Zurich

It's the little things, really, that can make my day so annoying. I got to Zurich around noon and walked down to only hostel close to anything to find that the reception desk didn't open until 3pm. This happen to me in Bern too, but the hostel there was smart enough to give any arriving backpacker a place to temporarily store his or her bag. No such luck here. Attempting NOT to waste my time, I walked back to the train station to store my pack in a locker for a few hours while I went sightseeing. The Zurich train station has the narrowest lockers ever, though, which are still actually big enough to hold my pack, but the hinge for the door is buried into the opening (for security) and prevented me from being able to stuff the bag in there. All of the larger lockers were taken because the only people who will pay that much to store something at the train station have something really big to store. Honestly... what were they thinking putting in a million tiny lockers. If you have something that small, it's not that big of a deal to just carry it with you. Anyway, I didn't want to drag my huge pack around the city. Instead, I camped out at a Starbucks between the train station and the hostel for a two hours until the hostel opened.

Once I finally got into the hostel, I ended up having to split a more expensive room with two brothers from Canada, Dan and Dave, who were also waiting for the hostel to open. That actually turned out for the better, though.

It seems like everyone and their grandmother heads for the shore of Lake Zurich on Sundays. I spent most of the day walking along both shores of it. I must say that the street performers I found here are far better than any other city I've visited so far. A family of gymnasts/acrobats were putting on a show of tumbling and human pyramid type stances, the strength needed for which was fairly impressive. I have to wonder how much of their lives are devoted to training for sidewalk shows and the loose change of passers by. I would have to think they have a day gig. There was also a magician/clown putting on a show for children, but he wasn't too good at staying on the one wheeled bike while juggling the fire battons. It was kind of funny to watch him fall, though... Mostly, though, people lay in the grass, sun bath, play pickup soccer games, or go for a stroll along the shores. A lot of tourists buy the overpriced ice cream from stands along the way, which, combined with the scenic mountains in the distance, strangely contributes to the calm peacefulness of atmosphere. It was a good day.

Zurich also has its assortment of churches and sights, but none really impressive enough to mention. Although, they do boast the largest clock face in Europe on their tower. Anyway, I walked back to my hostel in the evening, collected my two roommates and a girl we met in the lounge, and headed out for the Zurich nightlife. Turns out Sunday nights are fairly sedated here, but we made the best of it. One bar actually had decent margharitas (a little watered down, though).

The oddest thing I found here, though, was the five or six girls handing out for samples of OB applicators to the women in the train station this morning. I SO would have taken a picture if I could have. Oh well.