going off all around me drowned out the television (at first I thought it was guns in the film, but no!). I stepped outside, but the ground was wet, so I didn’t venture far. The air was alive with cracks, whistles, streaming lights reaching across the sky. I decided most of it was coming from the other side of the flat, so I went to the kitchen to see if I could see more from there.

To my horror and fascination, people were setting off fireworks right by the parked cars! To a Brit, this lack of respect for the danger associated with fireworks is completely mind-boggling – I’ve mentioned before about all the education that we have on television (or used to have, at least) and at school about handling fireworks. It seems like madness to light the fireworks just by a car. They even lit a jumping jack and it bounced along under the car. I waited with baited breath for the car to explode wondering if the car owners knew what was happening. Jumping jacks are banned in the UK!

To my astonishment, some people came out and went round the cars with a torch. Meanwhile, the fireworks continued to be let off just beside them. I assume those people with the torches were the car owners. They made no effort to reprimand the people letting off the fireworks or to speak to them at all, as far as I could see. For me, this was just beyond my understanding. I got too nervous watching the fireworks being lit so close to the cars (if the cars exploded, the window I was looking through may also explode!), so I went back to the film and further away from the action.

However, with the noise of fireworks all around me and watching a Bond movie, I felt that in my own little way I was marking the New Year and it was good to have that sensation of temporal locatedness again.

The next day was grey, cold, and everywhere was wet. The whole of Zurich was closed. 

I felt a pang of longing to be back in Sahl Hasheesh and felt I’d lost my way a bit. What was I doing here? I could be reading my book on the beach, I could be swimming. Why had I come back to this grey, miserable place? The memories of the sun and sea were stirring me into a sulk. 

I cured it by going out on a boat trip on Lake Zurich – to remind myself that life can be good here, even in winter, if I just make the effort!