Occupy Binz

After a peaceful nap-filled train ride home from our Mt. Titlis adventure, we were welcomed back to Zurich with a riot at our doorsteps.  What? craziness!  From our living room window we watched the madness unfold.

At first I thought it was some soccer hooligans celebrating a win, but later we learned it was a political demonstration.  From what I understand there's an abandoned factory site in our district called the "Binz".  Squatters have been living there since 2006 and have created a type of artistic/political activist commune there.  However, the city now has plans for the abandoned site and has in effect evicted the squatters.  Apparently they didn't take their eviction notice very well, so they took to the streets in protest.  There were music trucks á la Trini Carnival and a massive crowd of people filled the roads.

I guess it all started off peacefully, but then mob mentality set in and they began to loot and vandalize the city.  Teams of riot police raced down our streets as they launched water cannons over our neighboring rooftops, threw tear gas canisters down our roads, and used rubber bullets against the protesters.  Looking around our smokey apartment I was like, "Maybe we should close the windows now".  It wasn't scary though and the demonstration was broken up and dissipated in 15 min.  Swiss efficiency boy.

It did leave quite a mess.  The next day we walked around to find a whole new slew of graffiti decorating our neighborhood buildings and multiple businesses with smashed windows including our bank.  The rioters favorite graffiti phrase was "F.T.P".  Yeah, it didn't take long for the city to paint over those on the police station walls. Thankfully our building was left unscathed.  Who knew we had to leave New York City to get this kind of action?  Those Occupy Wall Street jokers have nothing on the Swiss.

Check out the footage...