Zürich, Switzerland: Joy, Wealth, and Weariness in a Designated Wilderness
I left Paris in the afternoon and caught a train for Zürich, Switzerland. I arrived after the sun had set and it began to rain. My hostel was the "Zurich Youth Hostel," but this was a misleading title. It did not have the shaggy atmosphere most hostels have. Instead it glistened with straight lines, long tables, and a few middle-aged people in suits on their laptops. I was no longer in the city of love. I had entered the epicenter of wealth and utilitarianism, knives and watches.
In Switzerland, even the cows get 90 days of vacation. They are taken to the alps to enjoy fresh air, great views, and a change of grass. I learned this because they were missing from their fields on our bus tour of the countryside. The guide explained other remarkable things about Switzerland to our caravan of snoozing business men and gassy tourists -- namely the strict land use policies: 1/3 of the land is natural reserves, 1/3 is for farming, the remaining third is divided into 10% housing and 20% water (I wondered where all those investment firms I saw in Zurich fit into this picture). Coming from Paris, the place seemed idyllic. I don't believe I saw a single piece of trash blow by the entire time I was there, and whenever a baby cried it seemed like an absurd choice for them to make. Here you are, the sun is shining on the river, the grass is an even green, your parents are wearing clean and trendy clothing--what more could you need?
The tour guide had an hispanic accent, and he dressed in a stuffy way that signaled he was not at home in the tourism industry. He slipped many less than subtle references to climate change's impact on the countryside. We cruised by several sunflower farms, a major crop of Switzerland, and the lack of water this season left them brown and drooping. The image struck me, especially in the context of a tour which was more than I should have paid for, surrounded by tourists who seemed ready to fog a window with their breath so they could write their name upon it.
I lost my ticket for a close-up view of Rhine Falls, which turned out to be an alright error because I got a chance to speak with our guide one-on-one. It turns out he's a Guatemalan expat with a Ph.D. in Astronomy and he wrote his thesis on the skeletons that certain stars leave behind when they burn out. Isn't it neat how certain disciplines bend round to touch their supposed opposite? Math and philosophy, physics and poetry, physical education and Hinduism. (Please don't press me on these theories, I'm only writing for fun.) In any case, he was one of the many inspiring people I met during my travels. Someone who had found a way to live, and quite well, aside from the eternal frustration of longing to educate duck faced selfie seekers. His cheery and friendly candor grew desperate and punctuated with swear words when he spoke with me separately about how fucked our planet is.
There were four bunks in my room, but my lone hostel mate was a rotund man in his early forties. When I entered the room for the first time he was naked. Changing, presumably. I uttered an apology immediately upon opening the door and catching the unmistakable glimpse of dangly genitalia, and in a jaunty german accent he told me 'oh that's alright!' Some people have a presence that just roars, and this man was one of them. He was a teacher of politics and economics at a high school, he spent a good two hours before bed reading on his stomach with the thin hostel blanket draped over his large body, and not a minute went by without some noise emitting from him, be it a vocalized sigh, a throat clear, a sniff, a smack of the lips, a chuckle to himself, a snore, or a fart (there were some impressive ones in the middle of the night). The brief conversation I had with him was enough to convince me he was a brilliant man, with a great care for the world and other people. He was the only hostel mate who said goodnight to me before turning out the light, which should say something to the intimacy established between us in that small room.
On my last day in Zürich, I took a train up to the large hill at the back of the town called Üetliberg. It is a sprawling park where Swiss families gather for picnics, hikes, and stunning vistas. Near the top of this hill I saw a large empty field without any people in it, and it seemed like a nice place to sit and read to get some distance from the flow of tourists. A young girl of about 7 stepped into the grass and looked out at the trees. Her mom was on the path still, her other children buzzing about her like bees. She was saddled with bags, hands to hold, a stroller to watch, and too many high-pitched questions to answer.
She was aware of me, I think, because she said to her flock in a weary British accent, "you all are the loudest children on the planet, you know that?"
She asked her daughter in the grass by me to come back to the path, who replied, "why can't we sit in the field mummy?"
"Because you might get some ticks if you sit out there."
This had not occurred to me.
She walked back to her mum, and I began to worry that I was sitting in a hunting ground of blood-sucking arachnids. She said something in protest to her mother about 'that man...', meaning me.
"That man is enjoying a book in the peace and quiet which you all are disrupting, so let's go."
