6:45pm
Zurich
Something funny happened the first day I arrived in Zurich…I couldn’t stop grinning…Yeah, that’s right. From the moment I landed at the airport, taking the clean and futuristic train into town, wandering around the grand train station, watching people walking around at night, waiting at the tram station, checking out the quaint buildijngs glowing among the city lights, to finally entering my hotel room and finding out that I have a BEAUTIFUL panoramic view of the city and the lake, I just couldn’t believe my senses! It’s like I was living inside a storybook! I mean, I’ve seen movies about Europe and dreamt of how it would be, but until I got a chance to actually walk through those narrow cobblestone walkways, to hear the church bells ring promptly every 15 minutes, to eat an authentic meal at a restaurant, and to wake up in the morning to see the snow covered swiss alps and the sun shining on the roofs of this quiet town, whew, I really couldn’t imagine it to be this way.
There’s so much to love here. Okay, being a designer and also having somewhat of unusual appreciation for transportation, the first thing I love here is the public transportation system. Here I am, not speaking a word of Swiss-German, or any other European language for that matter (save the 2 years of Spanish I took in HS, but really, it’s not gonna be useful here), have no idea of the layout of the city, and I was able to buy a train ticket from the airport, arrive at the main train station, and proceed to find the tram I needed to take, transfer to another tram, and get to my hotel. All in the while, the transportation system was very organized, with different colors for different tram routes, pictograms telling me exactly where things are, and the coolest trains I’ve been in…well, I’ve got pictures to prove it, but anyway, that’s just me and my spiel about it.
Zurich is actually a small town. I can walk around the downtown and see all the attractions in half a day. The view from the river was especially nice. No words can describe it and I’m not going to try…but I did take 5 rolls of film in my 1st day out so… that’s how picturesque this place is. I do have to say that I wish I had someone to share all this with…It’s hard to keep the excitement and joy and wonder inside and not able to let it out…but that’s why I’m writing this to share with you all…
This place has so much history to build on…it’s such a nice blend of modern city infrastructure with old city layouts…there’s not a lot of roads here and most people take public transportation, which is very efficient and clean. Uh oh…there I go with the public transportation system again…anyway, so, there’s a lot of streets to walk on and since the town is small and somewhat densely populated, there’s a lot of people walking around at night and it’s just a great experience walking around the town, passing small fountains, seeing the pedestrians enjoy themselves and speaking some European language, no matter it be Italian, German, or French, the yellow glow of the street lights, music from shops, and seeing the reflections of the famous cathedrals over the water as I stroll along a bridge…sigh…how am I ever going to feel about the new and car obsessed America now?
Okay, I’ve got to get some dinner with my coworkers now…I sincerely wish you were all here to enjoy this! Anyway, I’ll write more later…
Zurich
Something funny happened the first day I arrived in Zurich…I couldn’t stop grinning…Yeah, that’s right. From the moment I landed at the airport, taking the clean and futuristic train into town, wandering around the grand train station, watching people walking around at night, waiting at the tram station, checking out the quaint buildijngs glowing among the city lights, to finally entering my hotel room and finding out that I have a BEAUTIFUL panoramic view of the city and the lake, I just couldn’t believe my senses! It’s like I was living inside a storybook! I mean, I’ve seen movies about Europe and dreamt of how it would be, but until I got a chance to actually walk through those narrow cobblestone walkways, to hear the church bells ring promptly every 15 minutes, to eat an authentic meal at a restaurant, and to wake up in the morning to see the snow covered swiss alps and the sun shining on the roofs of this quiet town, whew, I really couldn’t imagine it to be this way.
There’s so much to love here. Okay, being a designer and also having somewhat of unusual appreciation for transportation, the first thing I love here is the public transportation system. Here I am, not speaking a word of Swiss-German, or any other European language for that matter (save the 2 years of Spanish I took in HS, but really, it’s not gonna be useful here), have no idea of the layout of the city, and I was able to buy a train ticket from the airport, arrive at the main train station, and proceed to find the tram I needed to take, transfer to another tram, and get to my hotel. All in the while, the transportation system was very organized, with different colors for different tram routes, pictograms telling me exactly where things are, and the coolest trains I’ve been in…well, I’ve got pictures to prove it, but anyway, that’s just me and my spiel about it.
Zurich is actually a small town. I can walk around the downtown and see all the attractions in half a day. The view from the river was especially nice. No words can describe it and I’m not going to try…but I did take 5 rolls of film in my 1st day out so… that’s how picturesque this place is. I do have to say that I wish I had someone to share all this with…It’s hard to keep the excitement and joy and wonder inside and not able to let it out…but that’s why I’m writing this to share with you all…
This place has so much history to build on…it’s such a nice blend of modern city infrastructure with old city layouts…there’s not a lot of roads here and most people take public transportation, which is very efficient and clean. Uh oh…there I go with the public transportation system again…anyway, so, there’s a lot of streets to walk on and since the town is small and somewhat densely populated, there’s a lot of people walking around at night and it’s just a great experience walking around the town, passing small fountains, seeing the pedestrians enjoy themselves and speaking some European language, no matter it be Italian, German, or French, the yellow glow of the street lights, music from shops, and seeing the reflections of the famous cathedrals over the water as I stroll along a bridge…sigh…how am I ever going to feel about the new and car obsessed America now?
Okay, I’ve got to get some dinner with my coworkers now…I sincerely wish you were all here to enjoy this! Anyway, I’ll write more later…
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