Only a week into living in Switzerland and we've already experienced our first wacky Swiss Holiday. Well, I guess we can't call it a Swiss holiday, as it is only a holiday in the canton of Zurich. Personally, I'm willing to embrace any holiday that allows my husband to take an afternoon off of work and lend a hand with the kids, regardless of how strange it is.
The official name of the holiday is Sechselauten. From what I understand, back in medieval times, the work day started at sun up, and ended at sun down for most of the year. But in the summertime, the workday ended strictly at 6 p.m. and the people of Zurich could enjoy some daylight. So Sechselauten celebrates the beginning of summer hours. In the spirit of becoming one with Swiss culture, I have STRONGLY encouraged Bryan to embrace this wonderful tradition and high tail it home from work early all summer. Apparently his office and his boss don't fully support this holiday.
My mom and I were introduced to Sechselauten on Saturday while enjoying a glass of wine at a cafe by the river. We soon heard the whistle of a marching band and then noticed all kinds of people dressed in old fashioned costumes walking around town. When curiosity finally got the best of us, I asked a friendly looking Swiss family what the deal was. For some reason one of the women found our question hysterical while another women explained that it was part of the holiday and we would see people dressed in period clothing all weekend. She wasn't kidding. Men, Women, children, and even the occasional dog were dressed in costume throughout the weekend.
On Monday afternoon, all the stores in Zurich closed and everyone had the afternoon off school and work. The parade started at 3 and went on FOREVER. It's the first parade I've ever been to where people held ticketed seats. There were 2 rows of benches along on each side of the street along the entire parade route. The benches were numbered and apparently people had purchased tickets for a prime view of the festivities. Many of the ticketed spectators had huge baskets of flowers that they handed out to parade marchers. Either they knew the people they handed them to, or it was the craziest speed dating event ever, because they would run out into the parade with a flower, hand it to a marcher, and then fake kiss them 3 times on the cheek before running back to their seat. There were beautiful horses and floats and best of all, wine pourers who handed out glasses of wine to the people sitting on the benches. Needless to say, we were not ticketed spectators and only lasted about 30 minutes of the 3 hr parade. I'm hoping the ticket holders in our section didn't pay top dollar for their seats, because listening to the 3 crazy American kids behind them, whining and crying about not being able to see the parade, probably got old pretty quickly.
The BEST part of Sechselauten, and without a doubt the most bizarre part, is the burning of the BÖÖGG. Up until yesterday, grandma thought it was the burning of the boob, which would admittedly be much more bizarre. The BÖÖGG is a big old fake snowman that they stick on a pole about 30 or 40 feet in the air in the middle of the city. Then they build the mother of all bonfires underneath it. This takes a good part of the day because the swiss are very concise about everything they do, and there was definate order to how these stacks of twigs were arranged. The real fun starts at 6 p.m. when they set fire to the wood and the clock starts ticking. This is televised if you don't want to join the masses and by six o'clock, I assure you we weren't about to drag the kids to join the masses. So everyone stands around the BÖÖGG and men on horseback gallop around it with flags, waiting for the snowman to not just burn, but explode. I watched the burning thinking there would be a spectacular fireworks display when the snowman finally burned, because I had been told by my ill informed husband that the snowman was filled with fireworks. Let's just say, it was slightly more exciting than watching the groundhog glance at his shadow. The head of the BÖÖGG is actually filled with explosives and we all waited for the head to explode in one big KABOOM!
The whole reason for burning frosty in the center of town is to time how long it takes for his head to explode. If it explodes quickly, it will be a long and pleasant summer. If it takes it's time exploding, you guessed it, summer will be short and rainy. This year it took 12 minutes and 55 seconds. In comparison to other years, this was pretty quick and all predictions point to a great summer in the Alps.
