The Insanity

Slept until 4:30, then tossed and turned in a fruitless struggle against my internal clock. Got up at 6:30, showered, packed and arrived in the hotel lobby at 7:00 sharp for the start of breakfast. Every minute counted, because I had to make it to the Niederrad station by 7:30 to catch the S-Bahn to Frankfurt Main, so that I could get to Platform 9 by 7:52 to catch a train to Mannheim. Otherwise, the whole jig was up–the downstream dependencies would fail and my 70 euros would go to waste, with a side helping of hassle.

Breakfast was tardily unveiled at 7:05. I made myself a milk coffee from a fully automated machine that takes beans in the top, grinds them fresh and dispenses the brew in < 20 seconds. I scarfed down a bowl of assorted mueslis, stuffed down some fruit, chowed some salami and cheese; drank the hot warm milkcoffee, and grabbed a croissant and more meat and cheese, plus a hard boiled egg, for the road. Leaving behind a pile of crumbs, I hauled out the door with my suitcase, backpack, and duffel. It was a 20 minute walk to Niederrad; I ran, and made it in 15, dripping sweat and feeling boss. Alas, the Google Maps schedule was faulty, and I had to take a 7:38 vs. a 7:30. I couldn’t look up the Frankfurt Main layout, so I stressed and agonized for the 5 minutes it took to arrive at Main; but I found Platform 9 with several minutes to spare and hopped on the Mannheim train. While resting at the station, I found this ad very apropos:

After that things were more tame. I bounced from station to station, working on German flashcards. At Baden Baden I was accosted by a water seller and walked away, but a kind fellow told me the water was free, and delicious free water it was. At Karlsruhe I had a scare when an incorrect posted itinerary made me think I’d taken the wrong train; but I had taken the right one.

Finally, I arrived in the Zurich station and disembarked. I thought about figuring out how to get a tram, but then realized, using my canned Google Maps, that I was only half a mile from my house on Culmann-strasse. I set out into a teeming, but open and bright city on a river that I immediately liked. A high hill, reminiscent of Seattle, loomed before me… and required that I haul luggage up 5 flights of stairs to reach Culmannstrasse.

I reached, was let in by house caretaker Simon, led to my room, which is small but furnished with a nice closet and a deep desk, and has a great balcony.

Simon proceeded to deliver an in-depth tour, discussing house rules and regulations, including a tight kitchen cleaning schedule.

After that, I wandered down to the common room to snag some wifi. Hanging out in the common room was a cheery girl named Juyoung, from the States but her folks speak Korean at home. We chatted for a while; the conversation snowballed as more Culmannstrassers arrived and joined our table. Once the force of hunger overcame the nascent social glue, Juyoung and I raided the nearest grocery store. We negotiated a Nutella-jam split, and I acquired all the necessities. But hoooooly..

When I saw this, my soul sank in despair. 4 francs for a pack of eggs–and to add insult to injury, it’s a metric dozen–two eggs missing! @insiders Reminded me of the famous Bone line “Two eggs! What, did the price go up?!”

Then I tried to use the self-service machine. The scanner, with exquisite Swiss precision, scanned so fast that I scanned numerous items twice by accident, so when I went to pay, a cashier had to audit my payment :P

Returned to Culmannstrasse and continued socializing, armed with bread and cheese.

One of the groupmates, Adina, proposed we go to a talk given at the ETH for the Scientifica conference. We went (me, Adina, Juyoung, and a plucky Australian named Betty) in the pouring rain, but the talk was full, so we perused the (German) posters. Two exhibits stand out:

1. a gynecology simulator that I tried at Juyoung’s behest
2. A media researcher trying to present old news in context had a stack of historical photos; it was great fun trying to recognize the faces involved and reconstruct the time period

Returned to Culmannstrasse, decided to take a walk before cooking myself dinner since the rain had subsided. Went straight up the hill, up and up and up and up, through beautiful houses and alleys, eventually reaching the top. Here there was a weird garden thing that looked exactly like what I’d seen from my hotel window in Frankfurt–lots of random plantings and little huts, with benches and other accoutrements. I could not for the life of me imagine what the huts were for. But I did get a cool bird’s eye view of Zurich:

Got back, made myself an expensive omelet. It was festive in the kitchen; there were at least 6 of us cooking, mostly exchange students. There was Jonne, going for his agrology PhD; Alex, a taciturn math and economics major from Michigan State, Alice, my neighbor and a business management master’s student, Sid, a master’s student studying “brain hacking” with audio stimulation; plus Betty and Adina. Juyoung had hit the hay already after waking up at 2 :P

After the dinner, brought my computer and my book down to the common space. Simon invited me on a hike (that would leave early in the morning and cost me $54 since I don’t have my Halbtax card yet) but that was nice. I called winner on a game of fussball, played the winner, a fussball god named Alexandre, lost, played his buddy and barely won. Then Alice joined and we played 2x2. We played a good deal, very intensely, and I worked up a pretty good sweat.

Grabbed a proffered glass of wine and walked out while they smoked cigarettes. I had to stay well away to avoid aggravating my lingering cough, but it was a beautiful night.

Everyone hit the hay and I wrote this log! Ready to sleep after 20 hours of Leeeeeeeeeroy :D