What to do in ZURICH

ALL ABOUT ZURICH
Sprungli – at Parade Platz.  Amazing food ! Try their volez vonts and sandwiches
Belvoirpark – this is a catering school . Book in advance. The food and service and ambience is to die for.  If weather permits try to book a table in the garden area.   ± +41442868844
Hotel Zurichberg – Google it. Top of Zurich. Great view good food. Fine dining . Try for outside tables. Like watching zuric from a mountain at night.
Tres Kilos – google   good Mexican joint
Café Terresse – Other side of the lake. Nice place to catch a lunch. Google for direction
Hitl –   (nope – not Hilton)opp hotel glockenhoff. .  off Bahnoff  Strasse.  All vegetarian food buffet  excellent.
Hotel Glockenhoff  Garden Cafe
Hotel Adler . Other side of the lake. +41442669666.  Best fondue, raclette

Yelmoli.  Off Bahnoff strasse. Department store.  Lots of brands.
ST Annahoff. Department store, great brands, not very expensive. Loved the stuff. The ball wale safety pins, for sarees are available here on 3rd floor.
Calida – Behind Globus and in main station  -- to die for undergaments (men and women) and night wear
Neiderhoff strasse, other side of lake. Off Lowenstrasse. Great shops  . Huge gourmet food stores.  Great cafes.
Bahnoffstrasse – main street has all brands- shoes, clothes, accessories et al.
Main Station (main train station) you can spend a day in the interiors. Many many shops and brands and gourmet food stores. If you get caught in Zurich on a weekend and everything is shut, just go to this place and spend your time window shopping and buying.

To The great Gods of the Mountains

I am normally a beach and sand person. But for the first time a mountain has made me realise its fiery beauty. It took us Baby steps to reach the top of Europe (which is what they call Jungfrau) Once we reached the level of 11333 feet above sea level, by train, we felt light headed and a bit tired. breathing became heavy. We took a step ahead, reached the restaurant had a meal went up a few flight of stairs, and had to stop again. Slowly and with trepidtion (because I saw a man whose face was blue, in the restaurant and a whole lot of fit looking men, sitting on the staircase looking glassy eyed and half dead!).. so slowy and with trepidition we went towards the entrance of the opening to go out to the mountains. we were seeing the mountains from the restaurant window, all whirling wind and falling blowing snow. And we knew we were about to stand out in -10deg C.
We dressed up in 3 layers adn gloves adn caps and ear muffs adn walked out and i slipped.. swoooop ! the ice was packed and slippery as a huge slab ! No worries.. all in the game. Got up laughing and that heated up our bodies some! Bravely we took some pictures and ran back in! But having stepped out in that cold, withstanding that kind of bitter wind, snow flaking our faces , shoes slipping,,, its a memory one does not forget!

While reaching the top we saw icicles.

Just hanging there, without a care in the world. I could just imagine how the water trickling down from melting glaciers must have suddenly touched chilled wind and just frozen in an instant on its way down. now instead of dripping water it was a sharp edge of an icicle.

We woke up that morning to colours. White mountains on grey backgrounds, ink blue sky with blue silk texture, dark green trees, dusted with white snow, green meadows spread in glory with yellow flowers, and sun dipped spots, melted liquid snow on black tarmac roads, white sparkling snow shining on our faces like millions of glittering diamonds strewn around, icy blue water fall trickling and bubbling into brooks, the tricky wind blowing now this direction then the other, red sun shining on snow capped mountains, leaving an orange hue tinged with yellow. It was a sight for all senses. The air was clean, pure and earnest. The sights were enough to drive the eyes into tears. One could hear a calmness in the air and also follow a buzz, which said its a day sent by gods. They would be angry if you dont go see his everlasting beauty and witness the mountains from the top. Birds sang and cows mooed. the grass sprung new and fresh, and small little floweres popped out from within their hiding spaces in the blades of grass. Fresh dung tinged the air, but it sent a message of spring and hope and new lives and old loves.

