Limmat River, Zurich
24 November 2013
Today was all culcha. After another big, late breakfast, we moseyed over to the Museum fur Gestaltung (the Design Museum). We crossed over the Limmat where it meets the Sjhl. You might ask how I knew that. I knew that because in Zurich they put street signs on their rivers:
Upstairs was an exhibit on vintage clothing and furniture. It was a waste of time. The take-home message was, apparently, that modern coiture is all about making new stuff look old. Whatever.
Next we went to the Swiss National Museum, which was free for the day, so yay. The big exhibit was about Karl Der Grosse. Who? "Charlemagne," Jack said. Oh. Like in that Steely Dan song. Right. Until today I knew nothing at all about Charlemagne. Now I know a lot. Except how many civilizations he wiped off the face of the Earth. The exhibit was lacking on the details of the carnage as this much-revered king took over much of known Europe in the 9th century. We did get to see some beautifully illuminated bibles, some done with gold script on purple paper; and there were many other hand-lettered books that put Jack in his happy place.
By the time we'd finished with that, the museum was close to closing. We needed to buy our train tickets for tomorrow's trip to Geneva, so we walked across the street to the rail station.
If I could take one thing home with me from this trip, it would be the customer service for, if not the entire, Swiss rail system. Within minutes of explaining what we'd like to do, with a minimum of keystrokes, we each had one ticket each that will encompass five separate train trips, all in one transaction.
It will go like this: Zurich to Bern; Bern to Interlaken; GoldenPass (the touristy train into the mountains, where we switch rail gauges and trains somewhere) to Montreux; Montreux to Geneva. I'm oddly confident that this will all work as planned. I'm not entirely confident, just oddly so.
All of Zurich was at the train station, at the Christmas Market, on a Sunday evening, at 5:30 p.m. We had nothing else to do, so we wandered through the crowds. Every so often we'd be hit by the foul smell of raclette or some sort of roasting meat, or both. A few stalls were selling gluehwein (warm, spiced, red wine). Others had breads, cheeses, chocolates, chocolate-covered breads, chocolate-covered marzipan (bought some), chocolate-covered macaroons (tasty), bretzel (can't pass that up -- the original soft pretzel), nuts, and sausages. There were scarves, Christmas ornaments, and more than one booth selling Swarovski crystals.
Swarovski also decorated the tree:
Normally I'd growl at the corporate sponsorship, but I use Swarovski crystals in nearly every piece of jewelry I make. They do good work. I'm sure there's some sort of corporate bad actor labor malfeasance somewhere; there always is. But the tree was pretty.
It was still too early for dinner, but it wasn't worth going back to the hotel just to head out again. So we went back to the Old Town, to the Cabaret Voltaire (birthplace of Dada, current home to hipsters), where Jack made it halfway through a cup of gluehwein. Jack said it tasted like it smelled and offered me a sip. "It smells terrible," I said, and declined the offer.
From there we wandered further into Old Town for dinner. Jack said, "Can you get a picture of this for Sharon?"
Sure. Hi, Sharon. This is for you. I don't know why; presumably you do.
So that's our weekend in Zurich. Stay tuned for the train ride across the country. I hope my camera battery holds out because I forgot to pack the charger. My phone does a decent enough job if I need to switch.
*****
While I was working on this, Dale was texting me from my house as she and Sean visited the Boys. They haven't trashed the house. Yet. (We have a pet-sitter; this was an extra dose of playtime.)
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