Then Winter's Head Explodes

As every American and European alike knows, Europeans get a lot more vacation. In some cases, they also work shorter hours (for example, yesterday's Intl Herald Tribune reported on France's government encountering difficulties trying to re-lengthen its 10-year-old, 35-hour work week law, with half the problem being that the government itself doesn't appear to want it lengthened). In Switzerland as in many European countries, statutory minimum vacation time is four weeks but most employers grant five, as the holiday gods intended (by the way, were you aware that the statutory minimum vacation time in the USA is exactly...none? Most employers grant two weeks to employees of less than five years, but that's just from the goodness of their hearts). In any event, the U.S.'s Draconian vacation policies are a favorite "ice breaker" conversation topic raised by total strangers in Europe upon learning that we're American, a close second favorite topic only to U.S. foreign politics (usually the conversations last too briefly to include religion and sex...darn!).

Similarly where U.S. companies usually observe about 10 public holiday days per year, largely back-end loaded (Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas), Zürich employers for example observe about 15 holidays but largely front-end loaded (many religious days approaching and following Easter). I say "Zürich employers" and not "Swiss employers" because per the wonderfully decentralized Swiss system, the cantonal (county) governments call the shots so holidays apply on a cantonal not a national basis. Canton Zürich has already observed 6.5 holidays in 2008, with the absolute best being the '0.5' and uniquely the city of Zürich's...

Not a 10-minute walk from our front door and not 2 minutes from Steph's commuter train station, just off the southeast tip of Lake Zürich near where Hobbes and I prowl many mornings, lies a dirt fairground area called Sechseläutenplatz, named in honor of Zürich's spring holiday Sechseläuten (ZEX-zuh-loy-ten), celebrated on that spot for the past 100 years or so. On a mid-April Monday about five weeks ago, most Zürich employers granted the afternoon off for observance of the event--specifically, welcoming spring by exploding the head of Old Man Winter.

I took the top pic from outside the train station late that afternoon; the neighborhood was packed and the crowd is gawking towards the celebration Platz (you can click a pic to enlarge it). There had been a citywide children's parade Sunday afternoon which we watched briefly, followed by an adult parade earlier Monday with adults and children alike still adorned in their colorful historic guildhall dress costumes (left).

Stationed in the Platz is a two-story wooden pyre, an oversized version of the kind for burning someone at the stake. The victim on top is a 10-foot-tall snowman effigy, a symbol of winter called the Böögg (Böögg is a classic Swiss-German dialect word, there's no official written form so they just make it up; Böögg is a cognate with our bogeyman). Steph, Hobbes and I had seen Herr Böögg close up on Sunday (last rites?) near the parade; he's a giant, stuffed, intricately decorated and fairly jolly-looking traditional snowman (corncob pipe, button nose, etc.) with one major yet imperceptible difference--you guessed it, his head is full of fireworks! What better way to celebrate the last gasp of winter and inevitable onset of spring than by burning a giant snowman at the stake until his head explodes?!? I can't think of one (if you can I'd love to hear it).

Of course, the amount of time from the initial pyre lighting to full Böögg head-explosion foretells the coming summer's weather--the quicker the fireworks, the sunnier and warmer the summer (groundhog Punxsutawney Phil has the easy job, eh?). Bad news for summer 2008 as the defiant Böögg lasted over 26 minutes, apparently owing to some confusion with his head burning relatively quietly away from his neck but the neck then exploding. Scientific stuff, no doubt. Luckily as seen here, the Künzli Fleisch- and Wurstmobile made an appearance so that no one in the crowd waited 26 minutes without a sausage. And I can say that when those fireworks go, they are loud!

Chalk up Zürich's crazy Sechseläuten as one of those brilliant local-culture experiences only obtainable by living overseas. And in the end, who doesn't appreciate the afternoon off work to watch someone else's head explode for a change?