The morning after Thanksgiving, Bridget and I left for our 9 day study week trip. First stop: Zurich, Switzerland. It is no secret that Switzerland is extremely expensive, and we were told by our friends that had traveled there previously this semester that it's very difficult to get a meal in a restaurant for under 40 francs, basically the equivalent to $40. A cheeseburger meal at McDonalds cost 12 franks and a smallest drink at Starbucks cost 7 francs. We were prepared going into the trip that we would need to buy groceries and make most of our meals because there was no way that we could afford to eat out. Our flight landed during the evening and we struggled with figuring out the public transportation, but we eventually made it to our hostel. It was an apartment style hostel with two bedrooms, and the man who owned it was super nice and said that he would make sure we had our own room during our time in Zurich.
The next morning we woke up early and headed to the grocery store down the street to get food. As soon as we stepped outside we definitely weren't in Ireland anymore. There was so much heavy snow falling and even though I hate the snow, it made the city that much more beautiful than it already was. We took a train up to Uetliburg, the mountain range that surrounds Zurich. We were planning on hiking and seeing some cool observation point areas, but the snow and fog was so heavy that you couldn't see 10 feet in front of you. We took the train back down and walked around Alstadt, the Old Town of the city. We climbed to the top of the Grossmunster Church and saw panoramic views of the city and Lake Zurich. We knew that the one meal we wanted to eat out for while in Switzerland was for cheese fondue. All of the study abroad students rave about it and say it's the food that you have to splurge on while in Switzerland. We found a restaurant for lunch and both ordered a plate of bread and fondue. The restaurants smell terrible because of all of the cheese, but it is SO GOOD. Definitely worth spending money on, however 25 francs for cheese and bread seems a little steep. I'm glad I did it though. It gets dark pretty early in Switzerland and a lot of shops close up around 6 so we found it difficult to find things to do during the night to do. We walked around a Christmas Market for a little bit and were attracted to a huge Christmas tree in the middle of a square. We waited around to see why there was a crowd and eventually a group of little kids climbed into the tree and sang Christmas carols in German and it was the cutest thing. Zurich is very close to Germany so most of people in the city speak Swiss German.
The next morning we woke up early and headed to the grocery store down the street to get food. As soon as we stepped outside we definitely weren't in Ireland anymore. There was so much heavy snow falling and even though I hate the snow, it made the city that much more beautiful than it already was. We took a train up to Uetliburg, the mountain range that surrounds Zurich. We were planning on hiking and seeing some cool observation point areas, but the snow and fog was so heavy that you couldn't see 10 feet in front of you. We took the train back down and walked around Alstadt, the Old Town of the city. We climbed to the top of the Grossmunster Church and saw panoramic views of the city and Lake Zurich. We knew that the one meal we wanted to eat out for while in Switzerland was for cheese fondue. All of the study abroad students rave about it and say it's the food that you have to splurge on while in Switzerland. We found a restaurant for lunch and both ordered a plate of bread and fondue. The restaurants smell terrible because of all of the cheese, but it is SO GOOD. Definitely worth spending money on, however 25 francs for cheese and bread seems a little steep. I'm glad I did it though. It gets dark pretty early in Switzerland and a lot of shops close up around 6 so we found it difficult to find things to do during the night to do. We walked around a Christmas Market for a little bit and were attracted to a huge Christmas tree in the middle of a square. We waited around to see why there was a crowd and eventually a group of little kids climbed into the tree and sang Christmas carols in German and it was the cutest thing. Zurich is very close to Germany so most of people in the city speak Swiss German.
The next morning it was raining so we decided to tour the Swiss National Museum that was recommended to us by my roommate Jennifer. The museum is massive and contains 4 floors filled with history of the country. The coolest part was seeing the original Swiss flag that flew at the country's embassy in Berlin, Germany during World War II. The embassy came under fire and someone managed to save the flag, but not without it receiving tears from the bullets and burn marks. After the museum, we caught a train to a surrounding small town of Adliswil where we were able to catch a cable car to the top of the mountain. The views were phenomenal with the freshly fallen snow and we hiked around for a bit before we were able to catch the sunset at the top of the mountain. We headed back into the city and did some shopping for some famous Swiss chocolates before heading back to our apartment to finish packing for our train to Munich, Germany early the next morning.