zurich

August 7, 2008

Landlubber

This visit to Zurich was supposed to include a day of sailing, because you can’t think of Switzerland without thinking of the great Swiss naval tradition. Sadly I indulged in somewhat more grog than would ordinarily be recommended, so I’ve decided to skip the prolonged period of bobbing up and down on a boat in favour of sitting comfortably on land.

Oddly, I’ll also be missing a sailing event tomorrow. My team in Dublin will spend the day being buffeted about on Irish Sea, while I’ll be in the arguably more glamorous but less enjoyable position of hurtling through the sky in a jet-powered metal tube.

August 6, 2008

Slide

There’s a slide from the first floor to the ground floor café here. There are fire-poles from floor to floor. I just walked past a sand pit, and yesterday I beat my best score on a Star Trek: The Next Generation pinball machine. This place makes my office look like a bank.

August 5, 2008February 5, 2011

I’m in Zurich this week from Monday to Friday. It’s my first travel since the end of May. A year ago that would have sounded like a very short time between trips, but it’s actually by far the longest single stretch I’ve been at home this year. My flight out was my eighteenth flight this year. It was nice not to have to deal with airports for a few weeks, even if it did mean failing in my half-assed attempt to travel internationally during every month of the year.

I haven’t seen a lot of Zurich, and because I’ll be working I don’t know how much I will see. The hotel is great, if you can judge a city by such things. The water in the minibar is free. What an innovation! On the other hand the rail system seems set up deliberately to confound non–German speakers, which is strange for country with four official languages. The two people I did have to ask for help at various points were able to speak English but didn’t seem entirely pleased to be asked to. Maybe my pronunciation of “Sprechen Sie Englisch?” was just wrong enough to somehow insult their mothers.

So, there you are. Airport good, trains bad, hotel good. Overall pretty neutral.