A Day in Zurich

We hit the ground running (well, walking really) once we landed as you may expect from us at this point.

The 8am arrival to Europe after not so much sleep was a bit rough. We had to drop the bags off at the hotel and couldn’t check in until 2. But we had a plan! Lunch, walking tour, nap. Except that we were at the hotel by 9am and the walking tour wasn’t until noon. While checking in, I discovered that the charging wire that I brought was broken so my phone was near death. Side quest: expensive Swiss charging wire.

So we walked along the river to the old city, really nothing to see along the river except a lot of runners, which is why I make a point of saying that we were walking. We stopped for a coffee which maybe helped a little but the exhaustion was overwhelming. Stopping walking was dangerous and we had to keep moving to stay awake.

One of the strangest sights as we walked in the 47 degree weather? People swimming!

Our destination on this walk was to get to a restaurant called Sternen Grill, known for their sausages and recommended by the one and only Rick Steves. They open at 10:30 and we got there just about that time. We struggled a bit with reading the menu but eventually ordered 2 different sausages and some potato salad.

The potato salad was a dud, but that sausage on the right that they call a “hot dog” came with sauerkraut and mustard and fried onions and the bread was so soft. It was so good. Rebecca was literally half asleep at the table, she was fading but the sausage revived her.

Despite the slow and unenergetic eating, we still had time to kill before the walking tour at noon so we popped over to a little cafe to get some tea. The cafe sold macarons too so we had a tiny dessert.

We asked the server to surprise us with the macaron flavors. One of the cookies was chestnut and the other was strawberry cheesecake. She asked how we liked them and then told us she doesn’t like chestnut which we both thought it was very funny that she would bring us a flavor she doesn’t like. Also, I was wearing my pink sweatsuit still and I think this may have been offensive to the old Swiss lady next to us who kept giving me dirty looks. Cest la vie.

We knew Switzerland was expensive but I would say it’s like, NYC expensive. Not ideal, but not completely insane.

Only insanity so far was when we checked into the hotel and they offered to include breakfast the next morning for 27chf each which is essentially $30 for breakfast. We quickly declined.

Anyway, we went on a walking tour, the tour guide was nice. She talked a lot and we were really not into it at first being so exhausted and all. But then the sun came out and it’s amazing the difference that made! We were revitalized!

As we walked along on the tour, the guide started talking a lot about women’s rights and since we would much prefer to go back to not working, we were starting to check out mentally from the tour again. Then I spotted a store selling phone chargers and we dipped in real quick. Unfortunately, we lost the group and I felt some guilt about not having been there to tip the tour guide at the end. We searched but not for long. It was finally nap time!

Back to the hotel, but couldn’t nap. Felt awake somehow when we checked in and we settled into our super cute room for the night.

We love adult bunk beds! We had amazing showers, a bit of rest, and then headed out to get an espresso martini before dinner.

We were very proud of ourselves for taking public transportation, high fiving about nailing Switzerland when it started to rain and neither of us has an umbrella. Oh well.

Rebecca found us a little cocktail bar by the restaurant we had a reservation at for dinner. The drinks were awesome and the bartenders may have also been Swiss models. (Sorry, didn’t get any pictures of them.)

Dinner was at a restaurant called AuGust, which specializes in meat! We love meat!

It took quite some time for anyone to help us understand the menu but that’s European service! We tried a Swiss red wine, it was eh. Ended up drinking a delicious Italian red instead.

We finally ordered with a nice waiter named Philip who used to live in Chicago and was actually very attentive and friendly. Pictured above: carpaccio and charcuterie. The carpaccio actually wasn’t that great, the meat was a little thicker than we would have liked but the tomatoes on top? Omg do I love real tomatoes. Maybe my favorite food. American produce sucks.

The meats were all varieties of pork: one was smoky, one was like prosciutto, and one was like normal ham but they were all v yummy.

Course 2 was awesome. The spatzle was good, the pork meatloaf dish with the egg was yummy, and the rosti was amazing. We loved it so much that we took the food back with us! Breakfast for tomorrow included in dinner price…winning Switzerland on a budget.

We thought we were getting back so late but turns out it was only 8pm when we finished dinner so we had a nightcap at our hotel bar. How were we still awake after all of that? No idea. But somehow we were thriving at 10pm when we finally turned in.

Super successful day one!