Zürich

Well, as I hinted in my last post, H. and I took the pup and headed to Zurich on Monday. Before I get started, I have some advice for you, should you wish to wander over there. Save yourself the trouble and buy the stupid toll pass for the Autobahn. Trying to save yourself 40 Swiss Francs will only lead to crying in the long run. I promise.

Still don't believe me?

Before we left, I went onto Google maps and looked up the directions from our place to Zurich. Then, as I glanced down the directions, I saw the ominous "TOLL." Gross. No thanks. I'm way too cheap to pay for the privilege of using a road when there are other, more free, routes I can take. Plus, this "back" way only was supposed to take an extra fifteen minutes. Thirty minutes extra of our time, round-trip for free? You can count me in! So the trip down the A81 to Singen went as smoothly as we thought it would. Then it was time to navigate through about 459884722 round-a-bouts. We may have taken the wrong turn a couple of times, but it was all good. I remember, though, having a sinking feeling in my stomach whilst taking Route 4 into Zurich. It was pretty... curvy. But, we made it there all right. So, of course we could get back out all right? Right?

Wrong.

We couldn't get out of the darn city, and we probably spent an hour looking for that stupid Route 4 to take us away. We even got so close. And by close, I mean one block on a one-way street close. But alas. We failed. H. decided that having a grumpy wife in a confined space was probably not the best way to go about things, so we took some Route 17 out. We followed the whole philosophy of going straight will eventually lead you out of town. This has worked in Munich, Cologne, and other places. I can now say that it works in Zurich, too. The problem with this plan, though, is wondering what to do once you get out of town. Luckily, our trusty ADAC map gave us some general highway advice. Do realise, though, that advice doesn't extend to advice on where to turn in all those little cities along the way. Are you exhausted by reading this? Because I want to cry just thinking about it.

Anyway, Zurich is okay. It wasn't worth the trouble. To tell you the truth, I'm kind of sick of German-ish cities. Sure, the architecture was nice. Sure, that lake was nice. Sure, the sidewalk chalk downtown warning us that September 11 was a lie and that the US government is housing Bin Laden in a CIA hospital was amusing. But was it worth seven hours of driving? No. Was it worth four hours of driving plus a toll sticker? Also no.

Maybe my mom was right - I AM too spoiled. But frankly, Europe, like everything else in life, gets boring after awhile. Maybe I'll be more excited when I come back after my trip back home to Canada. Probably. But for now, I'm bored.