The German Blogs: Um...Mt. Pilatus? --Ok, Zurich.

Waking up the morning, it was one of those instincts that just TOLD you your plans were not going to work out. I didn't even really have to open my eyes to know that the world outside was a sucky foggy day.

And it was. *sigh*

We went to breakfast in the restaurant, which again, didn't even come close to our expectations. I do believe that this was the first place I encountered the 5 minute egg. Now, I like a nice soft boiled egg here and again. Usually they are 7 or 9 minute eggs. But sometimes, they do not advertise how long said egg has been cooked, as here. So I cracked my egg open to enjoy my soft-boiled good new and almost puked on the table. It was the consistency of half cooled jell. I calmly put it to one side and ate my roll. T said that had I attempted to eat it, he would have had to leave the table.

We took our showers, loaded up the car again, and looked up to where Mt. Pilatus should have been.


Hmph. No mountain. For the heck of it, we drove to the cable car base again. And looked up. And saw nothing but clouds. It was raining quite badly, in fact. I was disappointed. My father has spoke so highly of the Mountain, and the information I had found on it had me interested. But it was E80 to go to the top, and that just wasn't going to happen if we couldn't see anything.

So, sadly, we piled back into the car, and headed for Zurich.

The ride to Zurich was uneventful. But again, with the clouds, I do believe that were gypped out of a beautiful, beautiful view. I would say, by comparison that this town was the least stressful of the towns because we quickly gave up and parked and walked into the hotel.

This was another positively WONDERFUL hotel, The Alder. It was an old hotel, and they were updating while we were there. I loved how clean and neat it was and we had a wonderful room on the top floor in the corner so we could see what was going on outside in the little platz we were on. They were helpful and nice.

The ONLY problem was the bathroom door. When you walk in, the bathroom is right there, and then you walk into the rest of the room, so you can't see the door from the rest of the room. However that does not change the fact that the door was glass.

Yes. Glass.

Did you think that I would not have photographic proof of that?

Anyway, the biggest problem was not so much that the toilet was RIGHT THERE, but that when frosted glass gets fogged, it becomes not frosted. IE, you could see right in to whomever was standing there in their naked glory.

Aside from this strange door situation, the room was very nice. There was mural on the one wall and 23" LCD tv in the corner which a certain someone couldn't stop pointing to and smiling. So, I used the free internet (heh) to email a teacher some homework and quick chat with a few people, while T looked at a few maps of the city and figured out where we were headed next.

The City of Zurich was a specific request from him. His favorite author, James Joyce, is buried there and he, much like me, seems to like to visit very famous people's graves. We got on the tram not all that far from our hotel, and headed up to the fluntern.

And walked right by it. We didn't even realize that it was a cemetary. It was so... entrance to a mansion-esque. We tried asking one woman at the zoo where James Joyce was buried, but got only a "who?" out of her. Her boss seemed to know who we were talking about and pointed us back the way we came. We realized then that we had walked right by it.

Into the cemetery we went. There was, for you perusing of the dead, a map on which to find the... um, residents. Mr. Joyce was buried in the back, and it was quite a nice little plot.

I have often wondered what other people think whilst standing and looking at the grave of someone who had such influence on them as I know Joyce had on T. I know that when I stood at Shakespeare's birthplace, I cursed him for creating the English language as we know it today, and for that leading to my great weakness in life-- writing. I'll never know though, because I believe that what you think at the grave of another is between you and them. And maybe God if s/he's interested.

So, since we found the zoo while trying to locate the Late Mr. Joyce, and having not much else to do, we went in.

I told you. We have an obsession with zoos.

I was delighted to find that this particular zoo had penguins. Oh, I've seen penguins before, don't get me wrong. But always the smaller ones that actually live on the coast of Chile and Argentina. Damned if I can remember what they are called.

These were the Emperor Penguins. I had, until that very day, never seen an Emperor penguin up close. They are tall suckers. About 3 feet tall, and just beautiful. I wanted to stay and watch them for a while, but T was all into everything else there. We walked up stairs to a hot room habitat that had frogs and lizards and snakes. Then into the bird habitat, and then to the primates.

I love the little monkeys. They are the best. The ultra tiny ones like the tamarins and such. They are so cool to watch, because they are just mini monkeys.

To add to my delight in this particular enclosure, not only was I treated to those penguins, but I was also treated to a silverback gorillas. HUGE was not the word for him. He just sat there peeling a stick, or something, not at all interested in all the activity by the other silverback around him. I loved it-- I could have there all day.

I have to say that the Zurich Zoo has one of the most natural habitats I have ever seen. Standing by the red pandas, I couldn't figure out how they kept them in their area. I mean, there must have been something, but I couldn't figure it out. I was pleased with that, because I had the feeling that the animals were happy about it too. The only thing we couldn’t find were the kangaroos. That was sad to me, but considering that I had my penguins and my silverback by then, I was otherwise pleased.

We go back on to the tram. And go on the wrong tram. And didn't get off in time. So we wound up by the Bahnhofstrasse. Um. Yeah.

The Bahnhofstrasse is one of the most expensive places in Europe to shop. Yes, just as hoity toity as Paris and Milan. But lower key, and certainly no concession to the people who just want to buy something there to say they bought something there. Prada, Louis Vuitton, names you couldn't even thing of buying from. As we walked down the street, I mumbled to T, "We can't even afforded to walk here, never mind shop here."

So we walked along for a little while, me knowing that the Bahnhofstrasse would lead to the Bahnhof, which would take us to the bridge back to our hotel. Apparently, T did not know this, and decided to take a right toward the river. And we were lost on the back streets of Zurich in moments.

We did encounter a wonderful black lab that decided to eat a florist's wares whilst her owner kept walking. All of sudden the owner realized what was going on, and yelled at her, "HELEN! Come! Wretched Hund!!!" At which T and I stifled the gales of laughter that threatened to boil up.

We reached the river bank, only to find that we were nearly 100 feet above the river in a park that I had no idea how we had gotten there. We did discover that there was a foot bridge not that far away over the river. We headed that way, and wandered along the other side of the river to the Bahnhof (which to say I was miffed about going there after getting lost was a touch of an understatement.)

We picked up a water bus that took us out to the Chinese Garden, which was closed for the day. And a pile of Junk. Or Art. Or whatever. It was awful and rusted. We were getting hungry by this time, it was starting to rain and my feet were still hurting. So we found the trams and took one of those back to our closest stop on the line and headed back to the hotel.

Dinner that night was what I had been looking forward to for a while. Swiss Fondue. With real Swiss Cheese. T opted for something called Rosti-- for which he was brought a little grill and toasted his meat on the top and melted the cheese underneath and ate everything together. I opted for the fondue itself, a bourguignon based boiling pot with meat and veggies. Heavenly! I love nothing so much as a good fondue, and this was really good fondue.

We walked around for a little while after the meal (because it was a MEAL) and found that we were in the bar district. Sadly all the bars were filled with University students and we're too old do be doing that stuff at this point or they were gay bars. So after paying an exorbitant price for a soda, we headed back to room, and hit the bed for the night.