Day 2

Day 2
Zurich
We landed in Zurich at about 8 am their time. We got shuttles to the hotel & a few of us decided to go shower & get ready to go explore the city. Katie, Danielle, & I had bought tickets to a city tour that started at 1 so we thought we would meet at 10 to go explore a little bit before taking the tour. Wrong. 10 turned into 10:20 & then we missed the train into the city which only runs every half hour so we had to wait for the 11 am one. Good thing because it took 4 of us at least 15 minutes to figure out how to even buy our ticket. Note to self learn a little German before going back to Switzerland. It was pretty cold & windy but it could have been a lot worse. We finally made it into the old town & walked around to find something to eat. After we ate it was basically time to go meet up w/ the tour. We might have gotten a little lost along the way but we finally found it. The tour started out on a big bus driving us around showing us different things. That would have been great had any of us been able to stay awake for it. We all kept dozing off but between the 4 of us we learned a few things. We had a few stops in the city & one was a church that has no decorations on the inside. Not a single cross on the wall. They wanted to go back to basics because they felt it was getting too fancy. It does however have the largest clock face on the outside.

After that we stopped & took a gondola up to a viewing point where you could see the whole city and the alps. It was a pretty amazing view & the gondola was fun. We had hot chocolate at the top & then came back down, boarded the bus & took a ferry across Lake Zurich. We got to stay inside if we wanted but we did get out to take a few pics. Needless to say I fell asleep on the ferry ride as well. Next we drove down the Gold Coast where all the wealthy people live. We drove by Tina Turners house...we were all awake for that part! And then he tour ended. It was a good way to spend 5 hours especially since it was so cold but it was hard for us to stay awake on that moving bus!!

After the tour we set out to find a chocolate shop. We walked around the town & saw the bar district which had a huge street sign w/ no mothers w/ children. Then we found a cute little spot for dinner. Katie had a chicken dish, Sasha had ravioli, and Danielle & I split a fondue pot along w/ salads. We also had some wine from Zurich which was pretty good. Katie & Sasha started fading really hard at that point while Danielle & I had gotten a second wind. (clearly we napped more on the bus! Ha!) We headed back toward the train station but Katie miraculously got a burst of energy when she saw a chocolate shop. We all went in & got some delicious treats & then tried to figure out how to get back to the hotel which is a difficult task when no one remembers the stop the hotel is on. We finally figured it out & made it back with no issues. (well maybe one..we started to get off at the wrong stop but realized it before it was too late.) Zurich is a very pretty town but it's very expensive. It's also very clean & very technologically advanced.  I kept saying I felt like I was in a movie when I was on the train. I probably wouldn't go back unless I just needed to stop through on my way to somewhere else. Another group of people rented a car & drove to the alps which they said was really cool.  We made it an early night because we were so tired & because we had to get up early to head to our next stop!