Pictures from this day can be found here.
Up early again, this time to catch a train from Munich to Zurich. We checked out of our comfy hotel room, and caught an early express train out of Munich. There was no need for reservations and we got good seats in first class. We were a little worried because Roger said that there was some kind of street festival going on in Zurich today, but as it turned out there weren’t many people on the train.
I had the munchies so a really nice cook in the kitchen car set us up with a plate of cheese and prosciutto to snack on during the long ride. The train actually traveled through Austria at one point, so the ticket checker made us pay an extra fee, since our rail passes were only valid in Belgium/Luxemborg, Germany and Switzerland. So we paid 18 Euros for both of us to pass through yet another country. Truth be told, the part of Austria we passed through looked pretty much like Switzerland and Germany to me. At first the scenery along the way was just the same track that we had used the day before on the way to Fussen, but soon after turning towards Austria things changed pretty quickly. The hills here were much more rolling and green, and the skies turned blue and bright with the sun. Nice to have good weather for sightseeing from the train.
The train arrived in Zurich at noon, and so after changing our Euros to Swiss Francs we went south from the packed station to find Café 0815 – our designated meeting place with Roger. Unfortunately we were two hours early, so Kuniko and I had a mini-fight over how to spend the next two hours. We ended up checking into our hotel (Hotel Alexander) and then going back to 0815 at 2 p.m. We didn’t know what Roger looked like, so we weren’t sure what to do. After about ten minutes, I noticed that there was a single guy inside the café, so I went inside and asked him in English, “Are you Roger?” Unfortunately, he just shook his head and looked at me like I was crazy. I explained that we were waiting for a guy named Roger, but it was one of those situations where the more explaining you do the crazier you seem, so I just waved my apologies and headed back outside the cafe to wait with Kuniko. And after another few minutes, Roger strolled up and sat beside us and said hello.
This was our first time to meet Roger, as we had been connected through my aunt Nancy’s email correspondence. He lives in Zurich and has spent some time in California where he met Nancy, and so she put us together in Zurich so he could show us around a bit. He was a really nice guy with great English, so we had a drink with him and introduced ourselves. We felt comfortable with him right away, and so after we paid our tab we left with him to go check out the street festival on the lakeshore.
On the way we stopped to try some of Roger’s beer. He works for a brewery/restaurant outside of Zurich, and so we stopped in at a grocery store where he persuaded the manager to chill down three bottles with the wine chilling machine they had. After about five minutes the bottles were cold and we were out the door, popping the tops off, and enjoying a Zurich microbrew. Excellent beer – and it hit the spot after a long morning of traveling.
As we walked with the crowd it got more and more bizarre as people in costumes, scantily clad, or barely clad, and just regular folks congregated at the side of the lake to listen to dance music and dance like crazy all night. When planning our trip I had no idea that this event was happening, but since it was going on and it was free, we decided to check it out.
And it was total chaos. It was such a huge crowd of people that it was difficult to walk. Everybody danced in place as big rigs carrying dancing people, DJs, and sound systems drove slowly through the crowd. Alcohol, weed, smiles, dancing, and broken glass everywhere – it was tricky just to stay together through all the madness. After a couple of trucks went by we found a restaurant nearby selling Roger’s beer on tap, and with each beer you bought you got a free ticket to use their (clean) bathrooms. Nice selling point – clean bathrooms were hard to find there.
We drank and talked and watched the crazy costumes – people watching has rarely been better. Roger was a good guy and really took care of us, and even made a restaurant reservation for the two of us for later that evening. We moved around a bit to see some of the stationary stages, and after watching Mustard Pimp for a while we headed back to civilization and we cut Roger loose to meet up with his friends. Kuniko and I were still buzzing pretty good from the beer and second hand smoke so we decided to get a taxi to the restaurant just to be safe, since we were in a new city. The taxi driver took us where we wanted to go, and sorted out our money for us (and took a pretty good tip on top of it) and then we were at the entrance of the restaurant.
The place was a little out of the way, and kind of looked like someone’s house more than a restaurant. It was called Klein 6, and inside it looked a lot like the upscale restaurants that are so popular in the California wine country. We settled down at our table, and they brought a hand-written menu full of pretty contemporary fare. We were still slightly drunk from the street party, but managed to order our food and wine without a problem. I had grilled tiger shrimp on rice, and Kuniko had basil raviolis in a cream sauce. The food turned out to be excellent, and despite flinging a couple of my tomatoes from the dinner salad off the table I think we didn’t look too out of control. After all that drinking on (basically) an empty stomach the food hit the spot.
After dinner we begged off and walked back to the hotel to save some money and get some exercise. Kuniko navigated us home very easily, and we even tried something that I had been wanting to check out since we arrived in Germany – Curryworst. Kuniko bought it and brought it to our hotel room, and it was really good. Cut up sausage floating in a thick curry sauce, with a side of bread. I think I was most excited about the bread simply for the absorption potential. I think I will try to make something similar back in Japan.
That night we slept soundly, but in the distance noise from the all night party could still be heard. Also we discovered we were quite close to a church, and the bells going off every hour added to the feeling that we were really in Europe.
