Off to Zürich in a few hours. Posting will be sparse, although I may try to post from the plane before we fly out of cell range. Won't that be exciting? Gosh.

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Ahh. Now this is stylin: free Internet access in the Business Class lounge at JFK. So I am not yet getting my wireless gadgetry groove on. It is a bit odd, though: the computer keyboard is (naturlich) a Swiss keyboard, QWERTZ instead of QWERTY, an abundance of ö, ä and ü-style letters, and I cant for the life of me locate the friggin apostrophe. Which is odd. I know the Swiss use them. Perhaps they are each issued their own apostrophe, for personal use, and those who dont have one are out of luck. But still: access is free, and it came with a nice bit of lamb, some salad, and Basmati rice.

Business Class is a good thing, and its even better when youre not paying for it.

Youd think, though, that along with the food and Internet they could have comped me an apostrophe.

My flight departs at 6:30, about 2 hours from now, so Im going to hang out here, scarf some Oreos, and watch the big big planes yoom up and down.

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Gosh...this just keeps getting better...the stewards just came 'round with champagne, which I thought was a sure indication that we'd have a delayed takeoff.

But no! It was just because we needed champagne. Because we're Passengers, dammit! At least, that's what we are here in Business and First. God knows what they are back in steerage.

We're about to take off, so I must turn of my wireless device, lest I cause this multimillion-dollar piece of flying hardware to crash.

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Right now, I'm munching on 400g of Birchermüesli. It's full of Weizen and Haferflocken and fruit and yogurt and other good things. We like Birchermüesli.

We don't like, so much, the jetlag. I actually went through a 4-hour workshop at what was, for me, 2 in the morning. No one in the room knew how close I was to leaping onto the table and doing a brief, stumbling jig before collapsing into unconsciousness and crushing the LCD projector.

But I got through it. Afterwards I staggered over to Palavrion and had myself some Kalbknackwurst, which is, essentially, a giant hot dog. A really good giant hot dog. With onion sauce--no, mit Zweibelsosse. Zweibel is my most favorite of all German words, say it with me: zveebel. How can you not like saying that? Second favorite is Kartoffel, meaning potato, and my good giant hot dog came with some of those, too, shredded and fried up a treat. Add to that a couple of decilitres of the good Swiss white wine--they sell it by the dl, rather than the fat American quantity that we call a glass, and 1dl is clearly marked on the glass so you know you're getting what you pay for--and you've got yourself a fine meal for the semi-conscious.

And, of course, I had to get some of the famous Mövenpick ice cream, even though I really, really needed to collapse: a scoop of pistachio and a scoop of Crème Brûlée, a really fine flavor.

Then it was off, through the rain, back to my small hotel room to feel sorry for myself and alone. But it was, I think, the exhaustion. This morning I feel much more adventurous. That, and full of the good Swiss coffee they've got at the office...so superior to the watery horror that is Flavia.

First impressions: they have graffiti in Switzerland. I had assumed that the Swiss were all about ultra-clean hyperefficiency, with none of that sort of nonsense. Ever. I expected there to be a squad of fully trained and licensed graffito-wäschers who would spring into action the moment paint touched concrete, insuring that it would mar the clean wall for mere moments. But there it was, familiar and urban as my taxi crept along in Zurich traffic.

There's construction going on everywhere around the office, further blurring the line between here and New York...downtown Manhattan has had its streets torn up for three years, now. The difference is, here they'll get everything they need to do completed the first time around and won't disturb the asphalt for another decade. In New York, they'll do the job, repave, and then tear it up again in a year to do something else that they should've done while they were mucking about the first time around.

Friendly and helpful people who speak English abound. I'm a bit reticent to use my rusty German, but I spend time listening to the television (note to self: regale readers with descriptions of Weird Swiss Cartoons) and to other people, so I can better shape my ümläüts and such.

Further bulletins as events and dining warrant...

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I've managed to locate an Internet cafe (Quanta Virtual Fun Space) in the Old City, so I bought an hour of access with included apostrophes to give me something to do while I wait out the rain. I'd keep wandering around the cobblestoned streets despite it if my wind-proof ultra-compact Totes umbrella had not become a wind-smashed ultra-compact Totes piece of creap. It's been gray and drizzly in Zürich all week, but the weather is supposed to improve tomorrow, so I may take the train to Bern to see the medieval city and buy some cheese from the nearby Ementaler region.

