So in mid-March, I was sent to Zurich and Herborn for two weeks, for meetings with our suppliers.
I flew the usual British Airways flights into Zurich. The views on approach were lovely.
Zurich home for the week.
We spent our days at the supplier’s engineering offices. We spent our nights wandering the streets looking for restaurants.
We wandered into a toy store one evening, so co-workers could get toys for their kids.
^Apparently the Swiss love making miniature ski resorts? Don’t even get me started on the model train section…
They also love tiny animal figurines!
^There were so many that I didn’t get photos of… they had dinosaurs, sheep, ocean animals, little barns… I woulda bought some, but they were expensive as fuck…
As for restaurants, it was recommended we stop at this one spot… that served miniature foods…
^this is a one bite Chinese bun that my co-worker got. Two bites cost 18-CHF…
How many bites does it take to consume a tiny bed of spinach, topped with the world’s smallest steak, and three pico peppers?
^The answer is, “Four.” It took four… but it was a delicious way to spend 35-CHF… and was a better bargain per bite than those buns, but juuuuuust barely!
I made my obligatory visit to Transa, where I picked up some Miura XX’s.
🔥🔥🔥
The M-F meetings passed by quickly, and I had a free Saturday to myself.
One of the engineers at the supplier knew I climbed, so he recommended I check out Griffig, out in Uster… and it. was. spectacular.
The area had a complex of soccer fields, this skating park, and the building in the background, which had the climbing gym, and a handful of racquetball courts. Here’s the view of the gym from the outside. Notice the climbing wall on the face of the building.
The wall probably has the climbing real estate of Stone Gardens in Seattle. It also had some legit crack walls. Also outside was a small boulder to work on, and a gas grill for summer nights.
Inside, you can see the majesty of this gym. The areas to the right were the tallest gym walls I’ve ever seen. They were also mostly for lead climbing, but there were some auto belays in the back that I did laps on. The upstairs area to the left was all top rope and auto-belay. The auto-belay walls there were connected to an iPad, where you could load various routes based on ratings.
Another view of the lead walls.
I wish Seattle had something like this… even 33% of this…
The lower sections were for bouldering, and the bouldering area included this incline cave-y thing. You could do laps in this room, and just slide back down to the bottom, and keep going!!! Oh, and a day pass only cost 18-CHF! A bargain in Switzerland! Who woulda thunk?!
^The slide was actually pretty steep and scary, hence all those skid marks on the crash pads…
Afterwards, I followed that same engineer’s advice and walked up to ETH Zurich for views of the sunset
Student life… sigh. I think I miss it?
This was the outdoor dining area to their dining hall. I wish companies in the US would have something remotely close to this.
Then, I walked back to the city center, found dinner and went to bed.
The next day, we flew to Frankfurt, and drove to Herborn.
We checked into the Gutshof, and spent our week with the Germans…
On Friday, for lunch, we did the usual and went to the town’s farmer’s market for a bratwurst and Coke.
^Frieda was out and about, guarding the cash box
Things we looked at
Friday night, we drove back to Frankfurt, checked into the Hilton, so we could catch our 7am flight back to Seattle the next day.
