Stars of different varieties

On Friday night, himself decided that he really wanted to see if he could see the Perseids. So, after a cursory search online to check what direction to look in around what time, we set off up the Uetliberg to see what we could see. There was far more light pollution than we thought, with Zurich casting a dirty orange glow up quite far into the sky. It also didn't help that we were looking towards the airport, but thankfully planes and Perseids are reasonably different. We were hanging out in front of the fancy Uto Kulm hotel and restaurant, which kept its lights on quite late, and the flashing red warning lights on the telecoms tower also hampered star watching. We did see quite a few though, 10 or so, streaking across the sky. One of himself's colleagues come out to meet us, we drank our tea and coffee from our thermoses, ate the chocolate chili brownies I'd just made, and had a fun night doing not very much. We hiked down from Uetliberg with torches as the trains were only running from several stations further down where there were normal houses. It was a bit nerve-wracking in places, where the road surface gave way to gravel trails, but it wasn't too cold and the torchlight disguised gradients that we might otherwise have balked at. We got home and into bed around 3:00am thanks to Zurich's excellent night transport system.

The other source of very noticeable non-natural light was testing of the lighting rigs for Street Party, which was on on Saturday. After the expected sleep in, I went into town to see Fedde le Grand, a DJ I own a few tracks by, who was playing in Burkliplatz from 2:30 - 4:00pm. Most public transport stopped well before the city centre so I walked the rest of the way in and found a good crowd assembled just before his set was about to begin. There were plenty of people in normal jeans and t-shirts, but also a good number in wings, fishnets, cat or rabbit ears, body paint and one woman in what looked like peacock feathers and a beaded curtain. The police, who were standing around in groups of four in sedate dark blue combats and shirts with orange hi-vis jackets, were constantly being latched onto by party-goers who wanted a photo. Fedde le Grand's set was good, although I couldn't understand why ear protection was being touted so strongly. The Swiss are not, by and large, a very health and safety conscious nation (you just have to see roadworks here to figure it out - very little signage, no protection and equipment left at the side of the road over the weekend). I had problems hearing anything but the bass until someone seemed to turn up the volume partway through his slot.

It was only later that I realised why you needed ear protection - the floats, or "Love Mobiles" as they were called. Being pulled at a snail's pace through the crowd by what looked like standard hauliers, the extra-long flatbeds held anything from full R&B dance crews to scaffolding inhabited by black men in white tuxedoes and white women poledancing, to "pirate ships" with smoke cannons and dancing Jack Sparrows, to the "Dutch Invasion" truck with as many people in orange shirts as could fit, jumping up and down hard enough to shake the truck with just a sex doll in traditional costume as their gimmick. These were loud. And the bass speakers in the back were powerful enough to make you feel like you were being throttled.

I broke away from the crowds and passed by the stalls selling glittery cowboy hats, coloured wigs, silly glasses and plastic lais - I gave the food stalls a wide berth (too many tv shows about the ones in London) and instead headed to the permanent Sterner Grill near Bellevue to grab a sausage and hard roll. Then I wandered around the old town, which was almost deserted with most of the shops shut. I must remember that in case I want some nice photos next year. I hid out in Starbucks and ate the brownies I'd brought with me and waited to see if anyone else was coming in to town - the weather was going from spitting rain to starting to rain in earnest, so in the end I headed home for dinner and a check on the rain radar. I also wanted to see Eric Prydz play from 10-12pm, but decided that the state of both the weather and the crowds would make it less than enjoyable. The atmosphere was great - very friendly - but if there was an element of crushing at 3:00pm and people were drinking steadily, I wasn't sure I'd like it seven hours later. I have to face the fact that I listen to this music in my room on a pair of nice headphones. I don't necessarily do the lifestyle as well.

Sunday was quiet but reasonably productive - washing, tidying up and a really nice Mexican dinner. Well, what passes for Mexican for us.

Monday brought the letter from the AHV. I printed out the contract that had not been signed by the client and put it in an envelope to them. I wrote a cover letter, in English. I pointed out in no uncertain terms that they had known I needed a decision from them by Monday in order to supply documents to the Migrationsamt, and although they knew that was not going to arrive they did not even have the courtesy to contact me, this after leaving my application sitting around for nearly two months.

Then I deleted it and just put the standard this is the enclosure, let me know if you need anything else. My faith is sufficiently dented that I am not going to risk provoking them and having something else happen.

Monday brought a rather nasty shock in the afternoon. I was trying to get a widget to work on my Gmail page when I noticed that it had failed to download email from one of my addresses... since the middle of July. After correcting the password, I had nearly 80 emails, two of which were from potential clients. I may pay for this dearly. But I really wish that Gmail had warned me somehow, without me having to go into the Settings and see that it was failing to collect mail.

I suppose that's my lesson from all of this. Never assume that anyone else is going to tell you if something is going wrong.

After that, I headed out to Ikea. I didn't fancy anything in the fridge and needed some more hanging files and a box to keep them in. I got all that and a half-price plate of Kottbular meatballs and then headed home to file some of the huge amounts of paperwork that moving here has generated, and putting some of the paperwork that came from Reading into storage again. I appreciate that Ikea have reasonable build quality, but 12 nuts and bolts on each file box was a bit much. My fingers hurt now.