With Day 1 of my trip coming to a close I've had the chance to take a few more pictures of the city with the sunset in the background and got to spend some time at the harbour. In the evening today I had the pleasure of having dinner with a pretty unique person.
We went to a restaurant by the harbour, broke bread, drank wine and enjoyed some excellent conversation along with some scrumptious hand made pasta. (Note to all travellers, be prepared to spend if coming to Zurich, it is unfortunately one of the most expensive cities in the world)
I think there is no better way of getting a taste of a city than by walking around, observing locals, seeing the sights, and experiencing the sounds first hand. An e-book reader in hand along with some podcasts can help keep the mind occupied as you observe your surroundings. One assumption that I made was that people would be different in different parts of the world. When, in fact, people remain people. What I mean by this is, that regardless of what city you're in, if you go to a McDonalds at 12AM at night you are going to run into people sobering up from a night out, be that New York City or Zurich. (In addition random fights breaking out in German) (That's also taking into account that this was an early night)
Above all, no matter where you go, we all value a genuine human connection.
To round out my thoughts on Zurich in one word, I would say it's a very quaint city. It is, like humans, a contradiction in itself. Constantly improving and evolving (constant construction even thought it's not needed) yet at the same time a monument to the history that it embodies. Toronto and other North American cities can definitely take a page out of Zurich's notebook on how to build an efficient inter-city public transportation system and efficiencies in managing traffic.
Thank you Zurich, you've been good to me. :) Feel free to take a look through the pictures below.
You will find a view from my balcony that I'm writing this post from, along with what my AirBnB room looks like and other fun pictures!
