Zurich

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I/I took the one less traveled by, /And that has made all the difference.” ~Robert Frost

April 19, 2013Again, waking up in the dark room felt impossible. Checking my watch, I saw that it was almost 10:00. The shades totally made it feel like it should be 1:00am, and it took me a few minutes to get out of bed.

Last night, at dinner, Mary had offered me a razor so I could shave. It’s been one of the most frustrating parts of travel is having to chase down a razor every time I fly somewhere. I went upstairs to see if I could get one from her before I got in the shower.

When I came in the living room, Will and Cole were playing on the floor.

“Is your mom up?” I asked.

“I’m in here Zach,” Mary called from down the hall. “You have to come see this.”

I went down the hall and into her office.

“You heard about the bombing in Boston, right?” She asked.

“I did,” I said. It hadn’t gotten much coverage in the European media, but I’d seen it on my MSN homepage. I actually had some friends who were in Boston during the explosion, cheering on their dad in the marathon. Luckily, they were all ok.

“We last night, probably around the time we went to bed, they released this photo of these guys who they think did it,” Mary said. “Just a couple of minutes ago, they robbed a convenience store and shot a cop on the Massachusetts State campus.”

We watched as some sort of shootout unfolded on the TV. It was unreal to hear to gunshots from behind the news broadcaster.

“We used to live in Boston,” Mary explained.

We continued to watch the coverage for several minutes. At one point, and SUV sped towards the police officers. It was reported that the older brother had been killed in the exchange of gun fire, but that the younger now had someone hostage and was speeding away.

I went down to take a shower. When I came back up for breakfast, Mary and Dale were still following it intently. We watched the chase play out, realizing that everyone back in the US was still fast asleep.

After breakfast, Mary said, “So I’m thinking we’ll head into Zurich today to give you the tour of all the sites. Gabrielle, do you want to come on an adventure with us?”

“Sure!” she agreed.

Dale agreed to drive us to the train station. When we went out to get in the car, we were shocked (or at least I was) by what we found in the garage. The garage is shared between the two houses, one of which Mary and Dale live in and the other houses their landlord. Mary and Dale have one car, but when we came out to the garage, there were 9 cars in the garage. These were not just family, get-around-town vehicles; these were sport cars. There was a mustang, a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, a Porsche, and several other brands I’d never heard of. They were incredible!

We drove down out of the hills and to the train station. It was raining pretty hard, but Mary had brought umbrellas. I had my Zurichcard, but Gabrielle and I waited outside while Mary went in to buy tickets.

The train climbed and we hopped on board. The coaches were double-decker, so we took seats on top for the best view. On the ride into town—which was entirely along the lake front—we passed a chocolate factory, as well as a park that Gabrielle said she liked to run in. Even in the rain, the views were breathtaking!

Arriving in Zurich, we climbed down and out of the car. The main station was massive, and Mary helped get me oriented in case I decided to stay later after our “tour.” We’d arrived at platform 43 to give just a rough idea of how big it was. The entire main hall was filled with flower carts and other little stands.  Overhead, there was an odd statue of an overweight woman, painted to look like a stitched together quilt.

Outside of the train station, the rain was pouring down. This was significantly more rain than I’d seen in any other European city. We walked passed a large green statue, and crossed over some tram lines, to a large street.

Mary explained that this street was kind of the “main drag” or shopping district of Zurich. It was very crowded, with umbrella-sheltered people racing up and down both sides of the walk way. We walked down for a few blocks before turning onto a side street to get away from the tourists.

The first thing Mary pointed out on our tour was a hotel that she and Dale had stayed in when they were house hunting in Switzerland. The hotel itself was beautiful, but what she wanted to show me were the trashcans outside. Anchored in huge cement disc (easily 10 feet in diameter) the metal cans actually dropped all the way down into the hollow pylon below. Garbage trucks would come and lift the entire cement tube out of the ground and empty it for disposal. The cans could go for weeks—even months sometimes—without needing to be empty.

Walking through the side shops, Mary pointed out a number of “boutique” shops and explained how they were more popular than supermarkets. People go to a hardware store for things like pots and pans. They go to a pharmacy for medication. They go to a dress shop for a dress and shoe store for shoes. Large department stores and supermarkets (while not non-existent) aren’t as popular for local Swiss.

One particular shop we passed by was a homeopathic vitamin shop, something I’ve seen quite a bit of around Europe. This led us to talking about medical standards that differ between the US and Europe. Of course the classic example is the codeine is often over the counter in many European pharmacies—and is often included in European Tylenol. In the islands, Mary explained they needed a prescription for ibuprofen; in Switzerland, Benadryl is given by prescription only.

Coming around a corner, we found a little narrow staircase leading down to a lower level of the city.

“We have a rule when we travel,” Mary said. “If there is an exciting way to explore, you must go down it.”

“That sounds like my motto so far,” I said, relating the number of places I’ve gone into while thinking I don’t know if I’m allowed to do this or not.

Wrapping around the corner, we found a hill that led up to a courtyard. There was a large chess board made out of the cobble stones in one corner, and Mary explained that almost every day, old men are out there playing chess. There were also a few small fountains with golden statues of saints and crusaders carved into the tops of them. The entire courtyard dead-ended at a wall, where there was a panoramic view of downtown Zurich. From the red faced clocks, to the churches  and skyscrapers, it was beautiful!

