Yesterday was the start of züri fäscht: a 3 day festival I'm the city that happens every 3 years. We just happened to be lucky enough to be here on the year it happened.
For dutch people it's a bit like koninginnedag with stalls and parties on the streets (but not quite as extensive). With the added attraction of lots of activities on the water too. And fireworks!
The interesting thing about züri fäscht is that you see a lot of people out on the streets that you normally don't see. On regular days everyone seems so respectable, but today the kids were out in full force - and it was almost rowdy!
The other thing we noticed was that the ubiquitous food seems to be meat on a stick. Everyone seemed to be walking around with them. Luckily there were again plenty of opportunities to get vegetarian food, so we didn't get hungry (but did try to avoid the whole ox on a spit - that was a bit much).
On Friday we went out dinner with colleagues and then stayed up to watch the fireworks (the start of which was actually delayed because the football went into overtime). It was nice to be able to hear the music that they were synchronized to. Of course it's hard to compete with Sydney fireworks.
On Saturday we went back into town despite the hot weather and walked around the streets, taking in the attractions, shows and markets. We even watched the airshow - normally I'm not crazy about displays of military might, but they put on a pretty entertaining show - and the planes were painted like swiss flags. Who can't be impressed by swiss flags flying at the speed of sound!
Another cool thing they had was car boats. I remember as a kid being fascinated by these things, so seeing them actually sailing through the water was great (and they looked goofy doing it too).
On Sunday we actually skipped festival and went for a bike ride and swim instead. Much needed in this heat (though the brief rain on Sunday helped too).
