Independence Day - Swiss Style

Yesterday was National Swiss Day. We had big plans to trek out to Rheinfalls, and then those plans changed to a closer destination of Üetliberg, and then we thought maybe we would just head to our neighborhood park hopefully to find a good enough view of the lake. After my run though, things kind of went south for our plans to experience a big, all out Swiss celebration. We packed up the pup, grabbed a couple chairs, tripod, camera, and a couple glasses of wine and set off to the park. People love their Swiss day here. It was pretty much like our 4th of July, but with less blue and no Uncle Sam. Everyone was grilling, eating, drinking, and setting off fireworks. I can't remember the last time I actually set fireworks off with all the bans back in the States from droughts.

We decided to pass on setting up shop here because the view didn't quite work. Back to the flat we went in hopes to see some shows from our balcony. We must have sat outside for a couple hours watching fireworks go up all around us, listening to bad techno music coming from the neighbors, and simply enjoying the night. Even our neighbors were nice enough to have a quick show for us (seen in the 2nd picture above). I think they wanted to give us a true Swiss welcome. Maybe next year we will make it to one of the bigger shows, but no complaints here about our night.