Zurich - First Snow

Walk to Work - Boots now Required!

And so another year starts again. It’s a bit of a false distinction, because a new year is just the continuation of the last one, really, but psychologically it’s easy to get brain-washed into it. As the author of books of New Year’s resolutions, I guess I shouldn’t be casting aspersions on the "new year" concept! I don’t really have a New Year’s resolution this year, although I am trying to go to bed an hour earlier to see if that makes me less reluctant to get up in the morning.

Usually we’ve had meaningful snow in Zurich before January, but just as the summer and autumn were exceptional, winter too has been very mild to date. It started snowing on my first week back at work and I was quite excited to see the large, wet flakes drifting down against the grey sky. That first day, the snow didn’t really settle, but the other weekend it really started properly. Well, it settled on the ground at any rate and it got pretty icy where it melted and then froze again.

I’d forgotten that the first week back at work in the New Year usually means that there are lots of chocolates on offer as everyone tries to offload the excess of goodies that have been eaten over the festive season.

It also seemed that all of management had been requested to do a Drei-Koenigsgebaeck (Three Kings cake) for the staff on 6th January because we had one for our Dept and the Dept in the other half of our floor also had one (not that I’m scouring the building for cakes, of course). Maybe it was just coincidence that the other Dept had one too. For those who don’t know, it’s a cake with a token inside and whoever gets the piece of cake with the token inside becomes King or Queen for the day and is granted certain privileges. At work, of course, no privileges were granted, but it was a nice thought!

The concept of the Three Kings Cake is a bit like Christmas Pudding in the UK (although the Three Kings cake [ours was puff pastry with almonds, I think] is very different from Christmas Pudding; the latter is dense with dried fruits and brandy, it's aged for at least a month beforehand and then steamed for hours and finally eaten hot with brandy butter– I don’t like the taste, but it’s a proper UK Christmas ritual!). In my youth, at least, a Christmas Pudding would always have a sixpence baked inside it, which the lucky person would keep if they found it in their slice. My mother kept the sixpences even when they were taken out of circulation, just so that they could go in the Christmas Pudding. I really loved the excitement of that as a child (I was money-oriented even in those days!) and would take a piece just so that I could take part and have a chance of winning. It’s a once-a-year thing – Christmas Pudding is only ever eaten on Christmas Day (or maybe the day after, Boxing Day, too, if you have left-overs).

Anyway, at work we had the Drei-Koenigsgebaeck, which I was quite excited about (just because it was a free goodie – not interested in the token!) until somebody said that each slice was some horrific amount of calories. Not that it stopped me from eating it, of course, but it did prevent me from taking a second slice (a theoretical option only, since actually we ran out of cake).

So, what with people drifting back to work during the course of the first and second weeks, the continual chime of “Happy New Year!”, the never-ending chocolates in the kitchen, the Three Kings cake and the arrival of snow, this year felt much more like a new year than when I am in Egypt (where it feels like just another day).

It’s also slowly dawning on me that I have only 12 weeks left before my stint back in Switzerland is over. Who would have thought that a year could go by so quickly?