Zurich, continuing
Nov. 15th, 2009 06:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rmI slept for four hours and felt human enough to get out and see things, knowing this might really be my only chance. My coworkers had gone to find food earlier, but I begged off, and I'm glad now, having clearly wanted to see the city alone.
Before I left, I took this photo from my room balcony
There is also a church right outside my balcony, which is a naked accident waiting to happen. This was taken without a zoom lens.
Leaving my hotel.
Zurich is hilly, and you can take long winding streets to your destination, or walk up staircases which hang over some streets like this.
Poster for film about a female pope.
Another German-language movie poster.
Swans and gulls in the river by the train station.
What is this bird? (black bird with white beak described in previous post).
Why are these Adipose wearing pants? Why are they in the train station?
Municipal art hanging from the train station ceiling.
Would you follow this rodent to the apothocary?
Dude, what the fuck? This thing scared the crap out of me. Large, blue dog sculpture, marketing thing.
The church bells have gone off four or five times since I first mentioned them in my last post, ringing at times for up to thirty minutes. On my walk I followed them and found the squares where the sound waves reverberate off each other and hum. It's weird and disconcerting, and you feel it in your bones. After the bells stop, you can't always be sure they have, as everything around you is still vibrating with it. Sometimes, this seems to go on and on for minutes. This is a building in one of the spots where this happens.
Sometimes, when I am feeling lonely, I go to mass, not because it makes me less lonely or I believe, but because it strikes me as more lonely, because the people are interesting to watch. But the patterns of the bells here suggest services are over an hour and a half long, and I am not that interested or that comfortable. So I walked around instead singing the thing I recorded for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
concertigrossi or occasionally having five minutes before the time, an odd joke from part of IHNIIHBT, pop into my head. It was well enough.
Another building in one of the spots where the churches reverb.
One of the culprits.
Another of the churches. You can see spires from two others in the background.
This multi-tiered church plaza leads down to the street and is easier to use than the steep winding lanes.
Another church, this one across the river. All of these I've shown you, within ten blocks of each other at absolute most.
A camel on a flag for a bar. Walking around I came upon a place that translate to Wolf Beer Bar and in it was an oom-pah band playing on all electrical instruments. Inside, none of the customers were under sixty and none of this, set in a rather hip neighborhood, seemed odd to anyone. I wondered what else is generational here and I thought of the US and gay marriage and red and blue states.
And then I came back to the room --
This mural takes up one whole wall of my hotel room. Why is this gopher looking up this woman's skirt?
In walking around I discovered that everything labeled as a night-club seems to be either a kebab shack or a strip club. I've seen no gay couples anywhere. And weirdly, all the women here re taller than I think of US women being, and all the men shorter, which makes everyone more or less my height or an inch or two taller. It's weird how instantly that makes gender largely invisible thanks to winter clothes. No one here has scruff -- men are either clean-shaven or have these full, thick beards you never see in the U.S. and certainly not on 20-something men dressed in impeccable suits.
I will be curious to see what business day/hour Zurich is like tomorrow. This Sunday thing seems rushed and hushed and muted, but also strained, as if the city is filled with people desperately trying to be good.
Before I left, I took this photo from my room balcony
There is also a church right outside my balcony, which is a naked accident waiting to happen. This was taken without a zoom lens.
Leaving my hotel.
Zurich is hilly, and you can take long winding streets to your destination, or walk up staircases which hang over some streets like this.
Poster for film about a female pope.
Another German-language movie poster.
Swans and gulls in the river by the train station.
What is this bird? (black bird with white beak described in previous post).
Why are these Adipose wearing pants? Why are they in the train station?
Municipal art hanging from the train station ceiling.
Would you follow this rodent to the apothocary?
Dude, what the fuck? This thing scared the crap out of me. Large, blue dog sculpture, marketing thing.
The church bells have gone off four or five times since I first mentioned them in my last post, ringing at times for up to thirty minutes. On my walk I followed them and found the squares where the sound waves reverberate off each other and hum. It's weird and disconcerting, and you feel it in your bones. After the bells stop, you can't always be sure they have, as everything around you is still vibrating with it. Sometimes, this seems to go on and on for minutes. This is a building in one of the spots where this happens.
Sometimes, when I am feeling lonely, I go to mass, not because it makes me less lonely or I believe, but because it strikes me as more lonely, because the people are interesting to watch. But the patterns of the bells here suggest services are over an hour and a half long, and I am not that interested or that comfortable. So I walked around instead singing the thing I recorded for
concertigrossi or occasionally having five minutes before the time, an odd joke from part of IHNIIHBT, pop into my head. It was well enough.Another building in one of the spots where the churches reverb.
One of the culprits.
Another of the churches. You can see spires from two others in the background.
This multi-tiered church plaza leads down to the street and is easier to use than the steep winding lanes.
Another church, this one across the river. All of these I've shown you, within ten blocks of each other at absolute most.
A camel on a flag for a bar. Walking around I came upon a place that translate to Wolf Beer Bar and in it was an oom-pah band playing on all electrical instruments. Inside, none of the customers were under sixty and none of this, set in a rather hip neighborhood, seemed odd to anyone. I wondered what else is generational here and I thought of the US and gay marriage and red and blue states.
And then I came back to the room --
This mural takes up one whole wall of my hotel room. Why is this gopher looking up this woman's skirt?
In walking around I discovered that everything labeled as a night-club seems to be either a kebab shack or a strip club. I've seen no gay couples anywhere. And weirdly, all the women here re taller than I think of US women being, and all the men shorter, which makes everyone more or less my height or an inch or two taller. It's weird how instantly that makes gender largely invisible thanks to winter clothes. No one here has scruff -- men are either clean-shaven or have these full, thick beards you never see in the U.S. and certainly not on 20-something men dressed in impeccable suits.
I will be curious to see what business day/hour Zurich is like tomorrow. This Sunday thing seems rushed and hushed and muted, but also strained, as if the city is filled with people desperately trying to be good.
