Zurich and the Zoo

Hey everyone!

Sorry it's taken me so long to get this blog post up! What happened was my camera decided to organize all my pictures from my Zurich trip in folders based on what setting I took the photo with..... meaning they were all completely mixed up! As you can imagine, for an organization freak like me, this makes life very difficult when trying to upload photos in a chronological order.

Anyway, the order may not be fantastic, but in the very least two of my days spent in Zurich were cloudy... so I picked the sunny pictures (which is really the only time Zurich looks REALLY beautiful)... and that made it easier!

My stay was really great. I had just taken the train from Basel (where I stayed with Valentina's family) to meet Melanie (another au paire for my cousins Jim and Meg). My stay with Melanie and Alex was great. They were so kind, and we even made real American cheese cake one night!!! So thanks to Melanie and Alex for a great time!

Slight update on my life before I start explaining the pictures (I know it's been awhile): not much has happened since I've gotten back from Switzerland. I bought my flight home for May 15th, so there wasn't much money to travel. Classes are going well, and I've spent the last few weeks gathering anything and everything I need to apply for jobs back in the USA (there are not many.. :-( ). This past weekend I went with my friend Mitch to Strasbourg, although I came down with a really bad fever, and it rained for a good portion of the weekend, so it was not the most enjoyable trip. This Saturday I will start my trip to Amsterdam to visit my cousin Heather (who is in from Japan). After that I will have one more week of teaching, and then I'm off to Nice, and hopefully Berlin in April. That's my life so far.


Now onto the pictures...

When you first arrive in Zurich, you can't miss.. the train station!

On my first day exploring Zurich I decided to follow the map around from the train station to the old part of Zurich. Here's a few pictures.

After getting out of the old town you can't miss one of Zurich's main cathedrals. You don't have to pay to go inside, but you are not allowed to take pictures, which really sucks because the stained glass in this cathedral is very unique. They've taken a lot of those psychological mind tricks and turned them into stained glass, and the effects are REALLY beautiful.

Church from the outside:

Picture of my favorite stained glass window from the outside. Anyone who's taken a psychology class will know this one. It's the figure ground test!!! Do you see the facial profiles or the vases?

Picture of one of the cathedrals towers (that I was too lazy to climb up)

Church from the other side.

This is the street where you can't buy anything on an assistant's salary. Unless you want to use up your entire salary on one item, and starve for a month. Aka, designer brands EVERYWHERE.

Voila... a statue...

And if your visiting Zurich you can't miss this church, with the biggest clock face in Europe. And that's pretty much it for first day pictures...

The next day I wandered directly down to the lake... but first on my way I found the lookout point. Here's the pictures on my way to the look out point. Notice how much better the pictures are when it's sunny.

Yay, I found the lookout point. Zurich from a little higher up..

Then I came down from the lookout and continued along the river to the lake... pictures of the river..

And the cathedral again... looking much more cheerful..

By the time I made it down to the lake, I was hungry, so I paid about 10 euros for a bratwurst. It's sort of a traditional food in this area... so I figured why not. The bratwurst itself is made out of veal... not usually my preferred meat but it was very delicious. The roll next to it was the thickest heaviest thing I've ever eaten. It was soft, but so dense that it was like trying to rip off a piece of rock.. very good with the meat though.

The park next to the lake

View of the lake from where I sat and ate my lunch...

I love this picture. You would never guess that Zurich was such a busy bustling town by looking at this one. This boy sat among a crowd of hundreds, right in between two guitar players (one singing, one playing a flute.. two different songs).. and read. I could NEVER concentrate like that...

After lunch I decided to check out the ferry ride, and got a few pictures of the bridge on my way.

I was the last person to get on the Ferry Ride... yay me. Here's pictures of the lake from the boat.

After I got off the boat I headed to the other side of the lake where I found a little park with some nice views:

And from there I wandered back to the train station to join Melanie in making our American cheese cake!

I also checked out the Zurich museum, but it was closing a half hour after I got there so I didn't pay to go in. I did get some pictures of the beautiful building and park before catching my train.

The next day, since I had seen most of the town, Melanie and I went to the zoo.

The penguins were actually trained to do this march, that lasted a really long time and was cool to see. We didn't stay for the whole thing however because they smelled really bad.

This guy was just wandering around the zoo at his leisure. I have never been so close to one of these birds. Later he was sitting on a fence, and a mom kept trying to nudge her poor little boy to get right up next to him for a photo. The poor kid looked petrified.. I would have been too.

This is the only picture I managed to get in the tropical greenhouse. As you can see there are some GIANT tortoises. You walk in and you literally feel like you've been transported to the rainforest... it's so humid, and there's a few free range monkeys and gecko's running around.

After that me and Melanie went to Starbucks to hang out while we waited for Alex to bring my stuff to the train station, so I could catch my train back to Gerardmer! Here's us!

Hopefully I'll get Strasbourg pictures up for you guys up soon, but no promises.

Hope your all doing well back home. Miss you all!