Another retro-dated post: back in Zurich!
Feb 2, 2012: 12:30pm, Zurich airport
Awaiting departure Zurich -> New Delhi. The plane is an hour late, and I'm remembering Fafa's (aka Ted, well traveled to India) words: Expect delays everywhere. I'm flying Swiss, so perhaps this is unrelated to destination tardiness, but who knows?
My six hour layover allowed me to meet up with my friend Maria who recently moved there from Montreal. Groggily, while skies were still dark, we met each other at the gates, and made the short train ride from the airport to her new apartment. On the way on the train, she gets a ticket for not having the right sector on her pass. A pair of stern looking ticket inspectors issue her a 75 CHF fine ($81!). Ouch Zurich, why you gotta be so hard?
Right outside Maria's building is a remnant of a nuclear bomb shelter, now a museum open just one Sunday a month (pic to come). At her place I take the last hot water shower I will have for probably some time! I've been experiencing a lot of anticipatory appreciation for things that I will surely miss in the next few months: potable tap water, freely eating raw food without fear of getting sick, and steaming showers! I can already imagine the relief of coming back to these luxuries!
Walking around the city centre with Maria (in Matthias' big sweater, since I packed for the upcoming Indian summer), down by the riverside on the extremely quaint cobblestone pathway (little streets wend so sharply they look like they become garage driveways, but then look where they lead! (pic to come). Swans are still chillin like the villains they are, even in -18C weather and cutting wind (pic). Maria took me to an iconic Swiss resto, the Sprungli chocolate store! A prized confectionary is the Luxemburgli, a mini meringue with filling (pic). Coincidentally, it also looks just like a sugar burger. Delicious though. I bought a little box for my hostess Makyil in Delhi. Hopefully they will survive the flight (as in hopefully they don't get squished in transit, not hopefully they don't accidentally make their way into my mouth...)!
A satisfying Sprungli hot chocolate with whipped cream later (pic), we are rushing to catch a tram to the train station to make my connecting flight! Maria drops me off (not before I frantically rush towards the train while simultaneously taking off my jacket and holding onto my bags while taking off Matthias' sweater to give back to Maria), and I am suddenly gently hurtling through the Zurich landscape, all on my own. I'm starting to feel it: this is just me now, in a foreign country. Whatever I end up doing on this trip is completely up to me.
I feel like carrying myself a little taller.
Zurich. Short, and very sweet.
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Addendum: on the train back to the airport, I encounter the same pair of ticket inspectors from before! Adherence to the rules does seem to be a property of Switzerland (despite the fact that both trains we took today were late), and they systematically go through everyone on the train, ticketing exactly who needs to be ticketed. I wave at one of them and remind him that he was the one who gave my friend a ticket before. He seems to recognize me, but doesn't appear to want to make conversation (=D)! And then I was the only one on the train that he didn't check! Maybe he was embarrassed. =D