Schweizerische!

So, Switzerland is a cool place. It has four national languages--Italian, German, Romansh, and French. I was well excited to come visit because I speak French and can get along fairly well with it... however, Zurich and Winterthur, where I'm visiting, are in the German-speaking part of Switzerland. Fail. I came here to see the country, and I'm staying with my friend Shannon who has been working here for the past three months as a school project, and it's been lovely so far.
My first day was spent in Zurich. Shannon was out of town (they had been working in Milan for the week, poor things) so I had the entire day to myself to explore. I first walked down the Bahnhofstrasse, the main street in Zurich, with lots of shops and designer clothing. Everything is expensive in the first place in Switzerland (I paid 20 CHF for lunch the first day I was here!), so this street was well out of my price range. I got some fresh raspberries at a local market and sat near the lake for a snack.

A view of the lake... the Alps are hidden behind clouds near the back left

Then I hiked it to all the churches... there are four churches near the city center (well, probably more than that but four big ones): Frauminster Kirche (with windows by Chagall), St. Peter's Kirche, Wasserkirche, and Grossmünster. Wasserkirche apparently isn't usually open to the public, but there was a field trip there so I snuck in with the kids. There's an archaeological site underneath the church based around the early foundations--apparently the church was built as it's own little island over a "sacred" rock that had something to do with martyrs, of course... I can't tell you more as it was all in German. Upstairs was a really weird art display.
Grossmünster was very neat as well. You can climb up to the top of one of the towers to look out over the city. It's quite beautiful.

Grossmünster (with the towers) and Wasserkirche (on the right on the water)

Me at the top of Grossmünster

I also hiked up a hill to the university in town to visit their archaeological museum. It was neat, but it had the weirdest basement room. I went downstairs--there's no one else there, by the way--and the entire basement is filled with copies of famous (and not so famous) Classical sculptures. We're talking an entire room of Roman portraits (that is, just heads) as well as colossal statues of Athena and other figures, plus a copy of the Lion's Gate from Mycenae. The lights were motion detector kinds, so they didn't turn on until you entered a new section. It was by far the creepiest thing I've ever seen.
The last thing I did was visit a chocolate shop called Merkur. It has all kinds of bars you can buy, as well as truffles and bark. The bark is the best deal. It's about 5bucks for 100g, and I already have a favorite flavor (it has rice crispies and cranberries in dark chocolate). I bought some and chilled in a park until it was time to meet up with Shannon and Peter at the Zurich Hauptbahnhoff and head back to Winterthur.

My favorite chocolate from Merkur... YUM