Oh, sure - the Zurich pics!

Happy Friday! Enjoy the pics from Zurich.

Lake Zurich, aka, Zurichsee.

Swans all over the lake.

After that long hot shower, and podcast, my meal. A 4 ounce glass of wine, a pretzel, and a salad buffet. Beets. Arugula. Apples. Peppers. And a little pasta, a little meat.

The rivers running to the lake... a city of bridges, like my own.

One rainstorm for about 45 minutes, and the rest of the time was postcard-perfect.

Famous Grossmunster Church.

I wanted to eat at every little tucked-away place. 

Middle of the city, crossing a bridge from Hallwylplatz into the financial district.

An art installation of enormous tapestries. There was a metaphor in there for me about the laundry drying in the third world providing art in the first.

Dinner. 4 dl of wine (about 13 ounces), meat, cheese, apples, tomatoes, pickles, figs, nuts.

On a boat, on Zurichsee. 

You sort of have to. It's Swiss chocolate. 

July 20, Morning. Dar Es Salaam. (First Full Day In TZ.)

(As written in my journal that day; grammar and minor edits only. Italicized portions are additions written after the trip.)

I'm overwhelmed by fear about food and water - too many awful stories told me before my flight and as Meggie and I realized - I've had food poisoning before and she never has. (Or the old joke - there are two types of people in the world. Those who have had food poisoning and those who have not. Yet.) Hence my fear of it and her fear of other things. Other things = bugs. Bugs that carry malaria or yellow fever or sleeping sickness.

And being overwhelmed by fear caused me to rebel this morning and eat the traditional dish served at hotel breakfast along with the American offerings. Stewed salad of some sort. All the wrong things. Lettuce. Bell Peppers. Bits of firm white fish. Am I tempting fate? Time will tell. It was a bad decision, I am now thinking, but on the other hand, if I don't get sick, then I'm going to feel immune to the current fear gripping me for the rest of the trip. Self-imposed immersion therapy of some sort?

-- -- -- 

At this point, we're waiting for our fellow volunteers to arrive. We think we see a pair of them but are wrong. Then we see a family - 4 kids and mom and dad - and sure enough, they are 6 of our group! We have until 6 PM tonight (Saturday) to spend as we wish, until the program formally begins, and that means lots of journaling on this day, and a bit of sightseeing in Dar. 

Meggie and I decide to say "screw the jet lag" and hire a taxi driver to take us to see Dar. The front desk clerk is a little confused; there is nothing to see in Dar. Tourists go to Zanzibar or off on safari; this is a layover, not a destination. She suggests the National Museum and the main fish market - they're near each other and will fit into the 2-3 hours we want to spend exploring before it will likely be pre-dinner-naptime. 

Boats on the ocean outside the hotel, and Meggie on the bay:

P.S. Why Zurich?

In the post below, I forgot to mention... why a layover in Zurich? Why not Paris or Barcelona or Casablanca or Amsterdam or Munich? Because Zurich was the only city in Europe - perhaps due to a webpage fluke that day - that allowed me to enjoy a layover with no additional cost to the flight price. It was the same cost to fly straight home from Dar as it was to add 48 hours in C.H., so I took the opportunity to see Zurich, decompress, and booked a cheap hotel.

And, oh my, that cheap hotel felt like absolute luxury! It included a breakfast with APPLES and KIWIS! (Fruit for the last couple weeks was bananas-only twice a day, and a few slices of pineapple once a week.) An apple was absolute heaven.

Totally Cool.

Despite keeping a blog and loving my digital internet-based devices, I also dearly love books. My fantasy house has a very small library in it with a ladder on wheels, which Belle had in the Disney cartoon... but which my childhood bookstore in Montana had before that.

So speaking of books... how cool is this?! New goal on the life list? Same as Sophie's; get a book in that library.