European Adventure, Day 2 — Zurich

We went to Zurich for my first night out. We took the SPB (Swiss Train) for a 15-20 minutes train ride, which was similar to the Long Island Rail Road. Once we walked onto the train it was clear it was one of the higher-end trains. If you look at the picture below you can see that the seats were comfortable and there was plenty of leg room. You could also see that there weren't any subway poles. The ticket price for two people was about $45 for a round trip from Uster to Zurich, which is a bit more expensive than the LIRR.

I was hungry when we departed the train so we went to the first restaurant we could see which was McDonald's. I felt terrible eating McDonald's in a foreign country (let alone on the second day) but I felt that it would be a sure bet. The McDonalds was small and did not have any room to sit down so I ordered my meal to go. Instead of going to the register I ordered my big mac through one of the four ordering machines that I knew existed but never used before. When my order was finished the total was $12 for a Big Mac Meal.

After McDonald's, we went looking for a bar/club. In Zurich, there are two places you could go to, bars or clubs. We decided to go to the bars so that we didn't have to pay a $40 cover to get into the clubs.

As we were walking towards the bars I started to notice people uncomfortably staring at Cole. In America I would frequently get guys taking a glance, maybe two at best. But in Switzerland, their eyes were glued on her. Then, at one point we were holding hands and walking when some guy from a car screamed out "Roof roof." I would like to think he was yelling at someone else but we were the only ones on the sidewalk and the worst part is that I was holding her hand.

As her boyfriend, this pissed me off but I didn't know what to do or why it was happening. I noticed that most girls wear jeans or long pants so maybe the reason Cole received so many stares is because she was wearing a dress. When I asked her if this happened before she told me that it was normal, so I started to think that it was just the culture. I didn't want people staring or catcalling from their window but so many people did there wasn't much I could do.

Although we arrived too late there was a Spanish Dance Festival going on in the center of the city that could have been easily mistaken for a Yankees game because there were so many people. Since the music was cut off though, everyone was leaving so we only passed through and started to check out the bars.

We settled on this one bar that was playing my favorite Spanish song "Maria Maria" by Santana (not the DJ Khaled bootleg) and went to order drinks. I ordered two rum and cokes thinking that it would be around $20. Unfortunately, I didn't learn my listen from the expensive ticket and big mac prices. The total price for two rum and cokes in Switzerland was $40. After all of my nights out I never paid this much for two rum and cokes. This is when it hit me that the prices for anything in Switzerland were crazy expensive.

Although the cat calls were annoying and the prices for everything were outrageous, I did get to see some of the beautiful architecture in Zurich. I noticed throughout the city that you really have to pay attention to even the smallest details. In the picture below there are two gargoyles or devilish little creatures holding up the balcony, which I would have never noticed if Cole did not point them out.

Overall I wish we arrived in Zurich a little earlier or knew about the Spanish Dance festival sooner so that we could go but I don't even know how we could have found out about it. While my first day in Switzerland revealed all of the beautiful nature of Switzerland, my first night out revealed the priciness of the country and the unpleasant staring and cat calls.