Xmas around here

Hey everyone,

Back for a quick update on things over here. The xmas lights in Zurich went up a couple weeks ago, but they are very disappointing. They just have a bunch of white tubes (think florence lights) hanging down the main street, that's it. I heard they are supposed to show patterns and all that but I've never seen it yet. On the bright side, the haptbahnhof (main trainstation) is pretty nice. It has a xmas market inside and a huge crystal tree (don't have a good pic of the tree, i'll get it from keegs later. Here are some pics.





On the 5th, there was a celebration in another town (Kussnacht am Rigi) called klausjagen (Chasing the Klaus, a.k.a. Santa). It's basically a thing to chase away bad spirits (not sure what santa has to do with this, but santa is like a church person, not a north pole person, so it's kinda religious). At around 20:15 all the lights go out in town and the procession starts. The first part is a bunch of people with whips constantly cracking them. I'm amazed that not many people get smoked by the whips since it's pretty dark and the crowd is close. Following the Whips are a bunch of people carrying iffeles. Iffeles are hats with candles inside, made to look like stained glass in churches. Following these are klaus. Once he passes, a band comes by and then 700 people with bells come by. Finally 180 people with horns made from bull horns make their way down the route. Inbetween all the groups are a lot of people just walking as well. It was pretty neat to see and was really loud. There was also a person that walked by giving bread. apparently if you get bread, then you've been good. If you've been back, they throw you in a sac and carry you off (don't think they kidnaped anyone though, but it's popular at partys to do that to some kid).

Check out the pictures below.


whip








Iffeles




Klaus


band


bells


horns