Sushi in Switzerland?

Another busy and interesting week here in Thalwil, as the weather has stayed nice, and the Euro Semifinals took place. Tuesday night I played basketball with 4 Swiss guys who were all bigger and faster than me, and they could all shoot the lights out. After two games of getting my butt kicked all over the blacktop, I found out that two of them are trying out for German ans Swiss A and B-League teams, and one guy played college ball for Kutztown U, outside Allentown, PA. Small world.
On Wednesday, Kristina and I celebrated our 2nd anniversary a week early by taking a sushi making class Wednesday. Very interesting. We made sashimi (easy) and rolls (tougher, yet still easier than I thought they'd be). The key seems to be the rice. It needs to be sticky enough to keep the roll together, but not so sticky that you can't get it off your hands and onto the seaweed. Not an easy task, especially after a few glasses of prosecco and white wine. The other trick is to find out when your local grocery store/fish market receive their orders. Usually they'll tell you the exact time their fresh fish comes in, and that's the time to buy it. Finally, if you have an extra $300-$600, you can get a special sushi knife that's sharpened on only one side. I'm hoping our current kitchen knives will get the job done for now.
After 10 pieces of sashimi (salmon, tuna, prawn & veggie) and 2 rolls (I made a tuna/onion/cucumber roll, and a prawn/shitake/avocado/yellow pepper-type thing roll), we sat down to enjoy the feast we had prepared. Our teacher, Helena, had prepared a few rolls of her own, adding to the color and flavor on the table. It was a delicious meal, with good company, good wine, and great homemade sushi. I'm looking forward to gaining confidence in my sushi rice preparing abilities in the hope of eventually hosting a sushi party or two in the future...
Thursday was a bit more low-key, as I joined my friend Mike for a run through the trails of Zurich, before heading out to watch the second Euro Semi between Spain and Russia. The streets were filled with cheers of "ESPANA!" competing with cheers of "RUSKIE!" Yellow and red flags and jerseys outnumbered the white, blue and red almost 2 to 1, and in the end it was Spain turning in a dominating performance, winning 3-0 and advancing to the Euro 2008 Final on Sunday versus Germany.