Zurich: Street Parade

The day started out innocently enough. Three-hour train ride from Geneva through Bern to Zurich, reading the daily paper in the abnormaly quiet train car, and seeing the regular student crowd board the train in Lausanne. Then it started. Getting off the train and onto the Zurich tram, we were witness to girls dressed in the "sexy policewoman" outfits running into a gaggle of real officers. We were there with camera in hand. It would get progressively better as the day wore on.

My friend and I walked the Bahnhofstrasse and stopped into a bar to order some cordon bleu (the size of my head) and drank beer from steins the diameter of my thighs. At lunch, a guy in a leopard-print leotard and cape walked in. Turning heads and illiciting wide grins, several patrons asked him to have a beer with them at their tables.

Now getting shitfaced in the afternoon is something I don't typically do, but when you're in Zurich during the Street Parade, you have no reason not to. Watching the massive floats blaring techno music, you could barely hear the people offering you X or Special K. The drug scene during this party is so intense that the promoters have signs saying "No Drugs, Please" plastered over all of the floats. The local authorities have taken an alternative stance: rather than think they can put a stop to all drug use during the party, they provide mobile testing vans which test the quality of the drugs and determine if it is safe to take. They don't arrest anyone. Watching the dudes with t-shirts that made no sense was amusing enough for me.

Beer coming out of my ears, we headed over to the Baur Au Lac hotel (note: everything sounds better in French, even when you're in the German part of Switzerland). Not fully comprehending how posh this place was, we stood outside the velvet rope and waited for my friend's girlfriend to come vouch for us. Like a scene out of E's Wild On, we walked into a world of caviar, champagne, and beautiful people. We scarfed down nibbly bits while trying to seem uninterested in the wildlife bumping and grinding around us. Drunk and hanging with the high society of Zurich's 20- and 30-somethings, we scampered up the stone walls of the hotel's tea garden and watched the mashup of techno, gothica, raving, and alcohol meld together in a beautiful concoction until midnight. We finished off the night traipsing through the refuse-laden streets (think Preakness-size garbage, except with Heineken instead of Budweiser) and found ourselves downing Long Island Iced Teas at Drinx Bar. Violating the age-old addage of "beer before hard", we called it an early night and slept off our fun until 11 the next day. (Post note: the streets in Zurich were clean by 7am the next day).

The next day was more sedate - Cordon Bleu (again) at AlmodoBar, go karting near the airport, and fantastic Thai food at Lily's. My last drink in Zurich ended as wonderfully as my first: singing "My Way" like Sinatra's backup singers with 50 other strangers in Acapulco during karaoke night.

Flickr pics are here.