December 28 - Zurich
Today was really, really, relaxed. We were awoken at 7am by a phone call from our parents, and we got to talk with them as we tried getting ready. It was nice to hear their voices and their well-wishes. We still felt kind of sleepy, so we all sort of fell back to sleep and didn’t wake up until late. We finally got up and ready and then walked across the street to the Starbucks where we ordered coffee and some pastries. Before leaving, I ate some more of the bread and cheese we bought from the grocery store the night before. It was still lightly snowing today, and it was cold. Probably the coldest it has been outside during our entire trip in Europe so far. After we did Starbucks we headed north towards the Zurich University and ETH campus, with the intention of visiting this museum of Medicine History. We walked farther than we thought and ultimately never quite got to the museum. We turned toward east-south-east and passed by the Kunsthaus Zurich (art house) where we stopped briefly to check times and prices. We still had some daylight so we made our way through the streets towards the southern part of the inner city where the Limmat opens up into the big lake. They had more shops and such so we did some window shopping here too. We bought our postcards, but I held off on my knife because this lady at the gall of charging 0.30 cents more for it than everywhere else! Victorinox is like Bose in that they have set prices for their knives, so you’ll find the same prices everywhere. It was very, very cold. We made it to the final bridge and walked across it, snapping photos along the way. Because of the falling snow, visibility wasn’t very far. We saw all these ducks and birds gathering by the pier-edge, including a swan that was out of the water. It is quite a big bird! Sachi even saw one of the ducks dive underwater and come up with a fish in its beak. We turned northward on the opposite bank and walked up the river-front, passing by this circus complex but didn’t think it would be so fun in weather like this. We crossed the bridge across from the Grossmünster cathedral and walked across. There was a souvenir shop so I went in and bought my ‘Soldat’ (soldier, in English) Swiss Army Knife and also stamps for the postcards back home. We made our way up the stairs and inside the Grossmünster cathedral which Sapana was apt to point out we did not see the previous day. It was ok inside, nothing too special in my opinion. We continued upward through the way we came down, on a sharply sloping street with a horse statue and several antique book shops and such. We got to the Kunsthaus and went to their general collection, which was free because of it being a Wednesday. I really enjoyed this museum. They had various wings dedicated to topics, like “Old Masters”, “Modern Art”, etc. then broke down each of the wings into more focused sections like “Italian art” and “Netherlands art”, often with pieces from the same time-period in the same room. It was very nice. I really enjoy the more landscape/cityscape/seascape paintings in the 1600-1700 period, when they really began to experiment with subtle forms of lighting in their landscapes. Italian art can be interesting, but one quickly gets inundated with endless depictions of the life of Christ. In their modern or contemporary art they had many examples of the “red lines on white canvas” or “primary color shapes on black canvas” type paintings, but also some really interesting ones where the painting appeared three-dimensional (thick ridges of paint where the strokes ended) but in fact it wasn’t. There were some Roy Lichtenstein, which Sapana recognized. The fourth floor was really great cause they had paintings from Monet, Matisse, Picasso, Munch, Dali, etc. Pretty good stuff.
After the Kunsthaus we went back to the hotel and did some packing and writing of postcards. I wanted to check my e-mail to coordinate with Christian in Munich, and thought we could go to the Starbucks where we saw a Wi-Fi access sign. Sachi bought a coffee and Sapana a hot chocolate. I was able to connect but was hit with a payment page. It sucked, you had to enter in your credit card information and such, and the rates were terrible. Disappointed, I went back to the hotel to use their kiosk in the smoke-filled lounge (they say the hotel is non-smoking, but all the workers in the lounge smoke and it wafts up into the floors). Happily, I saw an e-mail from Christian and his idea for a meeting place and time ended up matching perfectly with the plans we were sketching out for Munich. I sent back a letter, then the girls came back from Starbucks and after dropping off our jackets in the room went the 10 steps from the hotel door to the Indian restaurant that was in the same building as the hotel. Sachi had a glass of red wine and I had one of white wine; Sapana just had water. We ordered an aloo appetizer, then chana masala, palak paneer, and a mushroom shahi curry dish, and a mixed bread basket. Switzerland is so freakin’ expensive. We were easily at $25+ per person for this meal. But it was good. Back in the room we had some of the chocolate we bought earlier, and continued to work on journals and pictures. I had my laptop on the bed at an angle due to the blanket and suddenly USB 2.0 was working! The transfer speed is SO MUCH FASTER. Excited, we connected Sapana’s iPod and started transferring songs. We also wanted to backup the European trip pictures so we started a transfer of 1700 pictures. Just as it was ALMOST finished (after 20 minutes or so of optimizing and transferring) the USB 2.0 suddenly cut out and it re-connected at USB 1.1. The iPod didn’t save ANY of the data that was previously sent, so instead of around 1600 pictures it only showed 24. Sigh. I’m gonna make IBM/Lenovo fix this when I get back to the States. I paid like $300+ for an extended 3-year warranty for this laptop, and it BETTER cover this. It’s a system-board problem. It used to work just fine, then it suddenly quit. I think they know about it too – some problem with electro-static-dust buildup inside the system mainboard. I’ll call them up and ask if there is a safe way I can blow it or something.
We had to get up at 5am to catch the train to Munich the next day, so we went to bed early. It was an interesting 21st birthday.
