Switzerland? Why Not?

I was still outrageously jealous of J's Sweden trip, and I consoled myself with the thought that I would be tagging along with him to Zurich on his business trip.

We woke up at an ungodly hour on Friday morning and hailed a taxi to London City airport while it was still dark. It's a lot more convenient flying out of City as opposed to Heathrow since there are a lot fewer people and they're usually travel savvy business people who don't hold up the security line arguing with airport security as to why they should be allowed to take their gallon jug of shampoo on the plane.

In any case, J met up with several of his colleagues at the gate, and we all piled onto the plane for the very short and very bumpy flight to Zurich. J and I split up after customs as he and his colleagues were going to jump into a cab and head over to their client's offices whereas I was going to hazard the Swiss railway system into the city. Cabs are very expensive in Zurich (along with everything else, I was to discover), and the public transport system in Switzerland is supposed to be excellent. I bought my ticket from an agent that spoke perfect English and barely made it on the train as the doors were closing.

It was a short ten minute ride to Zurich HB, which is the city's main station, and I hoofed it to our digs for the weekend, the Hotel Continental. I was pretty tired by the time I found my way to the hotel, and I was grateful for early check-in and for the upgrade I didn't even ask for. Excellent!

The hotel was extremely charming and done up in a Swiss chalet style with a Christmas tree in all of the communal areas. A generous bunch of mistletoe hung over the revolving doors, and a barrel by the lifts invited you to take a sip of Swiss apple juice. Fat little Santas were liberally sprinkled around the property, and my equally charming room didn't disappoint.

I was exhausted from waking up so early and getting my bearings in a new city that I took a quick shower and jumped into the very cute bed for a nap.

It wasn't long before I was up and ready to go so I bundled up and grabbed my camera to head into the city to see what Zurich was all about. I had just walked into the city center when my phone rang and it was J telling me that he had finished his meeting and that he would head back to the hotel. So I guess the real sightseeing would have to wait, but I did get to take this one picture that only whetted my appetite to see more of Zurich!