Every year in Zurich there is a holiday called Sech­seläuten, that celebrates the end of winter and the coming of summer. It is held on the Monday that follows Easter, so this year it was on the 13th of April (last year it was on the ~30th of April, the day before my on-site interiews :D). In the city of Zurich it is an official holiday, but it's only a "minor" one, so you can get only a half-day off.

There is a huge parade, in which the 39 guilds from Zurich take part. They dress up in …continue.

Yesterday, in Richter­swill, there was a turnip festival (or something like that), called Räbechilbi. At the festival there was a parade going around the village center with various figurines lighted up with carved up turnips lanterns. It was pretty cool.

One thing that I found in­ter­est­ing was that here kids were allowed to "play" with fire and carry around the turnip lanterns with lit candles inside them. In Romania, as soon as a kid would get anywhere close to fire, his or her parents would jump up saying "Go away from fire".

Also, there were a lot of lanterns laid out next to the road (probably several thousands). In …continue.