I held myself together, pretending to notice none of this, but as soon as the coast was clear I began searching my body for insects. I was shocked to find a tick crawling up my arm at that very moment, which I brushed off and it disappeared into the grass. I stood up expecting the worst, expecting to find my legs like strawberries, studded with seed-like bodies. My alarm dissolved into more simple anxiety when I found that I had seemingly escaped unscathed. My eyes flitted across all of my possessions, and I began a googling frenzy: tick Switzerland cure, checking for ticks, tick dangers, dying in Switzerland. Apparently they like to crawl up your body toward the more dark and moist regions, which is terrifying for a number of reasons, one of which being that there's no decent place to strip down and check your privates in a public park, and every bathroom costs you Swiss-fuckin-Francs.
After telling myself that I would survive and discreetly checking my body the best I could in a crowded park, I set off for a little adventuring. First, to prevent any further exposure to these little devils, I zipped the pant legs on to my zip-off hiking shorts (I came prepared) and tucked the pant-legs into my socks, a tip I learned from my hasty google search. Wandering aimlessly, I found myself bounding down a stunningly steep path, which a few sinewy Swiss men were ascending with angry determination in their reddened faces. The whole decent felt like a controlled fall. As I rounded the corner of each sharp switchback I asked myself how easily I could stop myself if I needed to, but the experience of stumbling down the face of a wooded Swiss mountain was exhilarating, and I felt my mind's chatter begin to quiet beneath the pounding of my feet and the wild smells that whipped against me in the late summer wind.
Once I reached to bottom, I had no idea where I was. I found a map and decided I'd eat a snack from my pack and take on another trail. The path I'd just come from was labeled, simply, 'steep,' which seemed like a gross understatement. There was another path which returned up the hill in more of a meandering way, and there was a restaurant at the top where I could order myself a self-congratulatory beer, so I took up the challenge. This path was even madder than the last. The trail often split in two, with no clear indication of which was the proper path. I often found the trail before me only a foot away from my face so that the line between hiking and climbing blurred. I frequently cursed to myself in disbelief at the place, and reminded myself to not do anything foolish because I had not seen another hiker for several minutes and I was not interested in laying broken at the foot of a cliff's edge waiting for a rescue from some strong Swiss savior.
I am a fairly fit person, but I feel like these two hikes were some of the more challenging activities I have done in recent years. I did make it out of there alive and free of ticks, and managed also to make it in time to one of these Swiss swimming areas for a dip in Lake Zürich. When I returned to the hostel, I found out that my large and jolly hostel-mate had been replaced by a scrawny and shy young boy brushing and tapping at a screen. I felt a little ache at the fact that I didn't get a proper goodbye with that man, and I don't even remember his name. There would be many more encounters like this along the way, too. It is strange, I am glad to know the world is full of good and interesting people, but time is limited, and you cannot shuffle through faces forever.
In Switzerland, even the cows get 90 days of vacation. They are taken to the alps to enjoy fresh air, great views, and a change of grass. I learned this because they were missing from their fields on our bus tour of the countryside. The guide explained other remarkable things about Switzerland to our caravan of snoozing business men and gassy tourists -- namely the strict land use policies: 1/3 of the land is natural reserves, 1/3 is for farming, the remaining third is divided into 10% housing and 20% water (I wondered where all those investment firms I saw in Zurich fit into this picture). Coming from Paris, the place seemed idyllic. I don't believe I saw a single piece of trash blow by the entire time I was there, and whenever a baby cried it seemed like an absurd choice for them to make. Here you are, the sun is shining on the river, the grass is an even green, your parents are wearing clean and trendy clothing--what more could you need?
The tour guide had an hispanic accent, and he dressed in a stuffy way that signaled he was not at home in the tourism industry. He slipped many less than subtle references to climate change's impact on the countryside. We cruised by several sunflower farms, a major crop of Switzerland, and the lack of water this season left them brown and drooping. The image struck me, especially in the context of a tour which was more than I should have paid for, surrounded by tourists who seemed ready to fog a window with their breath so they could write their name upon it.
I lost my ticket for a close-up view of Rhine Falls, which turned out to be an alright error because I got a chance to speak with our guide one-on-one. It turns out he's a Guatemalan expat with a Ph.D. in Astronomy and he wrote his thesis on the skeletons that certain stars leave behind when they burn out. Isn't it neat how certain disciplines bend round to touch their supposed opposite? Math and philosophy, physics and poetry, physical education and Hinduism. (Please don't press me on these theories, I'm only writing for fun.) In any case, he was one of the many inspiring people I met during my travels. Someone who had found a way to live, and quite well, aside from the eternal frustration of longing to educate duck faced selfie seekers. His cheery and friendly candor grew desperate and punctuated with swear words when he spoke with me separately about how fucked our planet is.