It was a glorious morning and i swear i grew a few years younger.

it was a day to thank the god for his marvellous creation of a human, who could see, hear, feel , taste, emote, love and dance. and for this human to thank god for his other creations which lets us see, feel, taste, emote, love and dance.

snow and beauty

We woke up to fresh snow and mountains covered with snow. Fields tree tops and mountains. So we made the trip to Jungfrau ( j pronounced as y ) and after a one and half-hour journey sitting behind noisy Indian family,the man who remineded me of a someone who has so much gyaan.... Jaane do. Thinking of him will send viruses scampering on this computer. Needless to say I needed earplugs. Sadly not provided for in the expensive fare.
But it was a Visit etched in my memory for life. I normally like my sun and sea but this time the mountain enthralled me. it was all whirling snow and White sparkles. This will take some writing and I shall do it later from home. I find it very difficult to type intense stuff without my computer.
We returned and went for a long walk down in the village between meadows and a river. A very special memory indeed.
On return to the hotel we were sitting by the bar enjoying a drink and in walked a bus load of Chinese. The Chinese by the way have overtaken Switzerland. They are everywhere. Mercifully in our three days here in Grindlewald the 20 odd busloads have all eaten in the " Jasmine Chinese restaurant " in a small alley. Since the restaurants are really small here and about 50 odd Chinese men and women was definatley not my ideA of a romantic dinner.
One guy was really gung ho. He was photographing all over. The Easter decoration, the chairs. He checked out the wall paper. He even clicked his waiter and the table and food. ( they were half boarding and had food in hotel ) thats the time madhur n me hastily left For dinner, not wanting to feature even a part of our hands in his photo shoot. After dinner when we got back and the hotel door opened ( lobby is small and was empty ) he srang up startled. I am dead sure he was clicking the floor tiles and the worn out carpet ( ugly) leading up the stairs !
He, according to Madhur is opening a faux spinne hotel in china. Hopefully the chinese will then arrive their in busloads and leave the real Switzerland alone.

Cheese n more cheese

I told the newly pregnant lady at reception that I would love to come back in summer. And she looked at my stomach in glee thinking her new baby would have company with my new baby soon! Yes! I look pregnant. At my age not as sweet as she does ! Nobody meets me once I get back, not until I have eaten boiled veggies for a week and cycled and walked everyday. Cannot run - it will harm the baby and my weight might break my ankle or wrench my back or .... It's dangerous right now !

It's snowing today. And rained all day. Slight wet sizzle. I had to hear bheegi bheegi raaton mien ... I had to!

The view is gorgeous. I am going to post pictures later. And all the food places, but not now. Even writing about it the calories will transfer through my fingers, into my stomach. ...for baby to grow!!

day three - travel

atleast three of you have asked me about Madhur's reaction to "melons" . I already knew his reaction but neverthelss asked him to give me a verbal one! he gave me a mighty getural and a flamboyantly verbal one. He stuck is tongue out and said "cheee Curdled milk. Fat curdled milk" We were sitting on a road side cafe and i fell over the road laughing almost gettng myself killed by a cyclist!
I can authoratatively tell you why the spate of robberies are taking place all over Switzerland.
One has to change a few trains to reach any destination in Switzerland. And fast! We had to change 3, but we built up such an appetite within 2 that we missed the last transit had a quick lunch and caught the next train. But before i take away on a train journey let me solve this mystrey.
One has to run and i mean RUN to catch a train. One arrives at 11.02 hours at platform 3 and another one takes of at 11.05 at platform 5A . So you run down with your bags, run up a foot bridge and run down again, only to run up agian. and you want the best seat, so you run even faster peeping into carriages and finally get into one. And all this time the bag slung over your shoulder shouts " Helloooo, here i am ! HERE" and you start doing a mental jig followed by a physical jig, happy over your seat adn coonquest. and you sit down with a heave and a coffee and then you realise "VOILA" your purse has been nicked from under your "closed in relief" eyes!
Do you want to let the Swiss police into this secret or should i reveal my identity and take on this heavy task??

