Parker in Zurich

Europe » Switzerland » North-East » Zürich
July 27th 2008

Published: July 27th 2008

im in zurich.

when i saw how much it cost to buy a train ticket from rome to zurich, i had to switch some things around so that i could use my eurrail pass to get myself up there for free (free as in 20 euro in booking fees--at least its better than 100).

two lost hostel reservation deposits later, i arrived in zurich where i would spend 4 nights with a supercool couple that my parents met while vacationing in tahiti.

i arrived by train last night, and did little more than take the scenic route (tram rather than train) to Kevin and Allain's apartment, eat some delicious pasta, and goggle at how clean and modern the city was. also colorful. so many colorful buildings.

today both kevin and allain were off work. we enjoyed a beautiful sunday brunch of home-made bread (they have this awesome machine that takes powder and water and through some alchemy manifests bread), with eggs, ham, and stinky european cheeses. then we took the train into town.

we separated because allain went to go see the doctor about his sore throat, and kevin and parker went to see the four famous protestant gothic churches. one had some chagall and giacometti windows. they were all neat because their insides were very simple and streamlined, as opposed to the more ornate catholic churches that weve seen everywhere else. also, they have a rooster on the steeple, instead of a cross. i thought the mixture of simple, elegant decoration, mixed with the random absurdity of the chicken was very appropriate for zurich.

right nearby, parker and kevin stopped by the cabaret voltaire, a former coffee house where the dadaist movement was founded. now its mostly an obscure clothing store, but they have a small gallery space where they had a real dream machine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamachine). we stared at it with our eyes closed (as it is intended to be done) for a good 10 minutes and mostly just saw a flashing white light. it was still pretty cool. they have a bar upstairs, but, just like everything else except the stuff in the train station, it was closed. people like taking their sunday off.

parker bought a (i cant decide if i want to keep the 3rd person or not. i thought i might keep switching back and forth so that it would make no sense at all. dadaism?) cool pass thing that gets him free train, tram, river taxi, museum entries, and a bunch of other goodies (2 franks off a zurich frisbee. all right!). so he looked at the list of museums and decided that the museum of wax molds of past and present skin diseases was a must. he and kevin got there and noticed that it was closed. bummer. its only open 2 days a week. what are you supposed to do if you need to see wax molds of skin diseases on a friday? i dont know how the people survive here.

but seriously, this city is so clean and modern and beautiful. no wonder the cost of living is so high-you get what you pay for.

so we went to the only thing that was open. the wild animal park. well, the animals were in cages. and most of them were sleeping. i should give them credit: the frogs and lizards were free to roam and experience the hillside. it was still pretty cool. i saw a moose, some bison, some deer or elk or something, some rams. also a bunny and a frog. also, i went on this cool slidey cabley thingey in the playground.

i should mention that we took a slight detour because of some track renovation just before our stop. we hopped on a bus, missed our stop (it wasnt labeled the same way by bus) and took a leisurely walk back from the next stop over. we picked a bunch of wild blackberries.

so after the animal happytime, we rode back home. we took a look around the frikkin amazing series of ubernew and modern apartment buildings with their various parks and ponds and fruit trees and public viewing towers and a starbucks.

we had fondue for dinner. it was awesome.

good night.

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