How to be willfully and persistently a foreigner in Zürich.

Step one: wear a t-shirt, without anything over it. Even a colored t-shirt. While wearing my logo-less colored tees under my casual work polos makes me more sartorially European, wearing them by themselves simply isn't done here. After wandering around Bahnhofstrasse for awhile I felt like I was out in my underwear. This was mitigated by my brown shoes and dark socks, but not by much.

Step two: go to Coop City--a sort of a combination Target/supermarket--and buy a large quantity of chocolate. The only other people I saw with multiple blocks of the stuff were two young women from England, who were being given chocolate advice by a native fellow who seemed quite keen on demonstrating his chocolate knowledge.

Step three: while wearing the aforementioned t-shirt, wander around carrying the chocolate in a translucent plastic bag. This makes you a person in his underwear carrying an easily-observed large amount of chocolate and, therefore, Not From Around Here.

So, I scuttled back to my hotel room to drop off my sweet cargo and change into a polo shirt. I felt much better after that.

The Old City is the Bohemian-style portion of Zürich where, if you're inclined, you can find funky shops and strip clubs, or buy marital aids and suits made entirely of hemp (or Hanf, as they call it). This last shop drew my attention because of the large potted Hanf plants at its front door, the sort of thing that would get you arrested and your shop confiscated in America. In addition to the hookas, the fibrous wallets, shirts, hats and pants, there was a small fridge chock-full of various drink-products with added Hanfy goodness. Hanf wine, hanf beer, even a Hanf-ified version of Red Bull. I bought a Hanf beer on Friday night...damned if it didn't give me a bit of a Hanf-head. Fortunately I had snacks available.

This afternoon, while wandering around the New City on the other side of the river, I ran smack into a loud, exuberant, rainbow-colored, bass-thumping Gay Pride parade--June is Pride Month, but it's been many years since I made an effort to get to New York or DC to join in the festivities, and I'd forgotten about it.

Before I came to Switzerland I did a bit of reading on the culture, to avoid being too ugly, and the author mentioned that the "typical" Swiss traits of conservative orderliness are more often found in the older citizens. The Pride parade, as it passed raucously by, blocked an intersection, and right at the front of a small line of cars was a tall, white-haired man in his late sixties or early seventies, standing in front of his maroon Subaru wagon, completely flummoxed. It was all over his face: who are these people? What are they doing? He was pacing towards the parade crowd, then back to his car, chewing his lips and scratching his head with an attitude of annoyance and confusion. Eventually he accosted a group of brightly colored lesbians who rebuffed him and threw candy at him, further adding to his dismay. He never quite reached true apoplexy--that simply wouldn't do. But this crowd, with its loud, thumping music, its bare-chested, leather clad men, its boldly-pierced women, and its spraying jets of festive shaving cream, was clearly something that offended his sensibilities.

Not because they were gay.

Because they were blocking traffic.

I saw a solitary man on the other side of the street holding a sign and taking pictures of the parade-goers as they passed by. He was facing away from me, and I thought, "Ten to one that sign's about Jesus." There was always a group or two along the Pride parade routes in the states, telling us how we were all going to hell and that God really, really hated us.

After the parade passed, I saw that his sign had been printed by Amnesty International, and had something to do with the human nature of love. On a side street behind him, spraypainted on a building in two colors, were the words PISS IN BUSH.

Which, given the nature of the parade and its high proportion of various fetishists who were demonstrably into various activities involving various fluids, could have meant any one of a number of things...but probably didn't.

Other than something about Zürich never being "red" spraypainted in large letters on a tarp covering a scaffolding, that's the only political sentiment I've been exposed to here.

And that's just fine with me.

I've got about ten minutes left on the access meter, here, so I'm going to proofread this a bit, post it, and head back out onto the cobbles. The rain's let up, and hopefully it will stay that way until I meander back to my hotel, across the river.

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And now I depart. The Swiss Biz Class Lounge, like the one in NY, has handy free Internet access. After a week here, I have located the apostrophe--look, I'll use one right now.

