Swiss Dieting

In Switzerland, lunch is the big meal of the day and is more similar to an American dinner (well, except we don’t eat meat soaked in sauce, french fries (except those people living in the middle America somewhere), and boiled vegetables everyday. But regardless, I simply cannot stomach something like that in the middle of the day and would resolve more often than not to the salad bar, which was a relentless joke amongst my colleagues throughout my time here.

It was a bit uncomfortable when at one project I was the only female of a group of about 10 guys and we resorted to eating as a team everyday, not because we all loved each other after being locked in one big room at the client for 11 hours a day, but mainly due to the fact that we were working in a building with access to the runway at the Zürich airport and so we weren’t allowed to cruise in and out much.

This meant daily trips to the canteen (cafeteria) where all the men ordered their heavy meals, wolfed it down, and topped it off by a shot of sugary concentrated orange juice (seriously, this was their Vitamin C for the day..they actually paid an extra franc for this!).

Of course, 2 bites later, they were done, impatient, and ready to get back to work. Of course, eating a salad is a bit trickier..first, getting it on the fork can be quite difficult, you know those little pieces of lettuce that always slide off or when you just cannot quite stab something and everytime you press down, it slides off to the other side of the plate?

Well, this resulted in about 2 minutes from being seated, every guy staring at me watching me poke at my salad trying to be polite and wait for me to finish. More often than not, I would push it aside and then work in hunger the remainder of the day. I think I would have wasted away if some more girls had not finally later joined the team; our lunch time was suddenly extended.

Doing Paris in Under 24 Hours

While there are a fair amount of Ex-Pats here, it is difficult to find that person that you connect with (although I know this will take time). For New Years Eve I had absolutely no plans and was going to be alone in Zürich as everyone I knew (meaning Kevin and Dave) were on Holiday.

Kevin finally emailed an American girl at the firm whom he had met in his German class and asked what her plans were and if they would not mind another American joining.

Next thing I knew, I had plans to take a 6 hour train ride at 7am from Zürich to Paris New Years Eve Day. I literally met Alex and her friend for the first time as we were boarding the train. We spent our day walking through the Louvre, sitting at cafes, partying all night with no hotel at a private local Parisian club, and then catching the 7am train from Paris to Zürich on New Years Day.

Paris was beautiful and I will definitely have to go back, but next time, perhaps I will spend a bit more time there