Zurich (pronounced Zoo-rich)
One of my new friends in Zurich told me the following joke about Zurich:
A man nervously walks into a Swiss bank in Zurich glancing around furtively and clutching a paper bag to his chest. When he gets to the counter, he leans and quietly whispers, “I’d like to open an account and deposit one million dollars in cash.”
The bank tellers looks at him with a smile and replies in a normal voice that carries through the whole bank, “Oh sir, no worries. There is no shame in poverty.”
And like all good jokes, not only is it funny, it also has an element of truth.
Walking around the shopping district and especially the banking district in Zurich is like a auto show of expensive cars: Aston Martins, Ferrari, Mazarti, and Lamborghini, and other fancy cars I hadn’t heard of lined the streets.
At one point, I saw a guy driving a Porsche and I thought, “Poor guy. He can only afford a Porsche.” :-P
Things were pretty pricey in Zurich. This was made worse by the extremely weak dollar (thanks Federal Reserve!). For example, there are these little novelty shoes in the Amsterdam airport (brightly colored wooden clogs) that are 3.50 Euros. I first bought these as a small gift for Crissy’s mom and it was about $3 around 3 years ago. This time through, each pair was about $8.
Last August, when I was in Zurich, the exchange rate was about 60 cents to a Swiss Franc. This time it was basically one dollar to one Swiss Franc. Thankfully I was traveling on an expense account. :-)
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