Zurich Airport 1/14/10

Flight was enjoyable from LAX. I’ve got a good 4 hours to kill waiting for my flight to Salzburg. On the flight I sat next to a guy around my age from Sweden. We made idle chit chat in Airworld (Up in the Air reference, which I’ve been reading this trip). He was visiting his sister who is abroad in the US at CSU Fullerton. The weather in CA exceeded his expectations from what he told me. I asked him if he had any recommendations on where to go. He recommended all the major cities that I planned to go to, but downplayed Sweden. In his words Sweden is like Canada—country, and not much to do.

Walking through the plane to the gate I felt the cold instantly. My breath was revealed to me as I walked through the passage connecting both. Zurich is completely covered in snow. Looking at the landscape while landing I felt like Dorothy, “Toto we’re not in Kansas anymore.” It’s currently 5 pm and already it feels like a blackout because of the weather. I’m sure that if I walked anywhere in Europe with snow as it looks to me outside, I’d feel like I’m in Let the Right One In.

Having not much else to do, I’ve taken a couple pictures in the Zurich airport. It would seem like they would keep holiday decorations up awhile here because of the glass chandeliers that have Christmas lights hanging from them. Overall this airport is pretty “glassy” and looks a lot cleaner and modern than US ones.

I’ve toured a couple shops so far. I probably spent the longest in the Duty-Free alcohol store. All that legally available booze that I can buy! Must be some sort of celebration going on as every bottle of whiskey is tagged “Whiskeyfest Jan-Feb 2010.” Switzerland’s wine bottle intrigued me. It’s literally as if the Swiss Army made a bottle that had attachments that popped out. Granted it doesn’t remove the cork itself, but the bottle pretty much looks like the knives. The Swiss Chocolate Knives gave me a laugh when I saw them.

Europe really doesn’t joke about smoking. Every pack has written on it in bold lettering, “Smoking Kills” or “Smoking seriously harms you and others around you.” A novelty to me, I snapped pics of the packaging before being told I couldn’t do that. Luckily I was able to keep them, though.