Global Village

We arrived to Zurich early on the day and we took the train to Oerlikon, seriously close. Not more than 5 minutes the journey and Mayi picked us up at the station with James.

Our first experience in Zurich was with train tickets. Overall in Europe, we had experiences figuring out the machines to buy tickets, a bit easier in Germany but we were still lost in translation.Very thankful indeed to all the friendly people who spent time with us deciphering the ticket machines.

As Col mentioned we stayed with Dave and Mayi, they have a really nice pad in Oerlikon, very very central. Later on our journey I realised that a very good friend of mine, Maite Torrente, also lives in Oerlikon, unfortunately we did not have a chance to meet because she was away in Spain.

Our stay in Zurich was full of nice surprises like this, my cousin Daniela joined us for a few days, we shared Eli’s singing ambitions, Maggie’s love affair with Sprüngli & Lindt chocalatier, Jame’s sense of fashion at such young age and we were spoilt with Dave’s traveling spirit, who would have taken us anywhere in Switzerland if we said so.

It definitely seemed more than a week. The thing for me that stayed about Zürich I suppose was that everyone was really friendly. We met some of Dave’s work colleagues with whom we had a coffee, and we even met his boss, Rafaeli and his wife. We had a chance to visit both Dave and Mayi’s workplaces and I loved how natural it all felt. I think that there is a real closeness with people there that I can’t quite explain. I believe it has to do with the international environment of it all, you know, everyone speaks almost every language and people come together in Switzerland from all over the world. You don’t have to justify your identity you just are with everyone else, that was really cool.

I couldn’t understand the Swiss-German accent at all, but I tried. The city is quite something, everything is orderly. I couldn’t find a beggar and I did look. It all seemed a bit surreal, I suppose if you’re used to seeing social gaps, it’s hard to adjust when it’s not there. When everything is clean and perfect, everyone looks beautiful and happy.

We were blessed with fantastic weather, apart from one rainy day in St Gallen. Overall we had some great laughs and happy moments.

Note to self – Switzerland is not a tourist destination if you’re on a budget.

Dave, Mayi , Eli and James - thank you for having us, spending time with you in Zurich was great, specially meeting James.

Ana Kizzy