Intimidating English

8/16/07

I explored the old town today many times and discovered a bakery selling gorgeous pastries. There are so many to choose from and often the contents are unknown…I learned from my Mom that the best way to figure out what to eat in this scenario is to ask the heavier-set clerk behind the counter what their favorite is. The response is almost always a shy giggle and a finger pointing over to something scrumptious. Hannah and I shared pastries that melted away between our fingertips and half-litres of delicious Swiss milk. She is so much fun to travel with because she just goes along with the flow and allows good things to happen.

Perfumeries are everywhere, its fun to spray myself with a new scent each day – it makes me feel really wealthy when I wear perfume. There are also many shops selling beautiful Swiss watches and jewelry, as well as clothing. The men dress very nice there with their blazers and ties. While Hannah was taking a nap, I went out to the old town again to find a market I had seen before. When I arrived, it was closed and I started talking to a woman who I felt I had spoken to earlier in the day – but she did not recognize me. She invited me up to her house so she could show me how to get around Zurich and where to go. This was so sweet and I went with her. It turns out that she was a graphic designer like me, but has been diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis and has not been able to work recently. She told me that she must take every day as it comes and I understood very well what she meant. She showed me some over her paintings and they were mostly deep blue-green with the subject of the painting very hidden, like under layers and layers of depth. This was beautiful to me and I felt like it was a window whose view looked into who she was. She told me about an expensive chocolate shop I must go to and the cool “Industrial quarters” as well as the long street, good for walking and eating. I was touched by her kindness and made a goodbye.

Hannah left in the evening and after making a meal for myself in the kitchen I felt a little bored. I thought to myself that this is part of traveling alone…Some nights might be a little boring because you don’t always have people to go do things with. Then I went downstairs – This night Jan wasn’t working, but his brother Oliver was – and the moment I saw him I knew who he was. I helped him and one of the residents of the hotel set up the breakfast tables for the following morning and then Oliver asked me if I wouldn’t mind looking over the English in his Senior Thesis for College. He brought out his laptop and I started reading over the material. First of all, I had no idea that Oliver was 27, second I did not know this was for a Masters Thesis which is 80 pages long, third I didn’t know anything about political science – which was the topic of the paper. The Thesis was comparing and contrasting the scope for innovation policies in two Czech regions…Other than finding a couple grammatical errors, I felt that I could not have written a thesis in my own language as masterfully as he did. He made me a hot chocolate and I went to bed – happy that I had found something to do.