College in Switzerland
The train station near my apartment in Oerlikon, which is the northern area of Zurich.
My room was on the left corner, second story. I had to not look surprised when I was told after my first dinner there that we had eaten horse. Actually, it tasted the same as beef.
The view from my window on a cool morning in July.
This was an area around the corner where men would come in the evenings to play chess with these oversized pieces.
This is the Hauptbahnhof, the main train station in the center of Zurich. The most elegant shopping street in the world, the Bahnhofstrasse, starts from here. Prices are high. Zurich is a city of less than 400,000 people of which 100,000 are estimated to be millionaires.
Lake Zurich on a particularly clear day. Usually the eastern alps in the background are not visible.
My Italian-Swiss classmate. She thought I was crazy. I would joke around in english and those who spoke english would laugh. She would ask what I said. She only spoke italian. So I would repeat it in english, one person would have to translate it into spanish, another would translate spanish to french, and yet another would have to translate the french into italian. After all of the translations, it wasn't funny anymore. She would just give me a confused look.
A beautiful little road.
I would take daily jogs up and around the mountain called the Uetliberg. This was the entrance to the forested trail.
Some cold alpine water to drink along the trail.
What some artist did with an overturned tree stump.
The view looking south from atop the Uetliberg.
We're going to climb THAT? This is Mt. Santis. My friends and I climbed a less vertical side.
After about an hours worth of climbing. This was the easy part. Looking down upon my friends, one Swiss, one Belgian, and one Swedish. They each belonged to their country's military.
A pretty alpine flower with the halfway station in the background. It got steep from here.
Just as things were about to go straight up. The picture is deceiving, the ridges in the background are actually almost vertical. I hope this pole didn't mean I was in an avalanche zone.
This is the view of the other side from the top of the mountain. After climbing all day, we made it to the top just before this storm blew in.
Ah, now a relaxing ride in a gondola back to the bottom.
I took this picture because these ladies looked so relaxed and natural while on their picnic. They were a little irritated at me.