Are we in Moscow or in Zürich? It is honestly hard to tell these days as there seems to be no ending to the snowfall. Luckily most services still work well as for example the garbage collection. In Zürich there is a hard core system for the garbage that needs some time getting used to. All garbage needs to be put in special bags, Züri-Säcke, for which you pay about 2 chf per bag of 35 liters. This can be quite annoying as a start but really encourages people to reduce garbage and recycle as much as possible as this is free of charge. The recycling is indeed free but strict rules must be followed, at least concerning the paper. Old paper needs to be put in perfect piles and be nicely tied up using a special recyclable ribbon. If you fail your piles will be left on the street and exposed to all your curious neighbors who will easily figure out who the pile belongs to and give it back to you. The best way of avoiding embarrassment is to make sure that you always put a copy of the Migros-Magazine (German version of course) on top of your pile to blend in with the Zürcher.
The Winter Olympics in Vancouver are approaching and will start on Friday. As it is an El Niño year this year the temperature in Vancouver is 4 degrees warmer than usual and there is no snow in sight. The solution that the Canadians have found for this is to fly in snow with helicopters from other regions to dump them on the Olympic slopes. This is adding up to all the other ecological disasters that organizing the Olympics imply. At least now Vancouver can be pretty sure that they will warm the planet enough so that they can apply for the summer Olympics as well.
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