Bahnhofstrasse
24 November 2013
Breakfast is included in the price of our hotel, so we load up enough that we can skip lunch.
It's drizzling, then it's raining, then it's drizzling, and it never really stops as we walk to Banhofstrasse, the main high-end shopping street. It's like 5th Avenue, but more expensive. We're saving the museums for tomorrow, when everything else will be closed, which is why we're doing this today. There are a few shops that Jack wants to see. The high-end chocolatiers are here too (lucky for those of you who know me well).
We walk along the western bank of the
This bike rack has built-in cables.
Two gulls hang out by the river:
The first store we go into is an English language book store, full of British expats. We're not going to buy anything here, but it's fun to see what makes it into this shop. Upstairs is a table laden with American and Australian food: Cheerios, M&Ms, Oreos, Pam cooking spray, Fluf, Marmite. Jack says, "This is the homesick section." There's more of the same on the lower level.
How about a CD store? Yikes! The cheapest ones are 20 Swiss Francs, or $22. London is going to seem like a bargain when we get there.
Next is one of the chocolate shops, Sprungli, the most famous, small, and crowded. Jack had read that one of their two locations is in the most expensive real estate on Bahnhofstrasse, where the rent is 4000 Francs per square meter per month. I look at the chocolate prices. "This is not the place to buy Swiss chocolate," I grumble. Jack says, "This is exactly the place to buy Swiss chocolate." So I dive back in and come out with a handful of bars for under 50 Francs. Christmas presents.
Jack has his eyes on a fountain pen store. The first thing I see is a pair of glass cufflinks designed as realistic-looking cat's eyes. If Jack likes them I'll get them for him as a Christmas present. Or not. They're 400 Francs. He's not so fond of them anyway, he assures me.
Downstairs is a wall of special edition fountain pens. They're ridiculously ugly and ridiculously expensive.
These are a bargain at 9900 Francs:
The Sylvester Stallone pen is just plain fugly. I ask the saleswoman, who is letting Jack play with the $300 pens, if anyone has actually bought a Sylvester Stallone pen. "Yes," she says, "A couple of people." She goes on to say, "If he were to have a fountain pen, this is what it would have to look like." Turns out he did design it.
This one is 14000 Francs. At least it looks like a pen.
This one is the most expensive pen in the display, at 33000 Francs.
We leave with the store's catalog, which is free.
We find another chocolatier, this one slightly more affordable. What we really want now, though, is some hot chocolate.
After wandering about in the rain, into and out of Fraumunster Church (Chagall did the windows), and taking more pictures, we find the other Sprungli, the one with the expensive rent.
We wait for an open table in the downstairs cafe. The rest of the population of Zurich is upstairs at the restaurant. We settle in for some hot chocolate. Jack washes it down with champagne. A unicyclist on an outsized wheel passes by. It gets dark.
We walk to the Zurchsee. Jack doesn't think the pictures will turn out well.
Back on Bahnhofstrasse, the lights have come on.
Rain gets onto the lens:
Jack says this moose is "hideously ugly" and "unpackable." People buy this stuff, though.
We meet a friend for dinner at Zurich's oldest vegetarian restaurant. We see our first hipsters. Lots of them. Then we go back to the friend's apartment, where we meet Pastis:
And we meet AllBall (nineteen years old!):
Pastis and AllBall listen to our conversation:
On our way back to the hotel, we pass a window full of ornaments that are just completely wrong. I apologize for ending the blog with this and potentially causing you nightmares. Can I make it up to you with high-rent chocolate?
2 comments:
1) From the site linked for the rain cape: "(What the photo also indicates is that in order to use a rain cape, you also must use a full set of fenders)."
2) After seeing fountain pens between 9900-33000 francs, I feel way less guilty about squandering the pension on bike toys.
3) Forgive me... and I'm sure it's an index of just how irredeemably hopeless I am as a human... but I LOVE those ornaments. We've already got Santa on a Harley, and Santa on a NY Mets rocking horse.
3. The only thing preventing me from accepting your tacky ornament challenge is that it's Sunday morning and the shops are closed. Otherwise, it will be like shooting fish in a barrel. Game on.
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