CH-CH-changes

T-minus 15 days until I depart for my winter holiday in Zurich. I can barely contain my excitement for this trip to the Mohan family adopted home (my last trip was a long weekend in April), so it's likely I'll be posting about things you may find interesting about Switzerland. Or you may not find them that interesting. Either way, I'm amusing myself.

Today's item: Christmas in Zurich. It is, in a word, fantastic. The city becomes a veritable holiday wonderland, but mostly in a tasteful Swiss-y way. The smell of roasting chesnuts in the air, a gargantuan Swarovski-festooned tree in the Hauptbahnhof, general cheer in the air. I do so love it.

I should probably wait until I'm there to take pictures myself, but perusing swissinfo.org brought me a bit of a shock: They have changed the holiday lights on the Bahnhofstrasse. Observe the lights that have been used since 1971 and that I have come to know and love over these past four years:

Now, please observe the new lights:

They look a little bit like the ones above my cube.

I am a teeny bit perturbed by this. I'm not going to make my final judgement before getting there to see them in person, because according to the article, they blink in a pleasing manner:

The chain of 275 seven-metre-long tubular bulbs stretches 1.1 kilometres down the middle of the street. Each tube has 32 light points, which turn on and off to send a ripple of light along the length of Bahnhofstrasse.

Sensors detect the number of people passing by and control the lights to make them more active when the street is busy.

Ok. So that's kind of cool. They also apparently cut down on the cost of electricity (gotta love Swiss efficiency).

I guess as long as they don't change the recipe for Caotina or Teuscher's champagne truffles, I'll be all right.