Remember when I was disappointed that my young wife wouldn't want to walk 4 km with her pack from Zurich train station to the campground? I said, "When we were doing portaging you could carry your pack and sometimes the canoe for kilometres distance. How come you already gave up before the 'battle'?" Indeed she won the war and I was wrong because again and again, she was so loved by 'Oom Han' (intimate name for God used by Indonesian youth). A week before we left for Zurich, we went for our routine dental check-up. Mei-mei, the doctor's private 'dental assistant' :-) mentioned to us while helping her hubby whether we still remember C, our Indo friend who once lived in TO but then emigrated to Swiss and lives in Zurich. Of course but we didn't think of asking any help. To cut the story short, Madame a.k.a. Bu Tien of Toronto called C and we got a limo pick-up from the airport :-). C came with her Mercedesz and then drove us from the airport to the campground! To top that, C and her husband, a native Schweizer from Zurich invited us over for dinner the next day. Now you know more why I kept saying to you all, thank you always for your prayers :-).
As soon as we said farewell to C, we put up our tent and took an early siesta because we didn't sleep well on the short flight from Toronto to Zurich. A couple hours sleep was all that we needed before we started our venture to downtown Zurich. We learned first hand how expensive is everything in Switzerland when the campsite attendant told us the fee, 33.50 Swiss franc (Sfr) per night. On top of that fee, taking a shower at the campground would cost us another 2 Sfr for just 3 minutes. For Net addicts, cost of an Internet connection is 15 Sfr an hour. BTW, one Sfr is approximately the same as 1 Canadian dollar. Our campground was on the shore of Lake Zurich, about 4 km from the train station which is in downtown. We have to transfer from the bus to tram at a place called Buerkliplatz. All European bus and tram systems are not too complicated. Once we learn one system, it should be easy to learn another. Strolling along the famous street in Zurich, Bahnhofstrasse, where only the rich can afford to buy things, restored our confidence. We felt like a rich couple, sort of Japanese tourists who stayed at a five-star hotel and not at Camping Seebuch where we lived :-). After all, the Schweizer won't be able to distinguish our Indonesian from Japanese :-). Here on Banhofstrasse you would start to see big Swiss banks with signs, 'by appointment only'. I can only imagine the Indonesian tycoons going in and out to such banks.
Zurich is not a big city compared to say Milan or Vienna; it is much smaller than Toronto. Therefore, it was very convenient for us to do the city tour ourselves. We hopped on a tram after checking its route and compared or looked to the city map from time to time. This way we would know what building we were passing or which area we were in. The help of my small Suunto compass was very valuable especially at times where we emerged from the cities subways and wanted to go to certain places. As Cecilia once said, this is the main difference or advantage of doing your own tour than taking an arranged one. You are free to go to places where you would like to and you can take your own time once you are there. Almost in all package tours that we knew of, there was a gang-up between the tour provider and the local merchant. From time to time you would likely be whisked to places where you either would be hard-sold to buy the goods or would waste your time in a shop you hate :-).
If you recall, my friends at the IBM Toronto Lab showered me with gifts upon my retirement. A and M who took care of the shopping included a Cdn $ 100 gift certificate from MEC. Prior to our trip, while biking along with J and D my cycling buddies from the office, we went to Mountain Equipment Co-op for a shopping spree. I bought a new MSR gas stove and also its cooking set. They were excellent. Cooking rice was a breeze. Cecilia's estimate on the food we brought was near perfect too. Not too much, just enough to last. We ate our last rice meal in Salzburg and we didn't even throw one grain. I had to buy 2 canisters of Camping Gaz cartridges, unfortunately I had to leave the last one half-full because it wouldn't be allowed to board the plane with us :-). Zurich was still quite cold when we were there from May 6 till the 8th. Our down-filled sleeping bag, the fleece jacket and headband provided enough warm that we were able to sleep soundly, despite the train traffic by the campsite.
In spite of the pricey Zurich or Switzerland, we were happy and felt blessed upon seeing the beautiful scenery on our train journey from Zurich to Milan on May 8. I will tell you more about this Alpine route beauty in the next episode. Till then, auf wiedersehen.