The Real Switzerland

Traveling to the biggest party on the planet right now after Tommy and I had a quick pit stop in Zurich. It’ll be nice to get back to reasonable prices but overall I enjoyed the visit to the financial hub of Europe. It was a lot less touristy than Interlaken with mostly native German-speakers. Started the stay with a walk around the old town area and cobblestone passageways. It’s a well kept city and also less busy by a longshot than Barcelona, Valencia, Rome or Florence. Lots of steeples and it’s cool to look out on a steeple skyline at night. 

We found the tourists on the first night again though for the birds game. Again you have to go to the Irish pubs for American sports. Landed at a place called Paddy Reilly’s after meeting a couple from Pittsburgh at the first Irish bar who said it would be on there. They would be there too because the guy was a birds fan.

We chopped it up with a Scottish guy who was there for the Ryder cup about how they were kicking our ass. Paddy’s was packed with people for the Arsenal Newcastle game. We got called for being fake fans from the Arsenal squad who were funny and they were mostly mad because they were losing at the time. We went off to the back room where there were 6 or 8 birds fans and the game was actually on tv's. I met a guy there who grew up within walking of my house which was pretty crazy. It was another fun game to watch and a W. We had some birds haters in the bar and we found out there was a mutual connection with my sister (shout-out Ab) and the Pittsburgh couple. They are also heading to Oktoberfest. 

We then packed a ton in to our full day walking the river and the lake side and taking some public transportation bus and Gondola up to a Ridgeline hike that was magnificent. 

We had a good run-in with a well-dressed drunk native at a Gondola station who didn’t speak English but was aggressively trying to help us find the station. We hiked the Uetilberg ridge for about 4.5 miles after grabbing a meal at a panoramic restaurant at Felsenegg. The views along the way were sweet and so was the final one. We stumbled upon a couple small suburban lakeside towns where the gondola took us up and the bus took us down. It was cool to see how the real Swiss live and the small towns give you a completely different vibe than the big cities.

Later on we hit a smash burger spot and a locals bar where the owner gave off a Tony Soprano vibe with his boys outside playing dice. It was a funny scene there. We wanted to get up higher for the sunset so took a funicular to what we found out was a University of Zurich cafe/bar with a whole lot of students drinking on a Monday. Good sunset spot. We also cooked up a little business idea there after realising how much cheaper college is in Europe…..

Finished the night at an uncomfortably intimate piano bar selling 15 franc beers. It was a quick one and out. I’m expecting to hang with a lot more tourists in Munich and I’m just trying to hang in general for what will be a hell of a marathon. Liters, not pints, are in our future. I’ll check back in when I feel like it.