Zurich - arrival

After a delay on the flight out, and a very bumpy ride wherein I was only able to write about 3,000 words on various projects, I arrived in Zurich. As the plane was landing, I thought at first I was looking down on towns filled with mountain lakes, but rather, I was seeing clouds pooling in valleys.

In the time since then I have encountered racism and anti-Semitism to the degree that I don't even feel like talking about it right now, been mistaken for French, been astounded by the rudeness of the shopkeepers here and have been consistently addressed as Mr. Maltese, despite the fact that I am wearing a white frilly shirt (something tells me passing will be easier in Europe where masculinity is, I assume, coded somewhat differently).

There is a sex-trade vibe to this city I find peculiar in its obviousness, but not unfamiliar from, oddly, when I went to Rome as a young teen. In the train to the baggage area suddenly the train car was full of the sound of birds and goats and the mountains and then an image of a Swiss Miss in the exactly cliched sense you think I mean who couldn't have been older than sixteen (ample busom aside) leaned in and kissed the side of the train. Everyone giggled nervously and some Brits suggested that this was the future. Elsewhere, I see lots of posters of scantily clad women promoting the excellent of Zurich's nightlife in an incredibly non-specific way.

The city itself is beautiful physically, but odd in that regard as well. It is a mix of beautiful buildings that should house only creatures such as the vampire Lestat and duchesses of countries that have never existed. But these are next to ugly, modernist things that only enhance the oppressive weight of the sky.

At the hotel I was upgraded to a king room out of luck. Compared to anything similar in the US it is small and utilitarian, but the bed is large, the tub is deep and I have a balcony. It is a good hotel room to feel lonely in, which is a good emotion for most of my writing projects; ConSweet is, after all, a story of hotel rooms and loneliness. The desk set-up here also isn't hurting my back (the same cannot be said of my office).

Walking through the train station earlier (which I have been assured is the only thing with any shops open on Sunday), the world erupted with church bells as we stopped into a Rail Information Center that had weird white plush dolls that looked like Adipose in a glass case.

There are a hundred things here I wish to take photographs of already. Posters for "Ben Hur Live" which is some horsemanship show and the film posters for various German-language movies at the cinema down the road.

I normally travel with great ease in the countries I have been where I don't speak the language, having enough Latin, French and Spanish to at least be able to read signs or make out what people are telling me, even if I can't reply in return. This was certainly true when I was last in Italy. German though? I'm hopeless and helpless and only sometimes are signs also in French or English, and it's very hard.

We are right by the river and gulls are everywhere. Small black birds with a white stripe on their beaks swim in the water.

Church bells again now. There are so many churches the waves of sound resonate against each other, and it is as if the city hums like a symphony, waiting.

Zurich, continuing

I 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

( I went hunting the church bells and found a lot of other really weird crap instead, including apothocary mouse! )

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.

the upcoming adventure

I'm in that stupid travel state where I am too tired to stay awake, but if I sleep I only do it for two hours at a time. I am frustrated to be in the hotel room, but on a Sunday night here there is nothing.

Necessity is amazing, however. Confronted with a shitload of German I don't understand and my rage about limited legal trading hours (which force shops to close on certain days and hours such that it makes it very hard for people to have 2-earner households because there's no time to do anything and basically screws women out of careers), I somehow forced myself to figure out how to get to a supermarket at 7:30am tomorrow to buy "Free From" gluten-free products and then walk to my office to get there shortly after eight (we are required to be in before 9).

This was HARD. Now I have to leave a note for my coworkers when I leave tomorrow morning before 7am to make this happen. My insane jet-lag confusion should make this not awful. Now I am going to go downstairs and get a snack, then maybe try to write some ConSweet (there are developments in Jean's background, oh crap!) before hopefully sleeping a little more earnestly.

I can already tell I'm going to want to shoot Toblerone bars in the face by the end of this trip. Until today, I hadn't had one since Hewitt because there was a girl with a Swiss ski cottage who always brought them back with her, thus making them terribly fashionable.