Zurich, part 3

Here we are: We're here! The four hour flight is uneventful, other than sitting next to a young man with truly appalling breath. We are also blessed with a mildly obnoxious child in the seat in front of us, who kept asking his grandfather questions every 30 seconds and rarely stopped kicking and jiggling. But four hours is four hours, and for someone who regularly copes with 10- and 12-hour flights, it was a cake walk. Gill was smart enough to head for the wiskey tasting area in the duty free shop, and was more than a little tipsy by the time we got on the plane. He ate his meal, watched part of a movie, and then slept like a baby.

We navigated the airport (complete with cow and yodeling sound effects in the terminal shuttle) and had to wait only about 15 minutes for the van that took us directly to the hotel. We drove through a very balmy evening with pink-streaked skies. The only other passenger was a young American woman who lives in the south of France and works for a company that makes yachts. The driver kept chatting away on his cellphone (no diborit, mind you), in what sounded like a Slavic language (but wasn't Russian).

Hotel Neufeld is small, and the rooms are tiny and very plain, but decent. Everything is clean and well-maintained, and the big surprise is the amount of clever storage space buit in, even in the bathroom (which fetures a typically Lilliputian shower cubicle). When my plug adapter doesn't fit the skinny outlets, the desk manater whips out a box full of spares.

Tired, we don't feel like going out and exploring much, so we stay close to the hotel and find a funky little place that must be run by Turkish expats. It is so balmy that we can sit outside (to escape the ever-present smoke) and sit our Efes (Turkish beer).

It is a cyclist's city. They zip around on every kind of bike imaginable, but mostly old, simple clunkers. A guy in a business suit wizzes by, chatting on his cellphone. No one wears a helmet, and few people bother to lock their bikes. A small pug puppy goes by, tugging at its leash and barking at another dog.
It is 22:30, but for us that is 23:30, and since I woke up at 5:00, it is time to call it a day

Wednesday AM: A hard, lumpy matress couldn't keep me up. We wake to cool, damp air and the sounds of birds. Our room overlooks a courtyard, and we stand at the window for a few minutes, watching a large tabby solemnly dig a hole in a flower bed. Finally, the thught of morning coffee drags us downstairs to the small restaurant attached to the hotel, and we see what is on offer. Much as I love traveling, there is no place in the world that makes a better breakfast than the Israeli breakfast, with the salads and fresh dairy products. Here, trays of meat snuggle up against containers of yogurt. We find enough to eat, but I am always amazed at the number of European countries where one starts the day with coldcuts.

Globalization vs. localization: Starbucks, globalization. Blogger.com, localization. As I get the login key for the hotel's wireless hotspot and log in to Blogger, I am amused to see that the entire interface has mysteriously been converted to German. Interesting! Clearly, it detects the login host and adjusts accordingly. But this means no spell-check, so you'll just have to deal with my typos.

Lost in translation, yet again: The Swiss speak a version of German, but also French and Italian, depending on the region. In the south, I could get by with my paultry Italian vocabulary, but here in the north, it doesn't help. I probably know a few words in German, but when I try to think, out comes Italian or French. Gill just asks in English and gets a fast answer. Go figure.