Zurich

I started and ended my Prague trip in Zurich, where my friend Monika lives. Monika and I met in Santa Cruz in 1997 or ’98. We met while sitting in the bleachers of a lousy basketball game. Immediately we began trading travel stories. She had taken time off to travel for 24 months and had seen much more of the world than me, and then we realized that we’d both traveled extensively in India and that we both studied Bharatnatym, a form of dance from Southern India (although Monika was much more advanced than me). From that point on we were fast friends. Monika left the US shortly after that and then I left California for what I thought was New York, but what ended up being a 5-year side-trip to Utah. We kept up via email until I moved to New York, when I stopped writing everyone. It wasn’t until I decided to take time off to go to Prague that I realized I could try to track her down and reconnect. I decided that I could visit with her on my way to and from Prague and break up the trip a little since flying straight from New York to Prague seemed a little long.

Monika met me at the airport in Zurich looking exactly like she did the last time I saw her. She hadn’t aged one day. I was so happy and shocked to see her. She had lovingly prepared everything to help make my time in Zurich as easy and memorable as possible.



Zurich is a quaint alpine city nestled along the coast of the giant Zurich Lake. I arrived in the late morning and we spent the day walking; through the modern part of town that resembles 5th Avenue with all its designer shops, and then along the edge of the lake, and then through the old city with its twisted narrow streets and quaint shops.







We’d walk until it was time for a break. Monika had chosen a wonderful array of unique cafes where we would sit and drink designer hot chocolate or coffee with some wonderful kind of liquor, and small cakes. Toward evening we made our way to a bar that was situated right below an observatory and had a 360 degree view of the city. We literally had walked every corner of the city. For dinner, we took a bus ride out to a restaurant that was quite different from anything I’d ever experienced. We ordered a kind of designer buffet where the food was all pushed to our table by the chef on a beautiful wooden cart with an assortment of display boxes on top. The side dish box looked like a giant version of my grandmother’s sewing box but, when opened up, contained bowls of various vegetables instead of piles of thread and material scraps. The desert box was glass and contained many tiny plates of wonderful things. We could order as much of anything that we wanted. I had lemon mouse and then raspberry chocolate cake.

I got back to my hotel before midnight and was berating myself for booking an early flight to Prague. “I’m on vacation. I should be sleeping in”, I thought. But I got up at the crack of dawn and took a shower – something that I always find awkward in Europe because the hardware is so different. Most showers have only a hand-held hose which becomes very messy – what to do with the thing while you’re busy with lather?– or do you turn it off and freeze in between rinsing? - I never get that feeling of total abandonment that I can get in an American shower. Fortunately, the Zurich shower had a place to hang up the shower head on the wall, and a shower curtain, but to no avail. When I got out there was a solid half inch of water on the floor that I had to mop up with every towel I could find.

I arrived at the airport Sunday morning, clean, but feeling that I had gotten up way too early and that I should still be in bed. I tried to be optimistic, thinking that it would be good to get an early start to my favorite city. As it turned out, it had been snowing solidly in Prague all weekend and the airport was closed. Two or three of my flights were canceled that day before I finally took off at about 5:30 PM. I got to know the Zurich airport really well. I spent time in the internet café which was extremely cool. The seats were large clear balls (like in pilates class) anchored in silver holders. Although I’m not a modernist in any sense (except for the use of technology) I do get a lot of enjoyment out of modern Swiss Design. It’s clean and efficient, well thought-out.