Eurotrip 2022 - Days 0-1 (7/22-3/2022) - To Zürich

 The trip started on a Friday night after a day of work. Fran and I took an 8:55p (ET) flight from JFK to Zürich, arriving around 11am (CET) Saturday morning. We were worried about getting sleep on the plan (and I had previously experienced extended neck pain after falling asleep funny on a plane), so we bought a couple of Cabeau neck pillows from a stand at the airport. It helped me get a few hours of sleep, though not the most restful, on the 8 hour flight without any lingering pain (just a little discomfort after using it for an extended period of time).

After landing at the Zürich airport I used my (recently acquired) Google Fi cell service to get us some directions toward the city; though the Google maps directions honestly weren't that helpful, as we found out from an information clerk that any train heading to Zürich HB (the central station) would do. We bought tickets and boarded one. At the train station we attempted to continue on the Google Maps route to our hotel, which directed us to take the S4 to Selnau. From the symbol, we thought that the S4 was a tram, so we went outside to go find it. We hopped on the 4 tram even though it wasn't showing Selnau as a stop. After one stop, the dot on the map seemed to be in a different location than expected, so we hopped off and took the 4 in the opposite direction. And after 2 stops on that tram the dot was heading in the wrong direction yet again, so we got off to regroup. By this time the light rain had almost completely stopped. I searched for directions one more time, and this time Google Maps told us to take the 3 tram four stops; this time it finally worked. We would find out later that day that the S4 was actually part of the S-Bahn rail system, and was essentially a subway during the leg that we had needed.

After finding Hotel St-Georges we checked in and luckily found that our room was ready. After a quick shower (in the tiny shower) and a bit of a rest, we headed out to explore the city on foot. We walked along the Schanzengraben moat toward Lake Zürich. After checking out the waterfront, we headed north through the old town, with a stop at Grossmünster (a church). We had both been running low on energy throughout the walk, and joked that we were on our 20th wind while trying to power through.

We eventually headed back toward the hotel to try to find a light dinner in the area. We settled on a Greek place named Mazì near the hotel, which turned out to have some pretty good mezze plates. Then back at the hotel we watched a few videos on YouTube in order to complete our goal of staying up until 9p so that we could get on a good sleep schedule.

---

Full pictures for the trip here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/44Vf8gccA5UfLjTo7