After taking the train to the city of Freiburg in the southwestern corner of Germany, I met up with Ivo, a friend I met in Mexico while on a student exchange in 2003. Together we went for a day trip south of the border to see what we could see.
The large, serious and anonymous face of Swiss banking in Zurich, Switzerland´s biggest city. Somehow fitting.
Keeping precise time, the clocktower over the canal that runs into Lake Zurich.
Sipping espressos underground in the haupbahnhof, Zurich´s transportation hub.
Ivo displays the Swiss franc - an annoying outcome of Switzerland´s decision to reject the Euro after joining the EU in 2004. It takes a lot of these to buy things down there, my advice is don´t visit Switzerland if you´re not among the jetset crowd.
The local Ricola band. Actually, August 1st was a Swiss national holiday although I didn´t know what they were celebrating. The weird part is on Swiss holidays everything shuts down. The entire city was more or less deserted like a ghost town. The few Swiss out and about were part of a small celebration on the lakeshore featuring a Western-style hoe-down and then finally something a bit more ´local´.
More later. All these crappy computers I´m using over here are incredibly slow and hard to type on so its hard and time consuming even to browse photos to find which I should put up. Wish I could show you all more. Having fun now in Prague, Czech Republic.
Adios,
Jason
3 comments:
i understand about the crappy computers. generally that has been the case in japan as well. but right now i am typing this from a internet cafe where im spending the night on a leather lazy boy in a cubical. its odd, but definitely part of the japanese experience. it sounds like your trip is going along greatly. drink some beer for me and dont worry about the high prices when c3 takes over everythingy will be free, well for us at least.
cheers
shayne
The photo of you and Ivo is hilarious! It looks like you are doing a coffee drink off. 1) Pinkies must stick out; 2) You cannot look at your cup, you can only stare into each other's eyes, first to divert gaze looses the match!
Let the games begin! ;)
Glad to hear that you're enjoying the trip, don't you wish we were all there with you??? No??? Really??? ;)
Anyways, I'm also glad to hear that you're kicking back and drinking some coffee... even if it's not in a cafe along some European street with a book open in front of you. One step at a time... one step at a time...
ciao, bella!
-jean.
ps: I don't think you should touch any of the bones in the ossuaries when in Prague.....
pps: we will be missing you this saturday... may the force be with you
Jason, read history before or during your travels. You'll have more fun and won't call St. George Don Quixote and you won't call a dragon a "demonic doggy" -- it's funny but yeah, undermines the quality of your beautiful photos. It's nice for people to know that you really KNEW what you were looking at. And go back; you haven't even SEEN Switzerland yet, or Zurich's (wild) youth nightlife. Did you drink rich red Spanish wine in Lenin's chair in the Bodega Espanola, for example, or eat vermicelles in the Jules Verne club at the top of the old astronomy observatory? Did you go to the Zoo and see the North American exhibit of bison and turkeys? Did you eat bratwurst at Sternen? Go to the Christmas Eve market in the Neiderdorf? Are you aware of the the origination of our Declaration of Independence in the words of the Swiss philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau?
Martha
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