I woke up and changed living quarters again, and then walked around Bahnhofstrasse, one of the world's most expensive shopping streets. The usual suspects (Louis Vuitton, Tiffany's etc.) were present, but they were joined by more watch stores than I have ever seen in my life! It's amazing that these places are still so popular given the rise of wearable technology. Next I went for a walk along Lake Zurich and watched a bit of the rowing competition before head...

From Basel I went back to Deutschland to Weil am Rhine to visit the Vitra campus and design museum. The architecture was amazing. It felt like a whole different world. The campus is set back from the rest of the city - It took 22 minutes to walk there and it was incredibly confusing. It is built in a circle with interesting buildings and functional sculptures. One of the pieces is a huge spiral slide, which was a lot of fun. You pick up a sliding carpet at the b...

When I arrived in Basel I was hungry so I went to walk around the city to find something to eat. I ended up running into a little fair, and learned that it was the first week of the Basel Autumn Fair (Basler Herbstmesse), a huge multi-site fair with food and rides that starts on the Saturday before October 30th every year, and is on for about two weeks. This will be the 546th Herbstmesse in Basel. No that’s not a typo – the first Basel Herbstmesse took pl...

Today I planned to go to Ulm. My friends recommended a special day pass that would get me anywhere local in Germany for 23 Euros after 9 am. The train was 29-36 each way, plus the trip to Munich Hbf and back (and any other transit today) so the cost savings were quite significant. I arrived at the station at 8:40 am, bought my ticket and arrived at the main station with plenty of time to spare. Everything seemed super straightforward until I went to get on the...

Today was a travel day. I took a train from Munich to Lucerne. It was foggy so I couldn't see the mountains as I came in. It has been pouring rain in Lucerne for the past couple of days but it looks like the weather has cleared up a bit in time for my arrival. I arrived to a cloud of smoke - people can smoke inside of the train station. I later learned that they can also smoke inside of bars, if they are small and the establishment would like to make it a smoki...