TRAVELLING - FRANKFURT TO ZURICH

We are leaving Germany after sixteen wonderful days, which is a bit sad but we are all very excited about the prospect of maybe seeing snow up close and personal. The girls really want to have a snowball fight.

We couldn't wait to get out of this hotel this morning so we left without having our breakfast and headed for the train station. What do you know, the train was 30 minutes late. While we waited we ate some breakfast before finally boarding the train and then having to make our way through seven carriages to find some seats we could sit at. Pasqual had an altercation with an American woman who wasn't prepared to more her luggage off the seat so we could all sit together. One of the employees on the train found us some seats in the last carriage and we moved in there. Pasqual struggles if the seats are facing backwards as he starts feeling motion sickness.

We settled down for the three hour trip. We changed trains at Basel right on the border and then the scenery became beautiful. There was so much greenery and we saw massive amounts of snow on the Alps.

We arrived in Zurich and walked the one kilometre to our hotel. After booking in we headed out to wander the streets and have dinner. This soon became a bit if a dilemma as they don't accept euros here, everything is in Swiss Francs. Great! We headed back to the train station and found a currency exchange and changed our money. Once we had the currency we headed for the restaurants. Boy oh boy we were in for a surprise. Everything cost two to three times the price of food in Germany or Australia.

We then had dinner and it was so expensive. We have decided that we will probably loose weight here as we can't afford to eat. A Big Mac in McDonalds is 11.50 just for the burger. We ended up having fish and chips which was outrageously priced. We are not sure how people can afford to live here but then we found out that someone who packs the shelves in a supermarket is on the equivalent wage as what a senior teacher in Australia earns. Isn't that depressing.

We were curious as to why prices were written 'chf' instead of 'sf' (Swiss Franc). We asked and were informed that Switzerland is not the countries original name. It is in fact The Confederation of Helvetica.

We wandered around the old town of Zurich and admired the scenery. There are so many beautiful buildings and statues. Around every corner there is another monument or fountain. We eventually headed back to the hotel. Zurich is very pretty, but very expensive.

We are hoping that our four days in Zurich isn't going to send us broke.