Got into Zurich late yesterday morning. The flight was good, and with drugs I was able to get a good 6 hours sleep on the flight. Wasn't so lucky with the weather, though. It was clear when I arrived, but by the time I got from the airport to the downtown train station it was raining pretty hard. I checked the forecast on my iPhone and it didn't look like it was going to clear up any time soon, so I bought a cheap umbrella from one of the little stores in the station and headed out.
Wouldn't you know, 10 minutes after I arrive at the hotel (with very wet shoes and luggage), it stopped raining. I checked in, unpacked, got settled and took and nice long shower and refresh, and by the time I was ready to head back out it was just starting to rain again. That seemed to be the pattern the rest of the day. Didn't keep me from seeing the city, though.
Zurich is a pretty swank place. Pretty mellow, though. The Swiss joke that Zürich is 'zu reich' and 'zu ruhig' – that's a play on German words for "too rich" and "too quiet" (so says my guidebook). It's probably not far off the mark, though. It's definitely pretty rich, at least. You'd have to be in order to afford the food and real estate there. The shopping, too. The last half mile of the big shopping street nearest the lake is littered with high end boutiques (Prada, Miu Miu, Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, etc.). It probably has more high-end stores than Chicago, which is saying something when you consider that the population of the city is around 370,000, with only a round million in the entire metropolitan area. A bit off the main drag, some stuff in the window of a jewelry store caught my eye, so I checked that out. The necklace I liked was $4K, and that was pretty typical for just about everything in the store. Sorry, mom, you haven't been that good this year. I'm shocked a city that small is able to support that much high-end retail. Either you've got an awful lot of rich people, or an awful lot of people that spend way more money than they should on clothes. Or both.
Zurich is a pretty nice place, though. Not a whole lot in the way of sights, but a very attractive and livable city. I did get a bit out in the styx one night looking for a particular bar and it definitely got seedier; lots of girly bars, Eurotrash, and old dudes walking around with non-Swiss looking women that were apparently hookers. You've always got to sample the local color, you know. I mean sample as in wander and check out, not sample as in…you know.
Today I caught the train to Luzern. While Zurich was pleasant, Luzern definitely has a lot more historic charm. Half the buildings in town look like they were lifted off of a postcard. Just like Zurich, Luzern is situated on a lake where it empties into the mouth of the river. Actually, do you call it a mouth? I know you call the place where a river empties into a lake or ocean is the mouth. Does that mean the place where a lake flows into the river on the other end is, if the metaphor were maintained, ....the bung-hole of the river? It must be because you can't have two mouths on each end of the river. That being the case, why the hell is all the water entering the bung-hole of the river and exiting the mouth. That's gross. It's like the world's most highly-powered enema. Anyways, I'm beginning to figure out that just about every major city is Switzerland is located on a crystal clear, big-ass lake. Good living here, I tell you.
One thing that is not good living, however, is the king's ransom you have to cough up for dinner every night. Basic trattoria or brasserie level cuisine here can often set you back over $40 US for just the entree (no drink, no tip). Last night in Zurich I had some sauteed calves liver with a potato rosti (kind of like a latke). It was quite good, if you're into that sort of thing and like eating cow guts (I do), but this was a very basic, rustic dish made from organ meats, which of course are the cheapest part of the cow. $36. You could probably get something similar in Germany for $10-14 US. It was definitely a good move to bring some food with me on the plane in the spare room I had in my checked suitcase that I'm carrying my suit for the wedding in. Worked out pretty nicely, too. Today, after being gouged $24 for a hearty and satisfying yet grossly overpriced cafeteria lunch (a cafeteria!), I picked up a nice loaf of whole grain sunflower seed bread from a bakery and a couple apples from a corner store the chick at the hotel desk directed me to, and combined that with one of the packs of tuna for a nice little picnic dinner. I would have gotten a bottle of wine, too, as they had some reasonably priced selections at the store, but they were all full bottles and I wasn't in the mood for getting shit-faced by myself (I was also a little annoyed as there were bottles that I’m pretty sure would sell for less than two-thirds the prices in the US). If I can keep finding bakeries that are that good (the bread was awesome), I may just keep doing that every day. At least until I run out of tuna, I will.
