Drumroll! Fanfare!! I'm back from my first ever shlep out of Berlin. Took the very bold and more difficult than I thought decision of abandoning my cells for 4 days and catching a flight to Zurich..and man! was it worth it.
The flight from Tegel to Kloten was pretty uneventful.. well..except that I discovered Air Berlin serves you a sandwich and a Snickers bar for free..despite being a budget airline.. pretty neat start to a vacation eh? The inevitable OPK (other peoples' kid..the loud obnoxious kind.) was there...screaming..but I pretty much slept through it..and an hour later I was in Zurich. Airport procedure was relatively smooth...blah blah.
R was supposed to meet me at the airport.. he did.. just a bit late! Not that much of a surprise...I doubt that between the two of us we've ever met on time for anything.. Doodled a bit at the ticket vending machine..figured out what tickets we needed..kind of.. and took the half hour tram ride to Seilbahn Rigiblick (SweizerDeutsch: cable car mountain view... because you can see the Alps from there on a clear day).. There's a pic of the daft confusing ticket vending thing..with the name of the station.... I love the name Rigiblick...sounds like something you'd call a hyperexcitable puppy!
The next four days passed in happy oblivion... I wandered around in the old city... got a week pass for the public transport... Was really impressed by the fact that the ticket is valid for any 7 day that you validate it for not for 7 consecutive days like in Germany.
So.. the highlights of my happy-oblivionness... getting up late to the nicest view.. and not feeling guilty about being late for lab!
R and I fed the swans on lake Zurich every single day... with loaves..yes..loaves in plural!..of brot (bread!) we bought specially for them from CoOp city..It's not like I lurve swans or anything..i think they're freaky.. but we got a huge kick out of starting swan feeding frenzies.. pic below.. I got bitten while starting one of these.. this great nasty swan plucked the bread out of my hands..and nipped my fingers in the process..
We also discovered that if you drop bits of bread on a swan's back, the foolish thing won't realise..and will soon have a flock of it's yeobirds pecking at it.... hilarious to watch...particularly if you pick the biggest meanest swan..
The ducks at that part of the lake were particularly fiesty... they'd zip in from nowhere and steal bread from under the swans' long s-shaped necks! This one particular red eyed, croaky voiced duck we'd nicknamed psycho-duck crapped a tonne into the lake in front of us...and turned the clear wated a murky green for a few hilarious minutes...
Oh! and there were there moorhen things that made whoopy noices and these reeeallly noisy..squaky screechy gulls...
Sprungli was another MAJOR treat... I did a Heiße Schoki there....
and the store was one of my fondest chocolate/pastry fantasies. I later ate these cream centered, melt-in-your-mouth mini pastrie things called Luxembourglis... shlurp..I can say no more!
The touristy things about Zurich can me found anywhere on the great wide net... I'd say the cathedral and the various museums are definitely worth a visit... And since this is starting to make me want to go back, I'm going to stop here!
