Thunder Clouds rolling in

Real thunder clouds, not metaphorical ones, today. I plan on discovering the mall across the street today, and I still need to find a laundry. Do you know what it costs to have the hotel do our laundry? Close to 4 CHF per item, so um no thanks. Speaking about money, everything we have read and everything I overhear from other English speaking tourists, is how expensive everything here is. Given Jesse and I are not footing the bill for our accommodations, and we are not driving, but I'm not finding it very different from home. Things to watch out for however, soda is 3 CHF or more per glass, so why not have a larger beer for the same price? :) Water, better off filling up a bottle or buying a large one at the CoOp, than getting it with a meal. We are in a suburb of Zurich and there is some type of Grocery store on every corner, I mean the real thing not a little convenience store with a produce section. I went roaming around some shops yesterday, and while you can go crazy and spend too much, for the things Jesse and I want the prices are almost the same as we would pay at home. For example, Jesse has been in need of a new work shirt for a while now, and he wears what I call 'the engineer's shirt', the nice work shirts with buttons and collar, but short sleeved. We have the hardest time even finding these at home and yesterday I found a whole section of just these, and we only paid 35CHF, so with our exchange we paid about $33.00. We didn't pack swim things so we purchased those too, again paying no more that we would have expected to at home. Eating out could be our biggest expense, however even street cafes display their menus so if it costs too much we move one, usually a couple yards, to the next offering. We can eat for under $10 per person, which is what we would expect to pay eating out at home (except for when we go to Burgerville! that place is spendy). So yeah on Switzerland being expensive, with things back home getting steadily more expensive in the last year or so, it reminds us of home.

In other news I found the tourism office yesterday! I wondered all around the old city which is all pedestrian only now. My album on facebook has some highlights. Located the museums I would be interested in, I will be purchasing a 20CHF day pass to all of the museums since one entrance is closser to 25CHF (maybe I will do that a few times). I also discovered that we can rent a headset for a self-guided audio tour of the old town, including a historic clockworks. I gave Jesse a reader's digest version of my findings yesterday, he is really glad that I came with him he is not sure he would be seeing so much if I wasn't here "scouting ahead" as he said. On Sunday Wolfram and Sandra, and possibly Torston (who Jesse took touring when he visited Oregon last year), will be taking us out to Rheinfalls, a castle and nearby lake. The Rheinfalls are Europe's largest falls and only about half an hour car ride north of here. The swimming gear is for the lake since Jesse took Torston "swimming" in the Pacific, he wants us to have the equivalent experience here. LOL Did I mention how glad I am that Jesse and I stopped into the Made in Oregon store in the airport before we left? Host gifts, one more thing that Jesse would not have thought of without me.