Laowai

Pregnant and jet-lagged Kathy sleeps so I carry the torch.

First picture is for Bea. Kathy mentioned the public transit system and it is incredible. There are buses, trains and trams that criss-cross the city and its vast surroundings. They are clean, reliable and to be had for a single pass card (which my company conveniently provides). The tram is particularly fascinating because it is almost like the L in Chicago with the exception that it is clean, lacks homeless crazy people, does not smell, is on-time and reliable (literally to the minute, or they apologize in four languages). Did I mention the lack of homeless, smelly, begging, crack-out alcoholics? How do they accomplish this? We think Bea will love the tram like she loves the train back home:

Kathy mentioned the bells yesterday. Well, the bells are nuts. They start calling the faithful or whatever the heck they are doing and there is such a concentration of churches in the old city that it is almost like some bizare battle. You feel like you are in a war zone. Part of me gets annoyed and I try to think happy thoughts about harmless, well-meaning church-goers, but the bells are still damn loud. It took some time before we couldn’t hear the train at our old place and now I wonder if we’ll ever become immune to the cacaphony of bells in Altestadt.

I think of Europe as a collection of these walking zones (fussgangerzone) and big squares and great places where people can walk without cars. There are a bunch of those in Zurich’s old town. Although cars are not strictly banned everywhere, they are very infrequent and it allows for a really nice atmosphere. The amazing thing is that people actually live in these old buildings. We were looking at a few places on-line and noticed that one build dated back to the 1300s. Tomorrow we will visit a colleague’s house who lives in the old town and decide if this is something even worth considering.

Maybe tomorrow it will stop raining.