My Swiss Adventure Day 1 - Sunday

I thought I might write a daily (or possibly one at the beginning and one at the end, depending on how busy I am) update on my Swiss adventure.

So Yesterday was day one and the first thing I did was go to Birmingham far too early!! In my haste to have a relaxing day Joni and I ended up spending ages driving around the airport area in search of somewhere to waste a few hours because we had arrived at the airport 3 hours before check-in opened! Opps. Luckily we managed to find (after 2 bad pubs) a nice place to grab a good lunch/dinner. Fantastic, modern pub serving a Sunday roast with belly pork. Yum Yum. Not great apple crumble which always confuses me. Crumble is so easy, how do people get it wrong?

So eventually Joni left me at the airport. I checked in and passed through security with minimum fuss and queuing  And I whiled away a couple of hours looking round duty-free, watching bad TV on my laptop and generally trying to get over my fear of flying. 15 mins before my gate opened I remembered that plugs in Switzerland are different to plugs in England so I very hurriedly bought an adapter plug.

And then I was off. Up in the air and down again so quickly you could have missed it with a brief power-nap. I have to say it was nice to not be in a flying shop (aka ryanair). I was given a sandwich and offered a glass of wine (which I decided was a bad idea). The seat I had picked didn't actually have a window (too far back) so once everyone was seated they let me shift forward so I could be next to a window. It was all very pleasant. I can defiantly see the point of not flying budget.

Back on the ground things started to go a little badly. It was 10pm local time, and I had had a very long day. And there was lots of snow (which is awesome). I found the tram stop, but I could not figure out which tram I should get on, then i couldn't find the taxi's so I went back in and couldn't find the information desk. When I did finally find one, the woman their had no idea how to get to my hotel by tram so i decided to sod the cost and take a taxi (the information desk did know where I could get one of those). Sadly the taxi smelled seriously of piss and the driver had a terrible Indian accent (not very different from Birmingham then) but he got me to the hotel with minimum fuss and at the extortionate price of 87 CHF  (thats around £60).

But the night porter at the hotel was friendly and my room in lovely. Nice and modern and very warm. And I have an amazing feather dovet, its the warmest thing in the world and I am buying one the moment I get home.

My neat little room

 So I got the internet working, said goodnight to Joni and promptly passed out. Set the alarm for far too early (hence the blogging before work). I even had time after breakfast for tea in the worlds smallest tea cup. Im not joking, I can't even begin to describe how tiny this cup is and I'v stayed in Premier Inns. Imagine how small their tea cups would be, this one is smaller!

The worlds smallest (and thus most useless) tea cup. 

 The advent of daylight brought with it a fairly dull view of a street (with snow on it) and a car park (with snow). Also, there is snow. Lots of snow. It made for an amazing view as we landed, lots of pristine white fields (obviously there are no children in Zurich because you wouldn't get untouched fields of snow like that in the UK).

The view from my hotel 

Now its time for work...