Only The Cheese Is As It Was*

We are back in Bucharest, with only our memories of Switzerland -- and about 1,500 photos, and this blog -- to remind us of what once was.

Our final day in Switzerland dawned clear and cold.  The plan was to spend the day in Zurich, because we hadn't really gone out and seen it.

Zurich is a unique city, in that it doesn't seem to have a lot of landmarks or must-see attractions.  It's like, if someone comes to LA for the first time, we go see the Hollywood sign, we go to Venice Beach, there are a couple of iconic buildings (the Music Center, the Getty Museum, etc), you can go to Universal Studios or Disneyland, whatever.  In Bucharest, there's the People's Palace, the Village Museum, their Arc d'Triomphe, Stradavelopous Church, etc.

But Zurich doesn't seem to have those sorts of tourist attractions.  It's just a large, modern, orderly, beautiful city.  The river and the lake are great and there are several gorgeous buildings, including a couple of old cathedrals and government buildings, but it seems (after a few hours, anyway) like a city that is mostly designed around modern commerce.  The city is all about banking and shopping.

Royale With Cheese, fries and a coke: $15

And what shopping there is.  Alina took us to Bahnhofstrasse, which is like the Rodeo Drive of Zurich.  Super, super high-end shopping: lots of jewelers, big-name fashion stores, custom tailors, and so on.  This stuff was all well out of our league, but it was fun to window-shop for a bit.  A few blocks to either side of Bahnhofstrasse were some shops that were more our speed, and we spent a million dollars on souvenirs.  Actually we spent a million dollars on Swiss francs, which we then spent on souvenirs.  It's easy to spend a million dollars in Zurich, because (a) there's a ton of shopping, and (2) everything costs a fortune.  We spent $40 stopping for coffee.

One of our first stops was -- get this -- McDonald's.  Alina told us that the Zurich McDonald's is the best McDonald's in the world, because they use Swiss grass-fed beef and have to meet all of Switzerland's super-strict food requirements.  Most people might think to themselves, "I'm all the way in Zurich, I'm not going to eat lunch at McDonald's."  But I thought: "The best McDonald's in the world?  I have to try that."


And I will admit, the burger was probably a little better than what you get at other McDonald'ses.  Or maybe it was just my imagination.

We spent most of the day just walking around Zurich.  This is one of my favorite things to do when I'm in a foreign city for the first time: just walk around without a schedule or destination, watching the city go about its business.  I had a great time.

We took a break to stop in at Sprungli, a super-duper high-end coffee and pastry shop, the kind of place that serves you a cup of coffee in a china cup and a pastry with silver service.  This place was frankly ridiculous (HA HA HA!  FOREIGN CURRENCY HUMOR!!!), but it's like, When am I going to be in Zurich again?  Don't you want to try it?  So we all got coffees, hot chocolate, and a couple of pastries.

Yummy!

We lucked out and got a great table in the corner, with big windows overlooking the plaza below. Gabriel had a great time sitting on the sill watching the trams go back and forth.  Refreshed, we headed out for more walking around Zurich with a renewed spring in our step, probably because our wallets were so much lighter.

We walked all over the city, taking in the sights and doing occasional shopping.  A good time was had by all.

While we were out walking, we came upon Occupy Zurich, where a bunch of hippies were sticking it to the man by sitting around in tents and holding sarcastic signs.  Alina told us that they originally wanted to set up in the big plaza in front of Credit Suisse, but the authorities told them they would have to hold their protest on the top of a remote hill that was not near anything.  So they did.  We found them when we hiked up there to take photos overlooking the city.  I appreciate that all Swiss citizens are very orderly and proper, but I'm not sure these Occupiers really understand what this movement is about.

Occupy Zurich: Rebelling Where The Government Permits

THANKS A LOT

We eventually headed back home, where Ioana and Alina headed off to their night at the spa, which I am told was a great experience, sublimely peaceful, and very relaxing.  The rest of us stayed home with Gabriel, which was the exact opposite of a night at the spa.

When the ladies got back, we had our last dinner in Zurich: a traditional Swiss meal of raclette.  There's actually a whole apparatus that goes along with this.  You take thick slices of raclette (a pungent cheese), usually with stuff inside it.  We had garlic raclette, peppercorn raclette, and paprika raclette. You put it on this special little tray and then slide it under a super-hot slab of rock, where it sits until the cheese is melted and bubbly.  Then you scrape it off onto some smashed baby potatoes on your plate, and eat it.  I had never heard of this dish, but it was pretty good!

And that was it.  We collapsed into bed, and the next day we just packed, piled into the car, and headed off to the airport.

I can't thank Alina, Christian, Robin and Roxane enough.  Without them we would probably never be able to go to Switzerland at all: the cost of hotels and city transportation would be too much.  They made us feel welcome and like part of the family right from day one.  We all miss them already, and hope that it won't be too long before we see them again.

As usual, Gabe traveled like a champion, sleeping through most of the flight and not crying during the parts when he was awake, even takeoff and landing.  He's a born traveler!

Bye, Switzerland!  Don't forget to write!

Some last, random Switzerland thoughts:

Can you believe I found a photo called "The Swiss Cheese
Fallacy"?  The internet has everything.

Cheese
Before I came here, as far as I knew the only cheese in Switzerland was Swiss cheese, which they call Emmentaler.  (I thought gruyere came from France.)  It turns out that Switzerland is like a cheese-lover's heaven, with a zillion types of incredibly good cheese.  I have no idea why Switzerland isn't more known for its cheeses in the States.  Or maybe it is, and I'm just stupid.  In a crowning irony, people in Switzerland basically never eat Swiss cheese.  I never had it once the whole time I was there, despite having tried like 15 varieties of local cheese.

Traveling
First off, major props once again to Swiss Air.  They are a first-rate airline.  Great food, great service, and they arrived early both times.  Highly recommended.  They even gave Gabriel a free stuffed airplane and Swiss Air bib.  The only disappointment: our planes were both smallish, so they just did a general boarding call for each flight.  I thought I was finally going to get to be one of the elite pre-boarders, since I had a small kid with me.  Curse you, Swiss Air!!

Ioana and I realized that, despite all our international jet-setting and over two years of marriage, this is the first time we flew together.  Up to this trip, it's always been or the other of us dropping the other off at the airport.  Bizarre.


So there you go.  Swiss vacation!  It was really great, and all three of us had such a good time.  We're now back in Bucharest, where I have one more week with Io and Gabe the Babe before heading back to LA again for the busy holiday season.  Hopefully the time during our next separation will fly by.

Moment of Zen:

* This completes my four-fecta of cheese-related titles for Switzerland.  (Link for those who aren't from California, since this title isn't Googleable.)