Zurich

Zürichsee (Lake Zurich).  Watches.

Population: 350,125

Our first day trip was to Zurich (the "big" city!).  I can’t say enough how truly fabulous and convenient the train is.   We just hop on our tram to the SBB train station, buy tickets from an automatic kiosk, and walk out to the platform.   It’s so quick and easy.  The trip from Basel to Zurich was right under an hour, and the station is at the center of town.  We window-shopped our way down the main street (Bahnhofstrasse), ogling the high-end clothing and watches/jewelry.  The street ends at the sprawling lake, where we found a flea market (with random stuff, I might add - it was more like a big garage sale).   We wandered through the winding pedestrian streets on both sides of the Limmat River, popped into a few churches, some funky boutiques and  took a short boat tour on the lake.

We had a quick lunch at Sternen Grill, a famous sausage stand (think shiny, silver 1950’s trailer).  The place was a total zoo, loved by both locals and tourists alike, but we were lucky to find a little table outside to enjoy our meal.  We got 2 kalbsbratwurst, which comes with a side of spicy mustard and big hunk of bread – very hearty and good value for money!  We're learning that sausage *in* a bun is an American thing.  Sausages here are "a la carte", served with either a hearty roll or slice of bread.

After lunch, we took a 1.5 hour tour around the lake.  It was relaxing to sit in the sun with a cool breeze blowing on our faces, enjoying the views.  And I was glad to be off of my feet for a bit.  We even spotted a few vineyards on the hillside.  The Zurich suburbs are really nice!

We walked to Züri-West and passed a bunch of arcaded stores built under the bridge.  We hit the Freitag outlet , the brand of the “it” messenger bag, made from recycled  items.  The store is made up of stacked storage containers, with a lookout at the top.  We have never seen anything like this before, so interesting!

 

We walked all around the city, and with tired feet and hungy stomachs, we ended with a wonderful dinner at a pizzeria we read about online.  It was was tucked away in a non-descript warehouse across from the Salvation Army!  Apparently, it’s popular with the artists in the area and without a reservation, we were seated at the end of a huge [empty] 12-top, which was fine, we were just glad we found it.  (See “Lost in Translation” post).   Overall, we were pleased as it was very tasty.

Basel - Just Pics





Basel

Rhein.  Architektur.
Population 163,080

We are officially in Basel (arrival date May 8, 2012).  We settled in to the apartment, got resident cards, tram cards, ½ price train cards to save $$ on travel, and opened a local bank account.  Woo hoo!  We even started to receive mail (which we cannot understand, for the most part).  Junk mail is universal.....

 

We are in a wonderful location – Matt walks to work, and we’re just minutes from the Rhine river.  There’s a tram stop at the end of the block, and pretty much everything is walking distance.  There are some cafes at our doorstep and a grocery store across the street (better grocery stores are a few blocks away).  In a span of 15 minutes, we can catch the tram to the train station, buy tix from the kiosk and then hop on a train out of town.  Very convenient!

We ran into some snafu’s trying to do laundry  for the first time as all the settings are in German, and figuring out garbage/recycling was tricky (they take it very seriously here, and you have to put garbage in special blue bags (“bebbi sagg”) purchased at the grocery store).  For recycling, you have to break down and tie up paper/cardboard and they pick it up only once per month.  Aluminum and glass go in special repositories (sorted by size and color), but luckily we have 2 recycling stations near us which I can walk to.  We’re all set now and things are running more smoothly.  The “Translate Google” webpage has been very helpful for us!  Hurray.

We’re still getting used to the city “shutting down” on Sundays.  It’s true, everything is closed, except for a few cafes and public transport.  It makes it very peaceful though.

There are some decent department stores and fun boutiques here.  We did a bit of shopping to check things out and Matt now has a broad assortment of scarves and fun socks (the “Euro” look!).  Very fun, indeed.

We recently made our favorite Thai pizza, twice!  It was veggie, but still as tasty as we remember it. Yum. We brought peanut butter and brown sugar from home (still haven't found any brown sugar here). Some items we typically use are easy to find, like soy sauce, but others are elusive, or really tiny (peanut butter jars are mini size and would last us about 2 servings!).

