5/3/07 Day 1 in Switzerland

I cannot be held accountable for how coherent this post will be. I left Detroit at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, slept for about an hour on the plane, and then slept for another hour at my hotel before going out to dinner. It is now 9 p.m. here, 3 p.m. back in Royal Oak. In other words, I have had 2 hours of sleep since waking up at 8 a.m wednesday morning.

The flight here at first was going very well. I watched 3 movies on the plane, and only had to use the bathroom twice, much to the appreciation of the man to my left. All in all it was the least painless flights I had ever had, up until the end. As we were preparing to land in Amsterdam, a woman in the aisle right next to me had a stroke. It was unbelieveable how frantic some of the flight attendants were and how unprepared everyone seemed for this situation. Voices rang loudly, "Is there a doctor on the plane, is any one here a doctor?" There was a nurse on board, who tended to the woman who before everyone's eyes struggled to breathe, and clenched her chest. She passed out and her pulse faded. Her husband was sitting behind me, crying out for his "good wife". All most of us could do was sit quietly, gazes downward as the nurse administered CPR on the woman. As soon as the plane landed the paramedic came. They didn't pronounce here dead right there, but nothing was looking good.

Given that situation, we were late getting off the plane and came close to missing our transit flight to Zurich. However everything worked out, we made it on time and arrived here at around 9 a.m. Customs was painless. Here is a picture of Zurich. I didn't take very many because...well, I was tired and felt touristy enough. I plan to do more of the photo ops on my return. Today my professor and his daughter showed me around Zurich. We ate at two excellent restaurants and I had myself some swiss espresso, which was absolutely amazing. Later, we went to Teuscher, which is supposed to have the best chocolate in the world. Now when this was said to me, I really didn't even stop to consider the factual aspect of that claim. I just went with, oh I don't feel like chocolate right now. Richard's daughter, being the genious that she is, insisted that I try it. Now, I haven't tried every chocolate in the world, but I still would not be surprised, nor would I hesitate nontheless, to support the claim that this is the best chocolate in the world, it was absolutely amazing.

What happens then, when you combine swiss espresso, and fine swiss chocolate: one amazing piece of salatious delight for Miss Kelly. The coffee chocolate bar- beyond words.

My hotel is cute and quaint, just like the rest of Zurich. I absolutely adore the the scale of the buildings. The landscape and building structure makes you feel so personally involved with the space, you are never overwhelemed by massive buildings, nor are you underwhelemed with awning brimmed shops. What else is neat is that, despite the fact that many people are walking in and out of the town, everything is just so quiet.

Speaking of quiet voices of town walkers, my professor has been doing a lot of work with me to get me to culturally adjust and speak with an indoor voice (not my indoor voice of course). He does this by talking so quietly to me, that I can't help but hear how obnoxious I am being.

I may buttress this entry a little more later, however now, i am quiet tired, as i just took some melantonin to help regulate me
I hope everyone at home is enojying themselves and being safe