Zurich - Social Events

Storchen - My Brunch Location

I feel I haven’t really organised myself properly since my return; on the other hand, I keep on forgetting that I’ve only been back for just over two weeks. It feels like I’ve never been away!

I have a list of things I want to do – go to Milan, Lichtenstein, explore more of Austria, visit Idette, go to the UK, have a trip to Basel – but I haven’t arranged any of them yet. I’m not really very sure what’s stopping me, other than that I dislike going away from Zurich in the summer in case the weather is really good and I could be swimming in the lake instead.

So, my impression is that I haven’t really done anything since I’ve been back, which makes writing my blog difficult. However, when I think about it a bit more, I’m maybe being a bit hard on myself.

Just as I had to squeeze in Faust – The Ballet just before I left to go to Egypt, on my return to Zurich, I was keen to ensure that I got to see Nutcracker – Reloaded! This was at yet a different location from the two ballets I saw a month or so ago, which just goes to show how good Zurich is for places which hold events. This time I went with Caterina and it was in the Maag Halle.

I’d forgotten that this time of year is full of thunderstorms, particularly in the evening (which is quite handy if you want to swim during the day, not that I did on this occasion) and the night of the ballet was one of those nights. The rain chucked itself down and the thunder rumbled. I got there before Caterina, so I watched everyone running in with their umbrellas. With this being Zurich, which is not so large as cities go, I saw Florence and Nada from my old workplace as they ran in to come to the ballet as well. It can be quite hard to do anything here without seeing someone you know. Eventually, Caterina turned up, her umbrella blowing inside out.

We had to turn two people out of our seats since they were sitting in the wrong place (it took a bit of persuasion, enlisting the help of the people behind as well, but we got there). I thought the ballet itself was brilliant – very creative and very different. There was a guy introducing it making himself out to be from the Swedish Ministry of Culture and only there because he was the only one who could speak German. He explained the story as we went along (since it deviated from the normal Nutcracker quite extensively, it was a welcome interjection and he was very funny). I can’t even remember the proper Nutcracker story now, but this version was about how a rich woman needed a heart transplant using the heart from a poor orphan girl. Rich woman’s son falls in love with poor orphan girl (there’s also a side story of the parents trying to find poor orphan girl). Anyway, if it comes near you, I recommend seeing it!

Apart from that, I’ve looked after my stomach. I had brunch out at the Storchen (it was OK, but I think there are better ones out there), sampled the cuisine at New Bombay with Lena, met up with a former colleague (Marta) for after-work drinks, and, not least, in memory of Pam (it’s been a year now since her death), I had a meal out in Tito’s with Hye-Youn, since Pam often liked to go there. And I organized a publication team lunch at work, and also had lunch with a group of people from work on one other occasion.

So, if you put all that together, I guess I’m not doing so badly after all!