Zurich, Switzerland
Trip Start
Feb 27, 2008
1
17
31
Trip End
May 28, 2008
Zurich,
Switzerland
Sunday, April 20, 2008
It was overcast and dreary in Zurich when we arrived. When I made reservations I had booked two nights at one hostel and a third at a more expensive budget hotel in another location. I couldn't remember why I did this but I knew that it was the right decision at the time. We navigated to our hostel and found that it was nowhere near the center of the city. Perhaps that's why I booked the third night elsewhere. We checked in and were assigned separate rooms. "Can we have a room together?" I asked nicely, "no, all rooms are men or women only." RIGHT
Hopsbohnhofstrasse
! That was the reason I only booked two nights here. The hostel was a large scale hostel. With 4 floors and probably hundreds of beds. We checked, dropped off our bags and then went downtown to see what we could find. What we found shocked and awed us. The prices of everything were through the roof! The Swiss Franc is really stable but due to the weak dollar right now, Francs and Dollars are almost 1:1 this means they're charging $4 for a coke, and $10 for a cheeseburger. I walked past a Chineese food place and saw that they were charging $33 for plates of beef noodles. That was blasphemy, it was incosieveable....Highway robbery! That's what it is! This puts dampers on my plans to buy a Swiss watch or send back mountains of swiss chocolates. So, for everyone reading this; all of your travel gifts just got eaten up by inflation, you can thank George W. for that one. Earlier I had cancelled my plans to open a numbered Swiss Bank account because there was an $800 setup fee and a minimum balance of $10,000. We returned to the hostel and hung out in the lobby that evening rather than our rooms. I had two German guys sharing a room with me, one of them wouldn't talk, he had been in his bed all day and I wondered if he was depressed. The other one was about a million years old. He probably served in the Hitler Youth with good old Pope Benny. That night I was woken up a half a million times by noise, which normally never happens. Silent Bob's alarm went off every half hour from 5:30am until 7:00
River in Zurich
. When he got up, we all had to get up. He's the kind of bitch who turns the lights on in a place rather than gets dressed in the dark because he's the first person up. I hate people like that. If you accidentally wake me up because you're preparing for your day, fine. But this guy obviously didn't give a shit about anything or anyone. So my day started off cheerful and happy as you can imagine. Day 53 - I was planning on going to Liechtenstein today. Karla didn't share my obsession with tiny countries so she was going to visit the Zurich zoo. "I'm glad you're leaving today." She told me at breakfast. Ouch! I guess the fat bastard wakeup had put me in an obviously bad mood. The weather wasn't helping things. It was threatening to rain and I knew that my only transportation in Liechtenstein was walking. This day had to get better because it couldn't get worse. I was wrong... I tried to send my stein back from the post office but I got some anti-American type post workers who would only speak to me in German. Not only that, but they wouldn't write anything down. If they could have just written "$2.40" on a piece of paper, I would have figured it out. They probably took by box to the back and promptly broke it. The Swiss are not my favorite people so far. The train ride to Liechtenstein was nice, except I left my notebook behind. It not only had all my notes in it, it also had about 10 post cards that needed to be stamped and sent
Zoo Bison
. Maybe some good Samaritan will find my stock of written addressed postcards and pay to put them in the mail. But there's a greater chance of Switzerland entering the Iraq war. From the Swiss town of Sargans, I took a bus to the Liechtenstein capital of Vaduz. Liechtenstein is one of only two principalities left in Europe (Monaco is the other). The king still lives in his castle up at the top of the hill. You can walk to the top to get a good view, but the castle is closed to visitors. I walked all around the city, taking pictures and exploring what few things the country had to offer. The tour book said they were famous for their wine. Being from Oregon, I know that that's just a tactful way of saying that there's absolutely nothing to do there. They had a heritage museum and an art museum. Liechtenstein is small, but not too small to have several soccer teams. Although I saw a good portion of the country and didn't see any stadium.
In 10th grade my buddy Adam wrote a paper and gave a speech on Liechtenstein. His topic was the national stamp museum, since he couldn't find anything else about the country. As I walked down the main street (as if there were more than one street), I looked at a sign and read 'Post museum'. "No shit, there really is a postage stamp museum in Liechtenstein!" I said, then realized that I was standing alone and was talking to myself....
Zoo Penguins
The museum was small, normally it would not be worth my time, but because of the unique speech that Adam gave about it, it held a bit more interest actually seeing it. One of the claims to fame in the Museum is a stamp of unusually large size. It wasn't THAT big but it was probably an inch across and two inches tall. I sent some post cards home and looked in some gift shops. When the rain started pouring down I decided it was time to leave. I had seen the place, it was nice, but I probably won't be back. Liechtensteiners don't really like people making fun of their country for it's size. If you happen to go there just for the stamp in your passport and bragging rights (like I did), keep it to yourself. That night the rain didn't let up so we paid the ridiculous $16 to eat dinner at the hostel. We were staying in tonight so I had no choice but to pay for the wireless internet available. $10 for one evenings internet! If I've already blathered on about internet in this blog, feel free to skip down. I am of the new generation that believe that the internet is my birthright. I HATE PAYING FOR INTERNET! Paying for home service is one thing, paying a small fee for day use can be acceptable depending on the location. But charging $1 for 10 minutes of Internet is the kind of shit that starts revolutions. I hear there are currently riots in Haiti over the price of bread doubling in the last three months. I wonder if I could gather enough geeks together to overthrow the administrator of the hostel and liberate the internet
Zurich buldings
. Nah, I'll save this revolt for another time and place.Day 54 - We checked out of the hostel as late as possible, it was still raining cats and dogs. We took a tram to the other side of town where our hotel for the night would be located. It was the Zic-Zac Rock hotel, cheesy rip off of the Hard Rock Hotel and Café. Since there was no real hard rock café in Switzerland, there was no competition. The rooms were themed, which means they had pictures of a particular band on the wall. We got the SAGA room, right between the Elton John room and the Journey room. It was still raining. I asked the guy at the front desk if internet was available. "yes, the computer is over there and it is five francs for fifteen minutes" The man had a thick accent.
"FIFTEEN or FIFTY?" I asked. "fifteen" he said. "you mean one - five, fifteen." I said again. "yes" he replied coolly. That was the last straw. Three minutes of Internet for a dollar was the absolute worst price I have ever seen. At this moment Switzerland was written off my list of places ever to visit again. Unless I was opening a million dollar bank account, even then I would consider the Cayman Islands or Singapore first. It's still raining. Needing to replace some lost postcards I waded across the bridge to the other side of town. Karla tried to pass time by going to the bookstore across the street, but she quickly realized that all the books were in French
Zurich church
. What's a French bookstore doing in Zurich? Whatever.... I snapped some rainy pictures, initially holding off until the rain stopped, I now realized that it was never going to stop and my opportunity for pictures was now or never. When sightseeing in a town you're not familiar with, it's best to find a tourist shop and look at all the postcards before making plans. This makes sure you don't miss anything big that you might not have heard of before. If all the postcards are bland aerial views of the city, you know you're in a boring place. In the case of Zurich, I couldn't even find a tourist shop or postcards. I finally found some and the guy was charging $1.20 per post card. This was ridiculous; all this place has is a million banks, some watches, delicious chocolate, and RAIN! There is no reason to charge so much for normal shit! Frustrated and wet, I went back to the hotel and lounged around all evening. I was not going to go out in the pouring rain just to pay three prices for something. At least the bed was comfy. 
