Zurich

The reason I am awake right now is because I accidentally took a 4-hour-long nap after work and now I can't fall asleep again... (Mom and Dad, no need to comment. I will try not to mess up my sleep schedule in the future, but I just worked too hard today). In light of this situation, I decided to be proactive about updating my blog because this weekend Kevin and I are flying back to Italy to visit Pisa for a day and then spend 3 days in Florence. I know that I will have a lot to share about that vacation and it will most likely completely overshadow my day trip to Zurich, so it is best if I write a brief little post about that now.

So, during the Heidelberg conference, my friend Melissa let me know that she had a 10 hour layover in Zurich, Switzerland on Sunday (the day Kevin was leaving to go home). Since I have never been to Switzerland, I decided it was necessary to take a spur of the moment trip to Zurich and spend the day with her there. It was Melissa's first time in Europe and she doesn't speak any German, so it was nice that I could join her so that the whole experience wasn't as overwhelming. I think she was in shock the entire day, but we had a good time. She kept saying, "I can't believe I'm in Europe right now." Tell me about it. This is going to seem like it was a dream when I get home and back into the reality of daily life, school, and studying for the MCAT... but for now, European adventures prevail.

Back to Zurich. From Mannheim to Zurich was only a 3 hour 20 minute train ride and I met Melissa in the central train station at about lunch time after giving her a crash course in German vocab and specific directions to get from the airport "flughafen" to the central station "hauptbahnhof" using the suburban train sytem "S-bahn". After meeting up, we got a map and wandered out into the streets. We walked aimlessly towards pretty buildings and over the bridges to admire the beautiful architecture and scenery. We went inside a few churches and we climbed a TON of stairs up the tower of the biggest church we were in so that we could get views of the entire city.

We had a lot of fun catching up and sharing stories about how our summers were going thus far and meanwhile wandered a lot. Before we knew it, our time was up and we both had to start heading home. I learned the hard way that the USD and Euro had recently dropped in value compared to the Franc... The Franc is so strong! Everything in Switzerland was so ridiculously expensive that I am glad I only had to eat one meal there and I couldn't stay for more than an afternoon.  A small side dish of potato salad at a street vendor cost me 6 something Francs (which i didn't have) = 8 euro = about $11.50 USD... That was the cheapest non sausage thing I could find. So I starved a little until I got back into Germany and I could splurge on a whole sandwich for 3 euro. I deeply enjoyed my expensive potato salad on the water front and took these pictures of the swans who probably aren't fed very much because food is so valuable. Also, here are some other pretty pictures I took of the boats on the lake :)

Anyways, it was a nice day trip and I am glad I got to have a mini Switzerland experience. Now I know why most people go hiking there and just enjoy the scenery, it is soooo expensive to do anything else!!! Maybe one day when I'm rich and successful ;) I will be able to visit again (if that ever happens).. Here are a few more pics of pretty buildings and such.