Walking back down the hill and back into town, we wound through narrow little side streets lined with Swiss flags.

“Here,” Mary said. “Give me your camera so you can prove you were in Switzerland.”

She snapped a photo of me with the flags.

“And we got to get a picture of you and her,” Mary said, pointing to an old tavern. There was a huge wooden sign of a Swiss bar maid. The woman definitely had more upper body mass than I do. “We’ll call her Heidi,” Mary said as she snapped a photo of me and ‘Heidi.’

The highlight of our tour was going in the Fraumunster Cathedral. This church is famous for its stained glass windows which were all designed by Marc Chagall, and 80-year-old Jewish man, in 1967. The five windows are 10 meters tall and shaped like band aids. Each is monochromatic, with designs etched into them, rather than differentiated in a mosaic style. There is a red, yellow, green, and two blue (one light and one dark) windows. They depict Elijah’s ascent into heaven, Jacob wrestling with God, Christ’s birth and crucifixion, an angel trumpeting the end of the world, and Moses looking down upon his suffering people.

The outside of the church building was oddly triangle shaped, with a tall green bell tower jutting out over head. As we went inside, the church was cold and quiet. Our footsteps echoed on the hard, granite floor. The first window we say was not one of the Chagalls, but rather the churches Rosette. It was a beautiful round window that looked as though it had been water colored. The pattern looked like 8 little crosses, encircling a big cross in the middle, and each cross contained its own colorful pattern.

Going back into the narthex, we could see the Chagall windows. They were so different from any other that I had seen. The single color used throughout each pain made the details difficult to make out, yet artfully beautiful at the same time. They looked almost like paintings more than glass.

Outside the church, we found a bridge, we a great view of the skyline so we could snap a few photos. At that point, we decided it was time for the most important Swiss landmark: chocolate!

Mary took us to a Swiss company called Confiserie Sprugli. Founded in 1836, they are a world famous chocolate shop, known for their signature treats called “Luxemburgerli” (which are essentially bite-sized macaroons.

As we walked in, there was a basket to place our umbrellas.

“Ok Zach,” Mary said. “I’m officially your Aunt. I’ve adopted you now, so we are just going to walk around and buy whatever we want that looks good!” I laughed!

It all looked good. There were pastries of every flavor and color that all looked incredible. There were tubs of ice cream, which were being handmade behind a counter. Of course, there were shelved of handmade chocolates too.

We decided to start with some of the famous Luxemburgerli treats. The woman behind the counter asked us which size and Mary suggested the medium sized box. It held 36 of the little treats.

“How about six of six flavors?” I suggested. We agreed on that plan. Gabrielle and I looked through all the flavors to pick out the best. We started with caramel, then added hazelnut, chocolate, and vanilla. We looked that cherry one and the woman asked us if we wanted to try it. Naturally, we did! It tasted amazing. The red cookies on the outside were cherry flavor while the center was a rich dark chocolate. We agreed on that one. For our last flavor, we picked the champagne ones.

“We need to get some truffles too,” Mary said. Following the woman over to the counter, we again chose a medium size, which fit 25. We got four different flavors, including salted caramel, espresso, chocolate, and amaretto.

“Besides the macaroons and chocolates, what are you most famous for here?” Mary asked the woman helping us. She pointed us towards some tins of nuts and said they were popular. When we asked about famous pastries, she suggested we get a truffle cake…we decided that was a good idea.

As we got ready to leave, we realized that one of our umbrellas had been taken and a broken, zebra-print one was left in its place. Mary and Gabrielle shared the larger one while we make jokes about umbrella snatchers in Switzerland.

Gabrielle needed a swim suit for a trip she was going on with a friend of hers this weekend, so we ran into a shop. The streamlined nature of the store surprised me again, in that it only sold swimsuits.

“Do you mind being the guy and watching the stuff while we look around?” Mary said.

“Not at all,” I said.

“That’s what they guy is for anyway,” Mary joked.

Once they had picked one out and we were ready to go, they took me to their favorite bookstore. This one did diversify in that in addition to books they also sold DVDs, Pop-tarts, and marshmallow sauce.  Mary bought another copy of the book Swiss Made.

“I told you, I’ve adopted you,” she said. “Every aunt needs to give a book as a present. I’ll write something in it before you go back to Prague.”

 At that point, Gabrielle had to get back to the house to meet her friend that was picking her up.

“You are welcome to stay an explore some more,” Mary told me.

“That is okay,” I said. The rain was really pouring down, and while I’ve gotten used to travelling Europe with crappy weather, I decided this had been enough. “I am ready to get home and get dried off,

We went back to the train station and waited for the return train. As we did, we saw a Starbucks and talked about how European coffee really doesn’t compare to a venti macchiato from the mermaid.

On the train ride back, we opened up the Luxemburgerli and each tried one of the caramel ones. They were amazing. The outside was lightly salted, while the inside was gooey and sweet. We also tried the champagne ones which had a really sweet and rich chocolate center. It was another fun conversation on the way back, filled with laughter and revelations about not taking life so seriously.