3 Franc Shoes

Whoa! Two posts in one night. This one is really pic heavy so its gonna be a breeze.

A couple of weeks ago, work sent me to Zurich, Switzerland to do some designy things down there. I kind of became a little smitten in my time there. The only thing keeping me from assuming a false identity and staying there forever, just hucking drinks at a local pub to support myself, is the crazy amount of money it would take to do that there. Zurich is expensive. Even though I was bringing Euros to burn. Fun Fact: Did you know that if you took all the currency held in Zurich's banks and gave it to the homeless they would be rich as hell? I heard that somewhere. It's probably true.

Okay, here are some pics:

This is the entrance to the office in Zurich:


My temporary set-up. Nothing much to complain about. You can see the grapevines in the background, some old-timer kept walking through the courtyard the whole week just looking over the grapes. It was pretty awesome. My Gramps used to have a grapevine. And yes, i grew up in Wisconsin.


The Lake. Took a walk after work with some co-workers to hang out at the lake.

Generic Lake shot with some boats:

Later that evening we came across this gazebo of people havin' a pants-off dance-off. Not true, but they were dancing the Samba I believe. Awesome either way:


On the train ride back I learned that Dave Matthews, carpentry, and homosexuality are not permitted on the train. I had to wait til i got back to the Hotel. To build the cabinet PEOPLE, to build the cabinet I got from IKEA. Sheeeesh. But afterwards I strapped on the ol' rollerblades and showed the swissies what's up.

After the work week was over I decided to stay for the weekend on my own dime. I booked the cheapest hotel possible. It happened to be The Zic-Zac Rock Hotel. Each room has a theme of a famous musician. By theme I mean it's a hotel room with some fricking pictures of a specific musician on the wall. I was pretty stoked to get Jethro Tull. Here's what my room looked like:


Here's what it looked like from the window:






This is what I imagined when I thought about Europe before I got here. Well this and other things, but this really makes me happy:



Saturday morning I walked to Langstrasse where the Flea Market takes place. Walking across Zurich is like walking to school when I was a kid. It was a super short trip but took forever because I just kept looking at things and taking wrong routes on purpose. If you wanted, you could get across Zurich in about 20-30 mins by foot. They happen to pride themselves in their amazing Pulic Transportation system though. So you wouldn't have to.

Came across a sculptors studio on the way to the Flea Market:




And this house:

Flea Market:

Crazy amounts of varying junk and treasures to be found. I personally found a pair of shoes (yes, i needed more) that happen to be my new favorite shoes. Got 'em for 3 francs. They're a pair of canvas dress shoes that I put a coat or three of wax on this last weekend.




For the Drake Street Crew:


George Michael here kept staring at me:


A parting shot of Zurich:


Bye for now!

.........and it don't stop.

Busy, busy, busy, busy x 1 billion. Plenty keeping me occupied including the on-going apartment search. My current lease ends on the 31st. I have yet to find a replacement. Everyday is a fresh set of apartment postings to pour through in German and either run through Babel Fish, or kindly ask my co-worker Maren to please translate. She's been kind enough to do so pretty often lately. Nights are filled with viewings of said apartments which have either been in really bad neighborhoods or some other issue.

Also pretty busy creating a logo for the former employer. Blackbird has opened up a candy shop inside of the space they already occupy. Nicole, the owner asked me to do the logo. I, of course accepted. Ballard, the neighborhood that the store is located is known for its history in fishing and it's shipping canal. So Nicole wanted to go with a nautical theme in the logo. Gnarly old fisher dudes are awesome so that was an easy choice. It went through a lot of phases from inspiration to completion. Here are a few of the stages along with the final result:

Inspiration:



First Incarnation (pencil rough):

Complete coincidence that this looks like the late Billy Mays. Infomercial extraordinaire. Don't ask me how it happened.

And here is a start to the vector drawing. Again, don't ask me why he looks like the recently-deceased Paul Newman. I was not doing this shit on purpose:



Here is one of the finals we chose. Pretty happy with the way the hand-drawn type came out.


If you find yourself in Seattle, head to Ballard for sure. If you make it to Ballard, don't miss out on Blackbird. It's by far one of the best men's clothing stores (and now Candy Shoppe's) in the country.

Work and the walk

Work and life are in full-swing now. Constant challenges, which is great. Playing a much larger role at work than I anticipated. I am currently a designer, occasionally a copywriter which i've always enjoyed a little bit and part-time product photographer. Never should have divulged so much info about my skill set. Lesson learned :) They still haven't tapped me up for any screenprinting or private dancing. I'm retired from both while I'm abroad. So they can ask all they want. It ain't happenin'!

I'll post some work soon. Maybe some copy. No private dancing. I told you once already.

Still no permanent living situation. I'm living in a really expensive furnished apartment right now until the end of August. Renting is a challenge here. There are a lot of loopholes and weird things to watch out for. A lot of the sites that post apartments availible don't charge the person posting the ad, they charge you a finding fee. Which can be pretty hefty. Like 200% or more of one months rent. Most apartments I'm looking at are around 400 euro. Which puts the finding fee at 800 euro or more. I say fiddlesticks to that. Yes fiddlesticks. Asshole. Luckily, occasionaly there are apartments listed as "provisionfrei!" which means they don't charge that fee. I hope to find one of those soon.

So here are some pics from my workplace and a couple from the neighborhood. I haven't gottan as trigger happy with the camera as I planned but that will change. Promise.

Alley-way on the way into work. So euro-mantic.

Further into the alley this is the actual building. Renovated factory of course. That's how all the creative types do it.
View from my seat. The designers are set-up in the loft of the building. Which is awesome except when it's hot outside.

This place is right across the street from my apartment. Pretty entertaining to watch people stop and check out the merchandise inside. This guy is chowing down on something while he's checkin' out the lubes. Guarantee he's eating some sort of baked good or meat in tube form. Just sayin'....they love that shit here.
Oh, and those darn Beach Boys are up to no good again. This is right outside my apartment. Which technically means my neighborhood is run by The Beach Boys. I can accept that.