While eating, sleeping, crapping, peeing, walking , we are kissing the mountain. but more on that later.Right now we are trying to digest the raclette and the kirsch which is also trying to digest the raclette!
Life is a stream of water, melted from the glacier, it hit stones on the way but emerges crystal clear to meet the river it promised to! 

day two zurich

What a heavenlzy place is Zurich! I eat back my words and finally agree that it has overtaken london in my esteem! small picturesque city, easy laid back people, no bumping no noise (except for the rumbling of the trams) and cycles every where. just simply everywhere.
I normally dont make comments about people, well i do, but this is going to be a bit mean!
Madhur and me were walking along the lakeside and it was a Saturday and a sunny one, so there fore was the rest of zurich. (imagine all of bombay in one area, definate conditions  for a stampede, if not an earthquake... this is how small the Zurich populaton seems to be!)
So - while walking hand in hand , at one point i froze and Madhur looked at me questioningly and saw me staring wide eyed, open jawed and red eared, at a woman. Now people, think----------.Ready? ok quickly thisnk of large 5 kg melons or water melons. But round ones!!
She had breasts that size, absolutely well rounded and huge 5 kg each. Ofcourse no self respecting bra company will make bras that size, so she had probably ripped some fabric and stiched herself some. And she was young but over weight. but not so overweight to warrantboobs of that size! And they swung happily and freely all around in a up-right- down- left- up .... pattern. I really want to know what kept the young man (overweight but not obese) next to her holding her hand and not hiding his head under a cap or several caps and an overgrown beard or a clown getup.. anything to not be seen as the true identity. Machochistic love i say!
And later at night when i was enjoying a fantastic meal, (about which will be a separate blog), I almost choked when i thought of that walking swinging water melon.
And given the crazy dreams i have i was worried gettign to sleep. thought i would suffocate and die between her boobs! gasping for breath between sweaty fumes!
luckily i dreamt of my freind and a parrot! Wonder what the analyst would make of that!

Zurich Day 1 8th april 2011

The time I was catching a flight, was  the exact time a million more were also doing the same thing. The immigration was filled to the brim with wailing babies, excited honeymooners, tired businessmen and already hasassed mommies. The real horror began after that. I was tugging away at my hand bag ( and regretting not sticking to my normal backpack) and suddenly the hand bag tugged back. I pulled hard but it started pulling back like a wailing child at a sweet shop, trying to pull his mother towards a giant full day lollipop. (and the mother being me would onlz think of the sticky goop allover the child, hand, car, bags, sheets .. never mind!)
So getting back to the bag _ i looked down and the bag looked up at me defiantly. Thats when i spotted a black piece lying near the wheel. I was anycase irritated trying to find the lounge, so that I could just sit after breathing in the fumes of so many people at immigration, and the bag was just giving me a hard time trying to do that. I  found the loung and sat down in the last empty chair, feeling stupid because i was breating in more fumes  from a lot many more people. I sat down and asked the bag wzy it was misbehaving and the wheels screeched in protest! the wheels (both! ) of the bag were in bits and tatters. thats what i had seen earlier! the black thing!! I sighed and realised my first bit of shopping has started even before i have boarded the plane. And when i went out the same way i came in i saw pieces of the disintegrated wheel all over the airport floor!
the flight was not that great (again i repeat  JET is the answer ! I dont know why i try to weave away from my own advice) the blanket had a bug or several bugs and i was bitten all over. finally i went to sleep over a rather bumpy flight. aaaH  I also had some "hot " hot chocloate dropped on me!
But now i am in Zurich, my passport is not stolen(Bad dreams of this for 3 days in a row) amd i had the most stumtous lunch and dinner!
and Spent the entire day shopping!!!