Zurich and Paris: Part I

Zürich is called the “little big city” and it really is. It has the flair of a major international city, but is actually quite small and walkable. At one end of the street is the train station and at the other end is the Lake Zürich. All along the “Bahnhofstrasse” (Train Station Street) are upscale clothing and jewelry stores and, of course, one bank after another after another. Every so often, you come across cobblestone side streets complete with houses that look like they were built in the 18th and 19th centuries.

While in Zürich, I stayed in one of the best hostels I’ve ever stayed in, and later learned that Zürich is known for their hostels. This hostel was very clean, had hot showers and even internet access, and included a buffet breakfast in the price. I shared a four-bed room with a girl from Brazil who was traveling through Europe for a month after finishing her degree in journalism.

After a day of exploring the city and a night in the hostel, I met up with my friend Lilli for her cycling race. This was the Zürcher Six-Day Race, which is known to be both more show than competition and also more dominated by men’s teams than women’s teams. Lilli’s team (the only female cyclist team competing in Zürich) raced on Saturday night and because they did so well, they are allowed to come back for not one, but two, days next year. Unfortunately, the representation (and compensation!) of women's teams in cycling leaves much to be desired. Men's teams still get more money, more equipment, and more attention. This holds true not only for cycling, but for so many other sports, too.

I had never seen indoor track cycling before. The sides of the track, or “velodrome”, are beveled upward like a racecar track would be. The track is actually made of four pieces: two relatively straight segments and two 180-degree curves. The cyclists ride typically around 35 mph, though I saw one cyclist in a short time trial bike at a rate of nearly 50 mph!

After the race, we went back to the hotel and rested as much as we could for the next day. (Since the races are held all during the night, by the time we got to bed, it was nearly 3am!) After breakfast and checking out in the morning, Lilli and I went to the Zürich train station to buy our tickets for Paris. What an ordeal that was! I would have preferred to buy our tickets online before leaving for Zürich as I did for the train ride from Vienna to Zürich and the flight from Paris to Vienna. However, the website for Zürich trains lists neither seat availability nor price. After registering online with a username and password, I could book a train, pay with a credit card, and still not see the price of the ticket! There was no way that was going to write a blank check, so I was left with no other alternative than to buy the ticket to Paris in Zürich. When we spoke with the ticket salesperson, we learned that all the direct routes were already booked for the day, so we ended up transferring twice before Paris, but we were able to sleep for about four hours during the final stretch to Paris.

Sleep was crucial because we also hadn't been able to pre-book a hostel in Paris ...