One year after the fantastic tour experiences during the 24/7-tour we wanted to make a reunion party in Munich with our other German TINA-friends and decided to visit also Zurich and TINA´s house in Küsnacht. So, we took the plane very early this Friday and flow to Munich.
After Dirk had teamed up with us at the central station Markus started the engine and we headed for Zurich resp. the nearest autobahn. Somehow we missed the correct crossings and streets, so only a miracle led us safely across the city towards the right motorway and the green landscape of Bavaria. It was too much landscape for us five living in the densely populated Ruhr Area but nevertheless, we even tried a little walk with photo-shooting next to Reinhard´s hometown at a rest-stop. Unfortunately, he could not join us this day because of the most important barbecue in the world with all his family.

We entered Switzerland without any difficulties with the border police which astonished us a lot. In 2000, we were frisked completely by the police and were made open the trunk and our bags.
First, we did not find TINA´s house because the tour was more than one year ago and no special car was parked outside to protect the building and the entry. We also expected Küsnacht to be situated more distant from Zurich itself, but obviously, only the problems finding the little town itself during the tour had caused this feeling of distance. The Zurich lake has a very rectangular size and the coast is packed with houses, little streets and tiny villages which mix up at their borders. Therefore, you really depend on the road signs to distinguish from city from another and in 2000, we had passed Küsnacht a long time ago before we wondered where it could be. TINA´s house is - as you will suppose - the most biggest building in the whole neighbourhood if not the biggest building of the town besides the church. Hidden behind an impressive iron entry and very high trees, you can only guess the façade behind this green wall. Automatic cameras in the trees and at the entry which could not decide if we are dangerous or not observe you immediately. Markus and me, we were wearing TINA-shirts which invited some of the bypassing car-drivers to shout and to sound their horns. Really everybody on the street knew what we wanted - embarrassing. To be sure that we had found the right house because the iron gate had been replaced, Markus asked an old woman about TINA´s home. She told him that she had even met TINA at the baker´s and that she was very kind, that more women should be that beautiful at her age (Markus understood the hint and paid her a compliment even if she was 25 years older than TINA) and so on. She advised us to ring at the door.

This was somehow difficult because a gardener was raking the ground below a fir tree even if there was nothing to see which was out of order in this perfect garden. On the one hand we did not wand to make a foolish appearance, on the other hand we were curious whether TINA was at home. After several photos, Ralf asked him and he replied that he was not allowed to tell anybody anything but smiled a "no". We followed the street a bit and then found a little passage to the lake. From this little lane we entered (like pirates) the neighbour´s terrain in order to make several photos through the fence. But the house is protected by trees from every perspective, and as you cannot rent a boat nearby, we could not test the seaside. For heavens sake, nobody saw us standing there at the fence below another fir and next to the neighbour´s compost heap.
Finally, we wondered why not even TINA´s name was mentioned at the door but Kaspar Fleischmann / Seestrasse 178. Who is this Mr Fleischmann? I plucked up courage and rung the bell so as to find out who this guy was. Suddenly, all cameras pointed at me, the plastic ball above the bell began to glow and after a while, someone replied. As we were in Switzerland, my German was evidently not understandable for the second gardener so he replied in English that it was not possible to visit the garden and that TINA was not at home. He even came to the door and informed us that the house was empty and that TINA was surely in France or somewhere else - a fantastic complex answer but at least an answer at all.

All photos in zip-format (1,2 MB).