Switzerland
It’s taking me much longer than expected to get this post published. After coming home I went through some personal stuff and just now getting to it.
I’ve traveled for work in the past, but that was only to Milwaukee and though those trips were fun made by the work mates I travelled with, and the social aspect of it, this definitely was “traveling for work”. I almost said no to the trip, but I didn’t and even added extra days at the back end to have time in Zurich.
Let’s start out by sayubg, getting to Switzerland from Reno isn’t easy. You have to fly somewhere to catch an international flight, and this is where I throw my boss under the bus for making it an unpleasant journey. My boss loves planes so when he travels he likes to find airplanes he hasn’t been on. Since we left it up to him to work with the travel agent, he booked Reno => Denver => Frankfurt => Zurich, then we would have to catch a train down to Chur (Kor) to where our hotel was. The other option was to travel to San Francisco, then catch a direct flight to Zurich. The problem he saw with this option was a long layover in SF (of course I could have gone the night before and stayed at my friends).
We had short layovers and every flight was delayed and due to this my luggage didn’t arrive. It decided to stay in Denver until I got so mad it decided to go to London first them finally showing up on Friday. So I had a week without my cloths; luckily I had some extra essentials and then bought a few thing to get me through the work week. I now know what it is to wash cloths with shampoo in the sink.
Flying coach just sucks. The seat room is very limited and when the person in front lowered their seat back, I couldn’t lower my tray to put my food on, so sitting 10 hours on a flight with very little room was miserable, no more coach. I’ll pay for the upgrade to get more room.
The trip would consist of Bonaduz where our office was. Chur where our hotel was and then I had a few days in Zurich.
NOTE: The pictures will be of mix quality due to taking a lot with my phone. I will also have some short video clips, something I started to explore with my good camera.
Outside our office
No one can tell me why a business started in the 60’s in Reno would have a office in Bonaduz Switzerland. I asked many times, but nada; guess I should ask the owners. But we have deduced that it was probably for the mountains, but again Bonaduz? Bonaduz is a really small town, one restaurant and I suspect when the office was established there, there really wasn’t much around. It’s 1.5 hours train ride from Zurich and though it’s close to Chur, in todays world of having to hire people it doesn’t make sense, but there we have it.
The primary reason I got to be part of this trip was I am the first UX designer in the company. We’re trying to establish a practice so I went to meet our counterparts in Switzerland to get face-time with them. I am currently working with them a lot, so having this time in person was meant to be beneficial, (it was).
I was not allowed to really take pics inside due to privacy and security concerns, but was able to snap a few shots in the cafeteria.
In Reno during the breaks; yes you heard that breaks. I work for a manufacturing company so they have formal breaks, everyone goes out for a walk around the campus. In Switzerland, everyone goes to the cafeteria for coffee.
Even though I was in a conference room for most of the day, I did get out a couple times to take in the views.
Work trips are a funny thing. They sound great from the outside, but mostly you’re stuck in a room all day. Maybe get together for a nice dinner and some socializing, but overall the only views you really get to see are from a car window. I’m not complaining here, but as I write this I realize how much I didn’t capture during the work part of the trip.
By Amarco90 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79067680Chur is where we stayed. The closest city to Bonaduz only takes @20 minutes by train. Barely a city with only 35-40,000 inhabitants, but much nicer restaurants and hotels. It’s Switzerlands oldest city dating back to 3900-3500 BC. Note. I never saw Chur from the view above. We did go through the old part of Chur a couple time, but if you look way in the distance the two towers, one was my hotel.
The last night we were in Chur we had dinner at my bosses counterpart Jean Claude. If you look back at the coffee break photos the one on the right, he’s the one in white hair. He was a great host and made our trip enjoyable. Anyway, I forget the name of his town (Canton), but it’s a drive up in the mountains from Chur, the small Swiss town where you’d expect to see Heidi herding sheep. Our trip was plagued by rain or chances of rain every day; I think we had only had a couple days without rain.
I was in Zurich for 3.5 days and due to the weather I didn’t venture outside the city. I stayed in the old part of Zurich I think called Old Town perfectly located to the river and easy access to the main train station.
As a gay man I heard of people going to Zurich and just assumed it would have a great gay nightlife, but nope. Maybe due to covid which closed a lot of bars around the country, there are only 3 gay bars which really didn’t offer a night life scene; not San Francisco at all. Between the rain I just wandered the streets and enjoyed the food. It surprised me that a lot of food was influenced by Italy. I learned that Switzerland has three influences. Italy, France, and Germany due to it’s borders.
If you are interested in Zurich, stay for a couple days, then use the access to the trains to get out and see more of the country.
Train ride from Chur to Zurich
The trains are clean, quite and easy to navigate and often are the best mode of transportation. Don’t be afraid to ask around if you need help. Most people know english and were very friendly.
The city of Zurich
The rest of these photos are in no particular order and excuse the potential duplicates.