 |
| Rhine Falls |
There were four bunks in my room, but my lone hostel mate was a rotund man in his early forties. When I entered the room for the first time he was naked. Changing, presumably. I uttered an apology immediately upon opening the door and catching the unmistakable glimpse of dangly genitalia, and in a jaunty german accent he told me 'oh that's alright!' Some people have a presence that just roars, and this man was one of them. He was a teacher of politics and economics at a high school, he spent a good two hours before bed reading on his stomach with the thin hostel blanket draped over his large body, and not a minute went by without some noise emitting from him, be it a vocalized sigh, a throat clear, a sniff, a smack of the lips, a chuckle to himself, a snore, or a fart (there were some impressive ones in the middle of the night). The brief conversation I had with him was enough to convince me he was a brilliant man, with a great care for the world and other people. He was the only hostel mate who said goodnight to me before turning out the light, which should say something to the intimacy established between us in that small room.
On my last day in Zürich, I took a train up to the large hill at the back of the town called Üetliberg. It is a sprawling park where Swiss families gather for picnics, hikes, and stunning vistas. Near the top of this hill I saw a large empty field without any people in it, and it seemed like a nice place to sit and read to get some distance from the flow of tourists. A young girl of about 7 stepped into the grass and looked out at the trees. Her mom was on the path still, her other children buzzing about her like bees. She was saddled with bags, hands to hold, a stroller to watch, and too many high-pitched questions to answer.
She was aware of me, I think, because she said to her flock in a weary British accent, "you all are the loudest children on the planet, you know that?"
She asked her daughter in the grass by me to come back to the path, who replied, "why can't we sit in the field mummy?"
"Because you might get some ticks if you sit out there."
This had not occurred to me.
She walked back to her mum, and I began to worry that I was sitting in a hunting ground of blood-sucking arachnids. She said something in protest to her mother about 'that man...', meaning me.
"That man is enjoying a book in the peace and quiet which you all are disrupting, so let's go."
I held myself together, pretending to notice none of this, but as soon as the coast was clear I began searching my body for insects. I was shocked to find a tick crawling up my arm at that very moment, which I brushed off and it disappeared into the grass. I stood up expecting the worst, expecting to find my legs like strawberries, studded with seed-like bodies. My alarm dissolved into more simple anxiety when I found that I had seemingly escaped unscathed. My eyes flitted across all of my possessions, and I began a googling frenzy: tick Switzerland cure, checking for ticks, tick dangers, dying in Switzerland. Apparently they like to crawl up your body toward the more dark and moist regions, which is terrifying for a number of reasons, one of which being that there's no decent place to strip down and check your privates in a public park, and every bathroom costs you Swiss-fuckin-Francs.
After telling myself that I would survive and discreetly checking my body the best I could in a crowded park, I set off for a little adventuring. First, to prevent any further exposure to these little devils, I zipped the pant legs on to my zip-off hiking shorts (I came prepared) and tucked the pant-legs into my socks, a tip I learned from my hasty google search. Wandering aimlessly, I found myself bounding down a stunningly steep path, which a few sinewy Swiss men were ascending with angry determination in their reddened faces. The whole decent felt like a controlled fall. As I rounded the corner of each sharp switchback I asked myself how easily I could stop myself if I needed to, but the experience of stumbling down the face of a wooded Swiss mountain was exhilarating, and I felt my mind's chatter begin to quiet beneath the pounding of my feet and the wild smells that whipped against me in the late summer wind.
Once I reached to bottom, I had no idea where I was. I found a map and decided I'd eat a snack from my pack and take on another trail. The path I'd just come from was labeled, simply, 'steep,' which seemed like a gross understatement. There was another path which returned up the hill in more of a meandering way, and there was a restaurant at the top where I could order myself a self-congratulatory beer, so I took up the challenge. This path was even madder than the last. The trail often split in two, with no clear indication of which was the proper path. I often found the trail before me only a foot away from my face so that the line between hiking and climbing blurred. I frequently cursed to myself in disbelief at the place, and reminded myself to not do anything foolish because I had not seen another hiker for several minutes and I was not interested in laying broken at the foot of a cliff's edge waiting for a rescue from some strong Swiss savior.
 |
| steep and invisible hiking path |
I am a fairly fit person, but I feel like these two hikes were some of the more challenging activities I have done in recent years. I did make it out of there alive and free of ticks, and managed also to make it in time to one of these Swiss swimming areas for a dip in Lake Zürich. When I returned to the hostel, I found out that my large and jolly hostel-mate had been replaced by a scrawny and shy young boy brushing and tapping at a screen. I felt a little ache at the fact that I didn't get a proper goodbye with that man, and I don't even remember his name. There would be many more encounters like this along the way, too. It is strange, I am glad to know the world is full of good and interesting people, but time is limited, and you cannot shuffle through faces forever.
Wonderful!
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