Major problem: Walked around all day today taking pictures only to realize that when I’d uploaded that photo from my camera’s photo card, I’d left it in the computer. Now I can’t upload the pictures I took of the Marc Chagall windows at Fraumunster and the lake/mountain pictures.
In leiu of that, and because jet lag is startting to get me and I’m in desperate need of a power nap, here are similar photos I nabbed from teh interwebz.
Lake/Mountains/Beautiful Zurich:
Perverse Egalitarianism 
So you didn’t take any pictures then?
Zurich is a beautiful city, although I always felt totally under-dressed/ill-attired while I was there. Folks there are fancy!
I think Lenin liked Zurich as well – are you a communist, Alexei?
Strange — that’s not the first time someone’s accused me of being a communist/marxist, although this is first time that the reason has been geographical.
I would be interested to know what Zurich looked like in Lenin’s day, for when I was there it was more than a little bourgeois — fantastic, albeit deathly expensive, fashion boutiques, jewelers, and restaurents (and while I was there 1 in 3 men were wearing white pants). I also saw a few amazing bookstores, and was bemused by the ‘woman only tanning decks/spas’ that pepper the shores of the river. Plus, you could go up to the mountains to ski in the morning, and then come down to go swim in the lake during the afternoons…. If I were independently wealthy, and could wrap my head around Swiss German, I would probably relocate! Then again, I think I preferred Basel.
Sounds like the place is really great, I think I’d really enjoy skiing/swimming combo.
How different is Swiss German?
If you’re interested see this. The alphorn Jazz is pretty neat too….
Oh boy, it’s like a completely different language – I’m ashamed of my ignorance, I thought they spoke German with maybe a local flavor and an accent. This sounds Germanic but I can’t make out anything but a few phrases. Weird.
Yeah it’s pretty wild, innit? Most folks are pretty good, though, in seeing when someone is struggling, and either flip directly into English (or occasionally French), or speak very slowly, which makes things almost comprehensible for untrained ears.
What I found the most humbling experience about being in Europe was the level — and number — of language proficiencies people seemed to have simply as a matter of course. It made me wish that my secondary education had been a little more rigorous…
When I was a kid, we started a foreign language in the fourth grade (I did German, of all things, although I don’t think I learned much in 4 years I took it, they didn’t teach to speak in the Soviet Union, just to read and understand grammar), I don’t know the system these days, but it might depend on the school…