Interesting / still getting used to:

·    Our door locks from the inside, with a key (there is no bolt).  One day, I was locked IN trying to get out to meet the delivery guy (I couldn’t find the key).  Now we just leave the key in the door for ease.

·     We have a fan that automatically turns on in the bathroom and then proceeds to run for 10 minutes or so.  There is no controlling it. ?? 

·    Where does a green egg come from?  The grocery stores have an array of green, yellow, blue eggs…..very colorful, like Easter all year-round.

·    At the grocery store, you bring your own [re-usable] bag, and pack your groceries.  You also have to weigh your fruit/produce and get a receipt the checker can scan [yes, a lot of countries outside of the US do this, but still getting used to the approach].  And the carts are locked up - you have to insert a coin to unlock, and then you get the coin back when you return it, and lock it back up (Matt figured it out, I however, could not).

·    Getting used to the metric system and measurements, distances, temperatures etc.

·    Nespresso machines are everywhere and seem to replace regular coffee, so until we get a coffee-maker, I’ve been drinking instant Nescafe (not so bad, actually-or perhaps I'm just getting more used to it).

·    People with special floatyy bags (to keep personal items dry) bobbing down the Rhine.

·   Military time (even on our clock radio).

·     Sunday closures.

·       We cannot find a wine rack to save our lives (we brought a bunch of Cali wine with

     us).  We’ve looked everywhere with no luck.

Bern

Capitol.  Mitteland. 
Population 122,422

Last Sunday we planned on heading to Lucerne, but the weather looked better in Bern so we made a last minute switch.  We did a bit of reading up on Bern, mostly on the train.  We were delightfully surprised, to say the least. The old town is quaint (circa 15th century) and picture-postcard charming.  It’s approximately 6 km of arcaded stone streets (shops at the bottom and residences on top), with fountains of folk figures in the middle of the street every few blocks.  No wonder it’s a Unesco Heritage Site!  Since it was Sunday, all the shops were closed, thus, it was quiet, but still so much fun wandering around.  It was a very leisurely day.

Famous fountain of Troll eating children!

Like Basel, you can drink water from the fountains.

There is also a big fancy clock tower, similar to Prague’s.  We watched it strike 12:00, where the guy at the top gongs the bell 12 times, and in the middle, bears and people danced around.  It was somewhat anti-climactic since we stood around a while waiting, but still a true engineering feat.

There is also a bright turquoise river (Aare), the color of water you seen on posters for a tropical island, that winds its way around the city.  We had a nice walk along the river and unexpectedly ran into bears!  Ok, they weren't running wild.  Interestingly, there's a "Bären Park" adjacent to the river that houses a few brown bears.  They looked so cute and cuddly!   We learned the name Bern means the descendant of Bernard (bear), hence all the bear logos all over the city (just like Cali!) 

We ended our wonderful day with a late afternoon glass of wine at an old, opulent hotel with impressive views of both the river and mountains.  There were tons of people swimming in the river - which looked so refreshing.   Not sure how they avoid getting carried too far downstream though, the current is strong.

Lost in Translation

Kaffe.  Bein. 

When we were in Zurich, we went to an artsy pizza place we read about (Rosso - http://www.restaurant-rosso.ch/), tucked away in the warehouse district with no signage or anything.   However, it was very cool and hip (clearly our scene, right? Ha ha). For appetizers, we saw “something something–bein” with arugula and crostini, and thought we would try that, along with the melon and prosciutto, which was easy enough to translate.   Well, out comes a big bone, alongside a crostini topped with arugula (it was actually very pretty)….so the “something something–bein” was “bone marrow”.  Huh. It ended up being quite tasty, but not what we were expecting!   The pizza was really fresh and delicious too, which we washed down with 2 “big beers”.   Much deserved after a full day of walking around, I think!

On a recent, sunny Sunday, we decided to sit outside at a café near the apartment and get some coffee and cake.  Matt ordered “kaffe” but was handed two “Kalbeer”??  So, we ended up having beer with our cake instead of the desired coffee….oh well, it was actually a good lager beer.  At least it was 1PM, so not the crack-of-dawn or anything, thankfully.