First day high!
Nasasabik sa unang araw ng eskuwela (Looking forward to the first day of school)
Taas kamay, with confidence… (Hands held high, with confidence)
Kamikazee
The excitement of finally making it to Zurich reminded me of this pop-rock song by the Filipino band Kamikazee from around a decade ago. Switzerland welcomed Michael, Rabih, Allyne and me with great weather and wonderful sights… and taking it all in gave me a real high!
It was great to get to spend a day and a half before GPP started to just enjoy Zurich, and that was made very easy by the fact that we were traveling with The Great Michael, who has gone on this journey several times before. He knew exactly where we should go, and even the simplest things like catching the train and grabbing lunch made for wonderful memories.
After dropping off our luggage at the Hotel St. Josef, we took the train to Uetliberg. That was once again another high – physically, this time. I am afraid of heights and would not ordinarily be up for climbing up i-don’t-know-how-many flights of steel stairs with gaps in between to get to the top of a tower, but Michael convinced me to power through. And boy am I glad he did!
This wonderful view of both the city and the greenery was what we enjoyed as we ate our first post-air travel meal. I don’t know if I was just hungry and terribly glad to no longer eat airline food, but it felt like I had the best bratwurst ever. Even the fries – oops, the pommes frites – were something else!
We had dinner at a vegetarian buffet – a choice I would not ordinarily make, but once again, no regrets! I do not think I’ve ever had a meal I didn’t enjoy at this point. And I don’t think there will be any of those.
Some say that once you have reached a high, it will probably be followed by a crushing crash to the ground. Not this time, though… because this is only the beginning of even more wonderful things to come!