I have long believed travel to be one of the best things you can do for young people. It is important for them to see other cultures, other ways of doing things and have new experiences. Our family travelled across Canada one long summer in the early 1990s. The kids still talk about that trip.
Trading Business in Switzerland
My trading business took me to Zurich, Switzerland perhaps eight or ten times between 1977 and 1990. I had business with UBS/Zurich and also a trust for which I managed money. Next to Honolulu, Zurich has to be my favorite city, with Montevideo, Uruguay a close third.
My first trip to Zurich was also my first trip outside of the good old U.S. of A., at the tender age of 27. I definitely had several new experiences.
Dinner at Emilio’s
I offered to take the trust manager to a top Zurich restaurant. I was thinking of the one in the Baur au Lac, but he said Emilio’s was the place. OK.
Dinner was half of a small chicken, French fries, and a small carafe of Swiss rosé. To me, French fries meant McDonald’s, but the trust manager was effusive about these being “the best in the world!” When the bill arrived, I did a quick mental conversion to dollars. Twenty-five 1977 dollars each seemed pricey for a KFC-McDonald’s mashup.
Lost in Zurich
After dinner the trust manager pointed me toward my hotel, perhaps three blocks away. Zurich is small and it is difficult to get lost, but I managed to anyway. Zurich is a cosmopolitan, international city, so locals are prepared for visitors from everywhere. I wandered into a district where a passerby addressed me in five languages in rapid succession to make sure I got the message. I politely found my way out.
Gnome-Sized Pizza
The next afternoon I was hungry for comfort food and felt lucky to find a pizzeria. I got in line, looked at the menu and ordered a Coke and a slice of sausage and mushroom pizza. A couple of minutes later a tray arrived with a slice about 2″ wide at the crust and perhaps 5 oz. of Coke.
I had to laugh! The slice was about one-third of a typical U.S. slice. The fellow who handed me the tray could not understand why I was laughing. I thought it was a joke. But no, I looked around and everyone had gnome-sized slices. No worries about a Big Gulp, either.
The Escargot Incident
My host one evening recommended a little place serving nothing but escargot. We walked to a small basement restaurant on one of the quaint side streets off the Limmat river. Definitely an improvement over Emilio’s!
We each had a dozen escargot drenched in butter and herbs, a Swiss beer and a small loaf of fresh-baked bread. It was delicious. So good we split another dozen. Soon after, we parted, and I found my way back to the hotel without incident.
It was perhaps 11:00 PM and I couldn’t sleep. Dang, those snails were tasty. I decided to treat myself to another dozen, confident I could find my way there and back. So I did. Thirty rich escargot and three or four Swiss beers in about three hours. Back at the hotel I didn’t feel so good.
I was alone and lonely and hurting, so I called my girlfriend. It was probably about 4:00 PM in Denver.
“Hey, Susan. I don’t feel good!”
“Babe, I’m 5000 miles away. What do you want me to do? Maybe the front desk has some antacid tablets.”
I finally managed to fall asleep, but escargot did not sound good for the next 10 years.
Sechselauten
I happened to be in town for Sechselauten, the Zurich springtime holiday celebrating the end of winter. A giant snowman is constructed of wood and paper in the town square and its head is full of fireworks. A fire is built under the snowman and everyone waits for the fire to reach the head, the explosion and the impressive fireworks display it portends.
There is much discussion about how long it takes the fire to reach the head. On a few occasions the head never exploded, encouraging much discussion and finger pointing.
As part of the celebration, the city’s guild bands parade through town playing happy tunes and marches throughout the day. Tradition has it they stop at each pub they pass for a beer, then continue on with their march. It is funny to see how much the march and the music degrade as the band members sample one beer after another after another!
Good Trading!
Michael Duane Archer
Related Reading
- Three Clients, Three Life Lessons from a Money Manager
- The Honolulu Commodity Exchange: A Bucket Shop Story
- Goodmanisms: Charlie Goodman’s Sayings on Trading, Explained
Keep Learning the Goodman Way
If this article was useful, these are the next steps:
- The Method: propagation, intersection and the 3-C Principle, drawn plate by plate.
- The Goodman Library: the books, from Goodman for Grasshoppers to The Goodman 6 & 6.
- The Trader’s Playbook: the Molokai setup in one printed, numbered volume.
- Mentoring: work one-on-one with the authors.