See?

Clever boy.

I'll be chased by the sun, heading back...I'm leaving at 12:30PM, and after a nine hour flight, I will arrive less than three hours after I left, at 3:10PM local time. That should be interesting...perhaps I will try to pull of some kind of high stakes robbery en route, when no one can account for all of those time-warped hours.

But I'm sure they've already thought of that. Clever people, the Swiss.

I've been told that the jetlaggishness is much less noticeable heading West than it is heading East; we'll see about that.

They've got LCD displays at every seat on articulated swing arms, and Return of the King is playing...that'll take care of three hours or so.

And I suppose I'll figure out something to do with the other six, eventually.

More when I get back. Plus photos. The Swiss don't use CDMA technology, so my cell phone/PDA/camera/fondue set was useful for keeping appointments, taking pictures, and eating melted cheese, but I couldn't send photos anywhere or make phone calls.

Even though I was seven thousand miles away from his ranch, I knew that Ronald Reagan had died within, literally, ten minutes of the event. Was it my psychic Gipper bond? No...that faded as the Alzheimer's progressed. The last thought I received from Ron was five years ago: Mammy! Put down that warhead!

No, the knowledge was gained via my psychic Wolf Blitzer link. CNN: shrinking the world as much as humanly possible, and offering loud, puddle-deep commentary to accompany the deed.

Now: I'm off to score some complimentary snacks.

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I have returned! And within hours of my arrival in the US, I was mercilessly assaulted by the thuggish snot-villain that is pleased to call itself my immune system. It's just pollen, you know...I don't need the interior of my nose to swell up to the size and consistency of a cantaloup stuffed into a film cannister to defend myself from a tree's reproductive excess.

Similarly, Bob the Cat--irked by the scents wafting through open windows--welcomed me home by expressing her need to defend us from All Other Creatures by pissing on the dining room floor.

Home again. Joy.

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Before I start this post, I must nip downstairs for something chilly to drink (to accompany my [fanfare] New Modern Air Chilling Device!)

[nip]

Drat. Nothing but Lactaid and juice dregs. Room temperature seltzer and a big glass of ice will have to do.

Sunday morning, I decided I needed a bit of a pick-me-up (what with me international-style travel weariness and all), so I went out and bought a mandolin. The Ovation MCS-148, lovingly fashioned in Korea from scrap mahogany, spruce, and melted car tires. It's the sort of instrument that will make a purist bluegrass type give you the evil eye for bringing it to the festival and mutter, Ya'll are goin' to mando-hell. Mando-hell, I am reliably informed, consists of: eternity, you, your mandolin, and a room full of banjo players who never play anything...they just tune their instruments.

But I didn't really want to spend a minimum 0f $800 for a passable archtop mandolin, and the Ovation electric mandolins sound decent enough plugged in for live play or for recording, so I bought it. It's neither an A-style or F-style. It's a dwarf-style. That is: it looks an awful lot like an Ovation steel string guitar, only smaller and with a big head. The aforementioned evil-eyed purists would also say that it sounds less like a mandolin and more like a small guitar, but all I wanted was something new with strings on it that I could noodle around on.

And so there it sits in the corner, looking like I didn't read the care label and put it in the dryer after I washed it instead of hanging it up outside.

I'm learning to play Led Zeppelin on it.

No, really: Hey Hey What Can I Do, Going to California, The Battle of Evermore. Rock on.

Plus, because it's electric, I can hook it up to my Boss GT-6 and make it sound like I'm playing it through a Marshall stack. Rock on.

This is not an option. If I find that you are not rocking on, I will come to your house and play Indian Killed a Woodchuck at you until your nose bleeds.

So, yeah, I bought a mandolin. I got the idea of acquiring a new stringed instrument early last Saturday evening in Zürich, looking through the window of a closed shop that sold various odd items...assorted bouzouki-looking things, an electric sitar, some frame drums and flutes. The exchange rate--about 81 American cents to the Swiss franc--made the prices look pretty good, if I could manage to get whatever it was I impulsively bought back home on the plane instead of shipping it in an easily-crushable box. But the store was closed, so my impulse remained unfulfilled.

