Visiteurs de Paris, Pt. Deux

Egads! I finished the previous post too early, neglecting to mention Michel's and my extracur-ricular activity late Tuesday night, after dinner and drinks and tucking the girls (and dogs) into bed, venturing back to the Old Town through lightly whirling snow to Steph's and my favorite Spanish bodega for an absinthe nightcap.

Absinthe may ring a bell as the distillation of a plant called wormwood with a shady reputation for addiction and causing madness, banned for most of the 20th century but recently re-legalized in Switzerland and Europe due to reassertion of its safety--it seemed like a good thing to try (still unavailable in the U.S.). The waiter performed a brief tableside ceremony, burning/caramelizing a sugar cube above each glass before dumping it into the clear liquor and then diluting and stirring with water, turning the drink a cloudy opaque white. I'm uncertain if Greek and/or absinthe distillers would be insulted if I claim it tasted mostly like Ouzo, yet leaving a slicker film of intense anise flavor on the tongue. After the wait staff politely booted us out at midnight, neither Michel nor I recall going completely bonkers, although we were both slightly tortured by vivid psychotic dreams that night (just kidding). Perhaps complete psycho-addiction requires more than just one drink, we'll have to test that...

I also failed to recount our important sleuth work at Zürich's main train station where we stopped for its public restrooms. During previous visits there, I had been befuddled by a restroom station that appeared to sometimes require different coins for entry--on one visit I'd not had the correct 2 Franc coin although swore remembering entering previously for 1 Franc. Through collective observation and deduction, we realized the pissoir or urinals indeed cost only 1 Franc, whereas the WC or full toilets cost 2 Francs. Now that kind of attention to customer price sensitivity is what makes a country rich, my friends! Showering there costs 12 Francs, by the way.

After the absinthe episode, the next day dawned to much excitement--Hobbes's 8th birthday! Overnight he'd received the best possible present...snow accumulation! Zürich city with its mild winters doesn't see much snow stick, in fact we hadn't seen any since November living in Kloten. He and I celebrated by bringing a tennis ball to our favorite small park alongside the local Neumünster church, running and playing around and the first to disturb the scant half-inch of snow.

With clouds giving way to sun late morning but the temperature still quite chilly, Michel, Celeste and I walked down to Bellevueplatz and the Globus café for a morning Mohnschnecke (poppy-seed cinnamon roll) and coffee. We then sauntered to the head of Lake Zürich hoping with the clearer weather to catch the oft-elusive distant Alpine mountain view, but alas the cloud cover afar hung too low (a good reason for them to return, yes?). We toured the city's other, west side Old Town at random and stepped inside another notable church with a slightly improved but mostly equally somber interior as its cross-town competitor. Michel suggested consuming another grilled bratwurst for lunch before departing, which we did alongside a pair of sausage-eating, beer drinking, mink-clad octogenarians--absolute classic Zürich. Our guests departed for the Hauptbahnhof and their Paris apartment in the early afternoon to prepare for playing host to Steph and me in a mere 50 hours.

Apparently when it rains visitors it pours, as the following day my boss from my previous-and-again Chicago employer stopped overnight in Zürich on a work trip layover to South Africa. We met to discuss details of my current contract project, then rendezvous'ed with Stephanie after work at the Hauptbahnhof. From there we briefly toured the Bahnhofstrasse highbrow shops and then stopped for a glass of wine at the cool Jules Verne panorama bar--our first visit--ten stories above downtown with excellent views of the fading sun, city lights, hills and lake. We spared no expense at dinner, leading our guest to one of several Old Town German beer halls serving inexpensive traditional food and free cigarette smoke in an open room of raucous, crammed communal benches. We each ordered a slightly different combination of sausage, potatoes, butter and beer from the simple daily menu.

We escorted him back to the Hauptbahnhof before jet lag set in entirely, armed with a valid train ticket and a vague idea of his airport hotel location; I'm certain he arrived in Johannesburg without mishap. That night we packed for Friday's departure to Paris to reconvene with Michel & Celeste for the weekend...!

Photos from the visit:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=2hd8fyj.bh64ncfz&x=0&y=-3jgwdt