Wouldn't you know, 10 minutes after I arrive at the hotel (with very wet shoes and luggage), it stopped raining. I checked in, unpacked, got settled and took and nice long shower and refresh, and by the time I was ready to head back out it was just starting to rain again. That seemed to be the pattern the rest of the day. Didn't keep me from seeing the city, though.
Zurich is a pretty swank place. Pretty mellow, though. The Swiss joke that Zürich is 'zu reich' and 'zu ruhig' – that's a play on German words for "too rich" and "too quiet" (so says my guidebook). It's probably not far off the mark, though. It's definitely pretty rich, at least. You'd have to be in order to afford the food and real estate there. The shopping, too. The last half mile of the big shopping street nearest the lake is littered with high end boutiques (Prada, Miu Miu, Dolce & Gabbana, Louis Vuitton, etc.). It probably has more high-end stores than Chicago, which is saying something when you consider that the population of the city is around 370,000, with only a round million in the entire metropolitan area. A bit off the main drag, some stuff in the window of a jewelry store caught my eye, so I checked that out. The necklace I liked was $4K, and that was pretty typical for just about everything in the store. Sorry, mom, you haven't been that good this year. I'm shocked a city that small is able to support that much high-end retail. Either you've got an awful lot of rich people, or an awful lot of people that spend way more money than they should on clothes. Or both.
Zurich is a pretty nice place, though. Not a whole lot in the way of sights, but a very attractive and livable city. I did get a bit out in the styx one night looking for a particular bar and it definitely got seedier; lots of girly bars, Eurotrash, and old dudes walking around with non-Swiss looking women that were apparently hookers. You've always got to sample the local color, you know. I mean sample as in wander and check out, not sample as in…you know.
Today I caught the train to Luzern. While Zurich was pleasant, Luzern definitely has a lot more historic charm. Half the buildings in town look like they were lifted off of a postcard. Just like Zurich, Luzern is situated on a lake where it empties into the mouth of the river. Actually, do you call it a mouth? I know you call the place where a river empties into a lake or ocean is the mouth. Does that mean the place where a lake flows into the river on the other end is, if the metaphor were maintained, ....the bung-hole of the river? It must be because you can't have two mouths on each end of the river. That being the case, why the hell is all the water entering the bung-hole of the river and exiting the mouth. That's gross. It's like the world's most highly-powered enema. Anyways, I'm beginning to figure out that just about every major city is Switzerland is located on a crystal clear, big-ass lake. Good living here, I tell you.
One thing that is not good living, however, is the king's ransom you have to cough up for dinner every night. Basic trattoria or brasserie level cuisine here can often set you back over $40 US for just the entree (no drink, no tip). Last night in Zurich I had some sauteed calves liver with a potato rosti (kind of like a latke). It was quite good, if you're into that sort of thing and like eating cow guts (I do), but this was a very basic, rustic dish made from organ meats, which of course are the cheapest part of the cow. $36. You could probably get something similar in Germany for $10-14 US. It was definitely a good move to bring some food with me on the plane in the spare room I had in my checked suitcase that I'm carrying my suit for the wedding in. Worked out pretty nicely, too. Today, after being gouged $24 for a hearty and satisfying yet grossly overpriced cafeteria lunch (a cafeteria!), I picked up a nice loaf of whole grain sunflower seed bread from a bakery and a couple apples from a corner store the chick at the hotel desk directed me to, and combined that with one of the packs of tuna for a nice little picnic dinner. I would have gotten a bottle of wine, too, as they had some reasonably priced selections at the store, but they were all full bottles and I wasn't in the mood for getting shit-faced by myself (I was also a little annoyed as there were bottles that I’m pretty sure would sell for less than two-thirds the prices in the US). If I can keep finding bakeries that are that good (the bread was awesome), I may just keep doing that every day. At least until I run out of tuna, I will.
