Böögg

Yesterday was our first festival in Zurich. Andy got to have a 1/2 day off work because it's a canton (think state) holiday. Carsten and I took the train in from Egg at 1 pm to meet Andy, and then we all went to check out the scenery. We got to see the Böögg being built, which basically consisted of a giant pile of carefully placed sticks (we expect nothing less in Switzerland) with a snowman on top. The snowman apparently blows up (it has some sort of explosive in it) and the time to takes to blow up somehow indicates something about summer. You can read more about it here: http://zurichexpats.com/watch-the-boogg-burn/ . And here's a photo:

Snowman being built.

 We were walking downtown around 2 pm, and the parade route started at 3 pm. So we took our time and scouted at a place to stand (benches were reserved). While scouting, I had a brat, which was interesting because they don't provide buns for brats here. At least they have real ketchup :). While we were walking we noticed that most things, including the horses were decorated. These horses had flowers and hats. We are not sure why the hats are decoration for the horses, but actually most horses had them on.

Horse hats.

 We then found some strawberry soft-serve ice cream, which was YUMMY. And we ate it while Carsten was sleeping (go Carsten!). We also made our way back to a shady awning from a bus stop where we stood for about an hour, and Carsten managed to stay sleeping through some random bands with drums that went by. At 3:15 we were wondering where the parade was. Andy asked someone next to us and he informed us that we were at the end of the parade route, so we shouldn't expect to see anything until 3:30 at least. Well, we really didn't see anything our way until about 3:45, so we had quite a long wait. Carsten had been awake for a while at this point and was getting pretty antsy, as you can tell by this photo:

Antsy baby.

 Finally, the parade started, and we started to get some fun looks at people dressed up. There were all kinds of people dressed up and they were wearing anything from chain mail, ...

People clapped and cheered for these men, which I think was because it was fairly warm and we realized later the parade route was LONG. 

 ... extremely tall hats and cowbells (which they were ringing), ...

 ... fancy dresses, ...

 ... and military apparel. I should also mention that you see most people in the parade are carrying flowers. This is because people who are watching the parade give them flowers by randomly running up to someone, give them a hug, cheek kisses, and a flower (sometimes a baked good on a string). It was a bit strange, but fun too :).

Since we had been waiting a long time for any parade to start, we watched about 20 min, and then had to go take a break in the shade with Carsten where we changed his diaper, fed him, and then discovered that he will drink water from a Nalgene water bottle. In fact, he was OBSESSED with the water bottle and if he couldn't be drinking from it, he needed to be playing with it, which he did for the next ~30 min while we walked back to our train station. Now at this point, I should mention that since he won't take a bottle anymore, we've been trying to get him to take a sippy cup for the better part of two months, and haven't really had any measured success with this. So, when he jumps straight to a cup, it's a bit ironic, and quite a bit messier. Sigh. We'll get it figured out I'm sure. Anyway, he was pretty cute while drinking from the water bottle, so here's some photos!

Carsten drinking water from the water bottle.

Me saying, "Seriously?!" and Carsten saying "You bet!"

 We walked back along the river on the side without a parade route to avoid the crowds. And we just had to take a photo of this really cute building.

Triangle building.

 And since it was a lovely day, it was fun to take some photos of Zurich as well. This is the river, and church you see is Grossmunster, which is a lovely church that you can actually go up to the top of one of the steeples by climbing a bunch of stairs.

 This is Carsten and I by Lake Zurich, and yes, he was still playing with the water bottle.

 It was now close to 5 pm, and the parade was still going! Imagine walking in a 2+ hour parade! Crazy. The blowing up the snowman was to be somewhere around 6 pm, and we didn't want to stay another hour for something that would likely make Carsten cry (late night + loud noises are usually a bad combination). So luckily, our train home was still running, so we took it home and had brats for supper :). Here's a picture of the finished snowman and you'll be happy to know it took 10 min 56 sec for it to explode. If you want to see an exploding photo, go here: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=de&u=http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sechsel%25C3%25A4uten&ei=Pf2jTa-NCoyhOrft2MYJ&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCcQ7gEwAQ&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dboogg%2Bzurich%2B2011%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26rls%3Den%26prmd%3Divns
Andy said the remains were still smoldering this morning when he went in to work.

We enjoyed our first festival, and spent most of the time going 'I don't understand _____', which was still enjoyable because we both like to come up with explanations for things we don't understand :).

Today Carsten and I are going to be doing laundry, cleaning the house, and getting groceries in preparation for seeing Andy's parents who will be landing in Zurich TOMORROW! :) Hooray for visitors!