Alex and Aurore's Visit.

This past weekend I had a pair of visitors: Alex and Aurore! They are friends from France who I met in Minnesota- I used to work with Aurore at the University of Minnesota. Aurore lives in Strasbourg, which is about 2.5 hours away, and Alex is in Grenoble, which is more like 5 or 6 hours away. In fact, because of the strikes in France, the trains weren't running, so Alex had an even longer journey. He had to drive a few hours to Geneva (in Switzerland) before he could catch a train to meet Aurore and I in Zürich!

They came in late and later on Friday evening, so we slept in on Saturday and had a late brunch before getting in the car (Aurore drove from Strasbourg) and heading to Stein am Rhein, which is a cute little town close to the Rhine Falls. We walked around the town and along the river for a while, and also purchased the necessary supplies for fondue, which I can now make quite skillfully, if I do say so myself.

Scenes from Stein am Rhein

We then crossed the border into Germany and visited the border town of Konstanz. The town was SUPER busy- all of the parking garages had absolutely no spaces open! This is a result of the high prices in Switzerland; many people go across the border to Germany to shop for groceries and other things on the weekends, usually saving quite a bit of money in the process. Probably half of the cars we saw in Konstanz had Swiss license plates! We wandered around the town and down to the lake, and we took a beautiful walk along the lake right at sunset before heading back home and having cheese fondue for dinner.

Scenes from Konstanz

Hello, man wearing a WISCONSIN SWEATSHIRT.

The weather took a significant turn for the worse on Sunday and Monday: both days were rainy, windy and about 40 F and sometimes sleeting, which is not conducive to walking outside and seeing Zürich, which was our plan. Both days we walked around Zürich: touring ETH (where I work), visiting the Fraumünster and the Grossmünster, wandering around the old streets, enjoying a coffee in Starbucks (my first time since I've been here!), admiring the view from Lindenhof, walking the Bahnhofstrasse, strolling by the Zürichsee, seeing the Niederdorf neighborhood, meeting our friend Sarah for tapas, etc. In general we could walk for an hour or two outside before retreating to somewhere warm for a while, but still managed to have a nice time together, despite the dismal weather.

Scenes from Zürich

View from the conference room in my building. Usually you can see the snow-covered Alps.

Grossmünster.

Fraumünster.

Walking by the lake.

View from Lindenhof.

Of course, it has been nothing but sunny since they left, but what can you do? It was a fun visit, and I'm looking forward to more, since we are relatively close to each other!