The pumpinks are smiling also in Switzerland in the night of Halloween!
It should be certainly a trick, rather than a treat…
… especially if you think that one of the most American “celebrations” is very popular also in the Confederation, where the USA are not so beloved and it is very rare to find someone not blaming the US for something!
The Carnival closed its curtain on Tuesday, as usual (even if in some cantons and cities it will last some days more).
During the Carnival, people normally have fun, get masked with funny costumes, make jokes and go to parties.
In the small village where I live, as every year, during this “amusement” period, some weird, dreadful and scary characters suddenly appeared in the weirdest places…
Quite creepy, isn’t it?
This is just Carnival, but maybe in Switzerland they mistake it for a horror movie?!
During one of the usual Saturday’s trips to Zurich with my family, I found out a unique “thing”…
Just at Bellevue, the main square next to the lake, I saw a strange polygonal light blue shape.
I went closer to see: it is not a ship! it is not a boat! it is neither a normal house nor the Addams Family’s mansion! But it floats on the water!
It seems a building arrived here from a fairy tale: the pastel colour, the weird shape, and the magic mood around it…
I went closer and closer and finally I discovered it.
It’s the “heart barrack”!
It is a seasonal (October-March) floating real cabaret theatre with restaurant which offers a very interesting programme: every single night a different show!
This is a great entertainment for Zurich city: it seems like a time machine to go back to France at the time of art nouveau!
You do not believe me? You do not think that such delight can exist in Zurich?
Check it out by yourself and let me know: www.herzbaracke.ch
Baden, the small city in Argovia famous for the old roman hot springs and for being the headquarters of ABB and GE in Switzerland, has just celebrated its “ride” from the 18th to the 27th of August.
The so-called “Badenfahrt” is a great party which lasts 10 days all over the town and takes place every 10 years (every 5 with a smaller version).
All the city transforms itself in a real Wonderland: everywhere you find stalls with food and drinks, temporary open air bars, people preparing and selling food from every country in the world, stages for concerts, a big Luna Park with impressive attractions, western-style saloons, terraces and balconies, even a rocket takeoff installation, tropical clubs, exotic places, fun and happiness. The ultimate 10 years’ recurring event!
The most of this “new temporary city within the actual city” is organised by various associations, which are so popular in Switzerland. Therefore a lot of people are volunteering to contribute to the success of this event.
This time, the small great Baden has done it perfectly!
Better than any pirate, corsair, crusade, expedition, campaign: the Baden ride, the Badenfahrt, has really been amazing!
Autumn is arriving, even if the weather in Switzerland is still surprisingly quite warm and relatively sunny.
And the big event of Autumn, Halloween, is approaching with its rituals, jack-o’-lanterns and…pumpkins.
In some countries, for examples my origin country, Italy, I would not exactly know where to get good and big pumpinks to create a typical jack-o’-lantern.
But in Switzerland…! The perfect organisation works also for the preparation activities for Halloween!
In this period, in a lot of countryside villages, exactly since the beginning of Autumn, you can often see booths which offer a lot of pumpkins with the most different shapes and colours!
They are normally organised next to a main road with a small tin box as cashier.
How does it exactly work?
Very easy! You choose the pumpinks you need for your masterpiece jack-o’-lantern, you leave the relevant amount of money in the tin box (according to the detailed price list hanging somewhere near the big orange cultivar) and you go home happy with your pumpkin trophy!
Super easy, isn’t it?
And now the…Swiss “trick or treat” can begin!
With my family, we bought a new apartment and we moved in some months ago. We are still in the “getting acquaintance” phase: with the new Gemeinde, the new neighbours, the new bus timetable, the new garbage rules, the new…habits of the neighbourhood.
We live in a complex with four buildings and some 30 families. Next to another slightly bigger but similar complex. And here I found out something which I still did not know about Switzerland: parties! Or, better said, the party “mood”…
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