Zurich!

 This morning, the tour officially ended. Some of us flew home, went on to join another tour, or continued traveling. I went to the AirBnB I had previously arranged. 

I took a train to the main station in Zurich, and then headed for the Information booth where the man helped direct me to the tram I needed to take to the AirBnB.  

 

Zurich train station:

 

 

The above is a Niki de Saint Phalle  piece hanging from the ceiling of the train station! She was a French-American sculptor, painter, filmmaker, and author of colorful hand-illustrated books.

  

The tram stop was directly opposite the train station.

After five seconds of being in Zurich, I'm already amazed by the tram system. They go everywhere, are fast and on time. With a 24 hour ticket, it's quite inexpensive. 

The apartment was a five minute walk from the tram stop. Once there, I did some settling in which meant two things: laundry and food shopping. 

The mystery of European washing machines continued in Zurich. (Googling the model only helped a little.) The host had left great directions for where to put the soap, etc. but opening the door presented a similar problem to the machine in Venice. There, I had been directed to "pull with energy" to open it. That didn't work, and I didn't want to break the door. 

So, I started pushing buttons thinking perhaps it needed to be unlocked. One of the buttons caused the top light to go out and soon it opened!

The patio had space for hanging up the laundry. 

Then it was on to the Coop:

English speaking cannot be assumed in Switzerland, but a worker was able to help me find eggs and almond milk (both unrefrigerated).

Back home, I fixed myself a delicious salad and was then ready to explore.