I had a cold all last week, so I watched a lot of television, including two pretty fascinating movies. One was a really interesting documentary called "51 Birch Street," about the filmmaker's parents' marriage. The scenes where he interviewed his father were really uncomfortable, because it seemed like his father wasn't really into answering the questions he was asking. But my favorite part was when he talked to this young rabbi about having found his mother's diary and whether or not he should read it. And the rabbi said, "Well, I know I would read it." It was amusing. The other film was "Vixen!" directed by Russell Mayer. It was genius.

This weekend I went to Zurich to visit my friend Angela from high school. We had a really fun time. She has a great group of friends there. She has been there for three years. On Saturday we went to the Christopher Street Day parade, which is what they call the Gay Pride parade. It was smaller than Chicago's, and kind of subdued because the weather was not great. That night we had dinner at a vegetarian restaurant/bar, with a rotating social circle. We stayed for five hours! At the end, paying the bill was interesting. In Switzerland, separate checks are never an issue. The waiter just checked off each item that each person wanted to pay for.

On Sunday we went out to brunch at a restaurant called Iroquois. I had the blueberry pancakes. They were excellent. They probably seemed more excellent than they actually were because I haven't had blueberry pancakes in a very long time. After brunch we went to the Buhrle museum, which was a private collection. The collector enjoyed Impressionism and medieval sculpture. There was some really great stuff there, including van Gogh's reinterpretation of a Millet painting of peasant women. From the museum we went to the Cabaret Voltaire, birthplace of Dada. We had a few drinks there. I ordered a pastis, because I could see the bottle of Ricard. The bartender was oddly impressed with me. (This happened again at another bar. Clearly pastis is not as popular in Switzerland as it is in France. Also, they serve it with less water.)

On Monday Angela had to work, so I showed myself around Zurich. It was very relaxing. I saw two churches. I took the tram to the cemetery where James Joyce is buried. I rode on a boat along the river and across Lake Zurich. It was very hot on the boat. There was an American couple behind me, and we all noticed a naked guy sitting on his paddleboat. Our boat dropped me off right by the China Garden, which was beautiful and serene. Then I went to the Botanical Gardens. In the evening we went to the movies. We saw "Pirates of the Carribbean 3" (in English, with subtitles in both French and German). There was an intermission, which was cool.

And now I'm back in Paris. Last night Laura and I went out on the town with Josh and some of his friends. We had a great time, and I didn't get home until 6 AM.