About three weeks ago (oops), I went to Zurich with Kendal, Matti, Hannah, Reagan, Lauren, DeLayne, Sarah, and Elaine. My first impession of Zurich was that it was a lot different than the other cities I had visited before. First of all, everything was much more expensive than anywhere I had ever been. I'm talking about 6.50 francs for one apple. Not even a large apple, but just a regular apple that you get at the grocery store. The standard of living was also a lot higher, but unfortunately, the weather was not very good. We had to get up very early for our flight, and after eating a quick (and expensive) breakfast, we all went on a free tour of Zurich, where we saw the banking district, the Fraumunster, a beautiful park, and many other places. It was basically sleeting the entire time that we were on our tour, so it was a little miserable. One of the coolest things that I learned about Zurich over this tour, however, was that all of the fountains in Zurich were safe to drink from (free water in Europe???? Crazy right!), and I very much enjoyed them.
After taking the time to warm up and relax, we then went and had dinner at an Italian restaurant, where I had the most delicious spaghetti ice cream of my life. Once again, I was amazed by the ludicrous prices for food in Zurich, and I was glad that I was going to Zurich for just 2 days rather than going for all of Easter break. All of us then met up and went to a pub crawl that night, where we met a lot of nice people and were introduced to the night life of Switzerland. The most exciting part of the night, however, was when a fight broke out between two groups in our pub crawl outside of the bar, which was terrible, yet really interesting to watch. Overall, I wasn't really impressed with the pub crawl, but it was a nice atmosphere to enjoy Switzerland in.
The next day, Elain, DeLayne, Sarah, and I explored Zurich a little more and went out to the water bordering the city. It was absolutely gorgeous on this day, and it made the experience all the more enjoyable. We then went to the Rhine Falls about an hour outside of Zurich. On the way over to the falls, we went though so many different kinds of weather conditions that you would have swore we were watching a sped up timeline of the seasons in Switzerland. At every other train stop that we passed, there was a new kind of weather. We passed through a light drizzle, then a heavy blizzard, then a very bright and windy area, then a light snow, then a very dry but sunny area, then a heavy rain, then a light snow, but luckily, we ultimately ended up in a very sunny and beautiful area.
When we got off of the train, we were surprised to see that we were on a cliff looking over the falls, which was an amazing sight to welcome us. After walking down to the falls and enjoying the view, we got to explore a castle on the top of a cliff overlooking the falls and hiked through the outskirts of a small town outside of the falls. Overall, the excursion was amazing, and I was grateful for the experience. Trying to get back to Zurich to get to the airport, however, was not as easy of a task. When you bought train tickets, it did not give you a time for your train, nor were there any displays telling you where you were going or what track you needed to be on. It took us about 2 hours to get back to Zurich, and we ate a quick dinner before heading to the airport and heading home.
Overall, I enjoyed Zurich, but it was probably just a once in a lifetime experience due to the expenses of traveling in Switzerland. It was a very beautiful area, and I was very impressed with the standard of living there. I would highly suggest Switzerland to anyone who is not afraid to dish out the money. I hope that we could return to go sky diving in Interloken, but we will see!!
Here are some pictures from the trip:
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