Zurich

From Munich, we took a Sunday morning train to Zurich (Zürich) and dropped our bags and Dan and Leslie's apartment (Dan is working in Google's Zurich office for a few months before Leslie starts her job). I did a couple loads of laundry and then spent a couple hours walking around the city.

Zurich struck me as much smaller than its fame would indicate. That was nice, however, as it allowed me to see a great deal of the city in a short amount of time. It was a perfect Sunday afternoon, and the locals were taking full advantage and relaxing along the shore of Lake Zürich.

I liked Zurich--it has a very nice, clean, classy vibe going on. And the Swiss are a bit quirky relative to other Europeans--for example, they will not break the law, even if following it is entirely impractical. If you have a red "Walk" sign with no cars in sight in any other country in Europe, that is generally an effective sign to cross the street, even if a cop is standing right there (I have observed this directly). In Zurich, however, they will wait for the green signal, and if you cross without it, locals will look at you funny. They also value time above pretty much everything. Punctuality is key, trains must not be late, you get to meetings early, etc. Dan remarked that he always wears his watch because when he wasn't wearing it at work, people would look at him during conversations like he was giving them the finger. In NYC, when people are stopped at a crosswalk, they look at their iPhones. When the Swiss have a pause like that, they all swing their elbows and look at their watches. But hey, no wonder they make such great watches.

I should note, however, that Zurich is probably the most expensive city I have ever been to. The city was founded by the Romans as a point of tax collection on a major trade route, and it's still bearing the torch of extracting money from passers-by today. I ordered a simple dinner entree that probably would have been $12-18 in the US, and it was about $32 USD in Zurich. A simple coffee is at Starbucks in Zurich will run you about $5-7 USD, and Nathan's lunch of chicken nuggets and a milkshake was over $13 USD. So if you decide to go for an extended stay in Zurich, bring wads o' cash.

Overall, we had a nice, relaxing day walking through the town and hanging out at Dan and Leslie's place. We had a nice dinner with some of Dan's coworkers from Google, one of whom was Swedish and created an atmosphere that could only be compared to sitting with Wikipedia . . . in every language. Intricate points of Russian history, German films, Swedish trivia, etc.--this guy was a sponge. I bet he even codes pretty well, too.

The next morning, I left for Interlaken on a 9 am train so that I could take advantage of a full day there. You can view my Zurich photos here. Thanks for reading!

- R