It is currently freakishly hot here in Zürich. Well, I guess it isn't so hot, but the utter lack of air conditioning means that there is almost zero chance to cool down. When I got in to Zürich yesterday evening, my flat was quite toasty.
Eventually, it became cooler outside, so I opened my (screenless) door and windows as wide as possible, and actually slept with everything just open to the outside. Since I'm on the first floor and have had a cat stalker, this made me a little nervous, but it was too hot for any other option. And, luckily, there just aren't that many bugs in Zürich (and, compared to Alaska, the bugs anywhere else are really nothing anyways), so it works to have everything open even without screens.
Thanks to my jet lag and lack of sleep for the previous 30 hours, I actually slept rather well until about 6 am, when the planes started roaring over my building. My neighborhood, Schwamendingen, seems to get the prime plane-landing time slots of 6 am (for an hour or so) and 11 pm (again, for an hour or so). Actually, one of the selling points of my current flat was that the plane traffic is much quieter here than it was at my old flat. It's amazing what moving 1.2 km can do for you! Although it is definitely quieter, with all of my windows and a door wide open, the plane traffic was enough to wake me up.
Which brings me to the most fantastic piece of junk mail I have ever received, which was waiting for me in my mailbox when I got home.
Ever since I move to Zürich almost 3 years ago, there has been a tussle between Germany and Switzerland as to when and where flights can approach the Zürich airport over German airspace. Recently this dispute ended with Switzerland making quite a few concessions, which means more air traffic over Zürich city. Given how much Swiss people like their quiet, this caused an uproar and is definitely a sensitive topic in my neighborhood, which was one of those that was affected by this change. They must be getting ready to have a vote about something related, because I had this fantastic postcard in the mail:
If you take a closer look, you can see that the directions state that if you see a plane crashing into your house, you should grab your child and your hard hats and hide under a table. Because that would definitely help if a plane crashed into your house? And everyone has hard hats lying around?
Also, apparently plane noise can cause heart attacks (third line down)? And when the airplane noise woke me up and disturbed me this morning, I should've put on some noise-canceling headphones that would be hanging from my ceiling. Guess I'll know for next time!
I don't know exactly what this postcard is for (although I think I'm supposed to vote no for sonething...), but it is totally amazing. I think I'm going to keep it and frame it as a shining example of the random things I have gotten in the mail here.
Eventually, it became cooler outside, so I opened my (screenless) door and windows as wide as possible, and actually slept with everything just open to the outside. Since I'm on the first floor and have had a cat stalker, this made me a little nervous, but it was too hot for any other option. And, luckily, there just aren't that many bugs in Zürich (and, compared to Alaska, the bugs anywhere else are really nothing anyways), so it works to have everything open even without screens.
Thanks to my jet lag and lack of sleep for the previous 30 hours, I actually slept rather well until about 6 am, when the planes started roaring over my building. My neighborhood, Schwamendingen, seems to get the prime plane-landing time slots of 6 am (for an hour or so) and 11 pm (again, for an hour or so). Actually, one of the selling points of my current flat was that the plane traffic is much quieter here than it was at my old flat. It's amazing what moving 1.2 km can do for you! Although it is definitely quieter, with all of my windows and a door wide open, the plane traffic was enough to wake me up.
Which brings me to the most fantastic piece of junk mail I have ever received, which was waiting for me in my mailbox when I got home.
Ever since I move to Zürich almost 3 years ago, there has been a tussle between Germany and Switzerland as to when and where flights can approach the Zürich airport over German airspace. Recently this dispute ended with Switzerland making quite a few concessions, which means more air traffic over Zürich city. Given how much Swiss people like their quiet, this caused an uproar and is definitely a sensitive topic in my neighborhood, which was one of those that was affected by this change. They must be getting ready to have a vote about something related, because I had this fantastic postcard in the mail:
If you take a closer look, you can see that the directions state that if you see a plane crashing into your house, you should grab your child and your hard hats and hide under a table. Because that would definitely help if a plane crashed into your house? And everyone has hard hats lying around?
Also, apparently plane noise can cause heart attacks (third line down)? And when the airplane noise woke me up and disturbed me this morning, I should've put on some noise-canceling headphones that would be hanging from my ceiling. Guess I'll know for next time!
I don't know exactly what this postcard is for (although I think I'm supposed to vote no for sonething...), but it is totally amazing. I think I'm going to keep it and frame it as a shining example of the random things I have gotten in the mail here.
