Bear with me while I'm trying to manoeuvring through the life in a country that most people from outside know as the home of chocolate, cheese with big holes, accurate watches and a quirky language. And in case you haven't noticed: Cuckoo-Clocks are German!
It's been a while since my last post, and I want to show you some of my recent pictures.
We had a company-dinner lately. The company gave out two tickets for the Interlaken Green Field Festival (Hard Rock and Heavy Metal), and we organized a little airguitar-contest. For those not knowing what an airguitar is: it's an imaginary guitar that people play at rock-concerts. So here he is: The winner of the tickets, accompanied by Queen & Paul Rodgers.
Last weekend I went to the Botanic Gardens in Zurich. It was a hot and sunny day, and this colorful dragonfly grabbed my attention.
No comment, just something for fun. I took this at the Bike Days in Solothurn and put 16 pictures of one jump together. Shutter: 1/2000s; Aperture: f:5.6; Rate: 8 pics/s. Therest was 7 hours photoshopping (them bicycles have too many spokes...)
Switzerland is a tax-haven. Our politicians take every chance to deny that, but it’s a fact: Property tax is very low here, and we have double-tax contracts with only a few other countries.
The Germans, and especially their financial minister Peer Steinbrück, don’t like this. I don’t blame him. So the OECD came up with the idea, to make a ‘black list’ with all countries that are so called ‘tax haven’. With Switzerland ranking on first place.
Now our politicians started to panic. In order not to be put on that list our financial minister Rudolf Merz announced a week ago that the banker’s discretion shall be weakened. Then first doubts occurred that this special list maybe didn’t even exist. Switzerland was furious.
Peer Steinbrück assumed himself to have been victorious. In an interview he said: ‘You don’t have to send out the cavalry. The Indians only need to know that the cavalry exists!’ (Link is in German) It's a comparison widely used in Germany. In this context the cavalry being the ‘black list’, the Indians being the Swiss. We didn’t like it though – and our parliament fired back with speeches way below the belt. Some referred to Mr. Steinbrück as 'ugly German', others even put him in comparison with the Nazi’s back in the 30’s in Germany.
But today I found out some interesting facts: Steinbrück’s saying refers to the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment under the command of General Custer. The Indians are the Hunkpapa-Sioux tribes Cheyenne and Lakota, with their chiefs Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse and Big Foot. Custer attacked their village at Little Bighorn. Since the heavy cavalry-weapons were inapplicable in the hilly terrain and Custer underestimated the Sioux both in number and tactics, he suffered a crushing defeat.
Having learned this, I must say I’m proud to be referred to as an Indian. Mind your tongue, Mr. Steinbrück, or we might strike back and give you a real whitewash!
Finally I got myself a macro lens. And of course I had to try it out immediately. So what better to do than taking the camera to the shop and then leaving for the zoo's giant Masoala building?
At first I was a bit worried since I always struggle keeping the camera still. And with a macro lens of that focal length (105mm) and that aperture (f/2.8) you get a depth of field of only one or two millimeters at miminum distance. See the berry, that's only about 5mm big:
After having taken the usual pics of the cameleon and the turtles, I thought it was about time to see something new. It didn't take me long to find a couple of crested couas, and one was kind enough to pose for my camera:
And then something very unusual happened: Normally the lemurs in the masoala building hide in the trees or climb up and down the roof, so you don't really get near them. But today an aloatra gentle lemur appeared upfront of my camera and climbed down the tree very slowly, letting me take several pictures. Things don't get much better than this!!!
It truly was a disastrous weekend for Switzerland. Nothing but bad news...
Let’s look at the WEF: Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Turkish Prime Minister) left the meeting after a rather loud discussion/argument with Israel’s Prime Minister Ehut Olmert on Thursday evening, and shouted at the audience that he’d never return do Davos anymore. The WEF ended on Sunday evening, with more new questions than old questions answered.
Sports: Men’s Ski-Downhill and Woman’s Super-G on Saturday were cancelled due to fog. Of course no-one wants the athletes to race downhill at speeds of 100+ when you can’t even see the front tips of your own skies. Unfortunately these two races are the only ones of the weekend where Swiss athletes would have had a chance. In the Slaloms the Swiss didn’t even win a flowerpot...
Australia: Roger Federer lost the final of the Australia Open against his all-time rival Rafael Nadal and broke down in tears. Not that tears are a bad thing! I like athletes who show emotions! But Roger’s emotions just showed what the country felt overall after this weekend.
So is there really no good news at all? No.
Uhm, wait a minute! The Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl on Sunday! And their Quarterback, Big Ben Roethlisberger, is Swiss! Well, at least he has a Swiss name... Telling from reactions of dozens of journalists all over the country (Switzerland, not the US) you could think the guy really is Swiss. The facts are slightly different: Ben’s great-great-grandfather Karl left Unterfrittenbach in the bernese Emmental (that’s where the cheese with the big wholes comes from) in 1873 for the US. It was the time of the industrial revolution, when unemployment was very high in Switzerland and the government gave everyone CHF 100.—who decided to leave the country for good.
When the Steelers won the Super Bowl the last time in 2005 (where didn’t really matter), Ben was invited to visit the small village of his ancestor in the Emmental – before that he probably couldn’t even point out that tiny little cheese-and-chocolate-country on the map...
To cut a long thing short: The Swiss feel so bad after this disastrous weekend, that we have to be proud of a Football Superstar with Swiss roots, who’s even more American than President Barack Obama...