When I got back, I thought about getting an archguitar--sort of an extended-range classical guitar with anywhere from nine to thirteen strings, that ends up sounding a bit like a lute. But a quick Googling told me that this was a bespoke intrument--if I wanted one, I would have to find a luthier to build it, or stumble across a used one. Too expensive and I'm too impatient, so my original bouzouki gaze through a Zürich shop window ended up motivating a trip to my local music store.

I also bought two air conditioners and a newer, larger television last week. This is because I'm being mercilessly crushed by the Bush-driven Middle Class Squeeze. Gosh, am I miserable...and indexed!

(I think that's probably the extent of my political rant for this evening, so if you're in the mood for more and better, move along).

We've had summery quick-flash thundersqualls moving through all day, on their way up the valley to dump some rain on New York's sweaty asphalt. A single 90+ degree day last week was what motivated us to get the new A/C units, which promptly caused the temperature to plunge to the low 70s, but this evening we're reminded why we got the things: home offices in attic rooms. Bob the Cat--being of some distant desert-cat lineage--routinely hangs out up here, but I--being of some distant swine lineage--turn into a melted pat of butter when it gets above 85 degrees. So modern chilled air is a blessing indeed. And they came with remote controls. So if I'm simply too hot to roll my desk chair four feet to the right...I don't have to.

Wondrous age, just wondrous.

And now, having regaled you with Tales Of The Banal! I will go downstairs to clean out the catboxes and do the dishes. That was the deal I made with Pea so that I wouldn't have to do the food shopping this evening, because there was only Lactaid and juice dregs in the fridge.

See? Full circle.

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And now, we will proceed past the Half-Assed Political Commentary exhibit-- Bobby! The sign says DO NOT FEED THE PUNDIT!--and on to the Hall of Noises In My Head. Move along, children...

For the past week I have had "(I've Got A) Golden Ticket" from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory playing my head. Especially the bit where Jack Albertson and Peter Ostrum sing it's a gooolden daaay as they're dancing around and Peter's voice is wretchedly off-key. They said they were going to redo that in post-production, you know, but they never did. Bastards.

The other song I've had running through my head is from a cartoon I saw in Switzerland. It was also related to chocolate, and had an endlessly repeating chorus that included the basso-repetition of the phrase choco-choco in the background. The cartoon showed a black kid and a white kid in school-uniformish attire--blue suits, white shirts and red striped ties. They were on a beach, jumping around and encouraging all the beach goers to go choco-choco along with them. It looked to me like the suited duo were trying to sell some new chocolate confection that they had invented, but that was because I thought that this was an actual cartoon, with a bit of plot.

But it wasn't. The quick acquisition of some Google knowledge has revealed that what looked like a badly-animated Saturday morning cartoon incident was actually a video, for these guys: Soul Control. They're from Germany, which explains why the song involves counting in Spanish. The music that I found so repetitive and juvenile that I couldn't change the channel comes on a Maxi-CD with a Single Version, an Extended Version, a "Soul Control having fun with Ersin & Börek" version, a Sexy Dance Mix version, and a Fiesta version.

And yes, there is a dance that goes with it too, which, I now understand, is what the suited cartoon kids were doing as they jumped frenetically around the cartoon beach: hip swing, clap clap jump jump, hitch hiker, slap slap, rolly polly, holly molly...I'm not kidding. There are 13 separate moves.

This is one thing that really is America's fault. The Mindless Summer Dance Hit With Accompanying Choreography is our cultural demon-child.

If you're one of those unfortunate souls who has Real Player, you can see a video for yourself, and have this irritating, mindless song stuck in your head, too. No .MPG or .MP3, I'm afraid...Germany is the land of Real Player and .RAM files, which is strangely appropriate.

As is, I suppose, the fact that I've had two songs about chocolate looping in my head since I got back from Zurich. I brought back over a kilogram of the stuff in assorted styles and bar sizes, which we've whittled away to a few random squares of various chocolately hues over the past week. My eyes are brown now.

Between that and the kilogram of cheese I smuggled back (500 grams each of Gruyère and Emmenthaler...the good stuff, man, this will get you off), I'm fairly sure that I've added a full millimeter of tasty fat to the inner walls of all my critical blood vessels.

Mmm...tasty fat...

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