On my birthday, I was miserable. I was far away from home and I was turning 20. I felt as though I had accomplished nothing, and my self esteem was non existent. I had barely any money, but I knew what I wanted to do anyway: go to Zürich. Something about getting away from Lugano, getting away from the people I loved, and getting away from the fact that at that point my future was so tremulous I got myself on a 7:00 am train and got to Zürich at early lunch.

I first went to the Kunsthaus, the art museum in Zurich with stupendous art from Mondrian to van der Weyden. They had a magnificent room devoted to Ferdinand Hodler, one of my favorite Swiss artists. I went from room to room, absorbing the energy from each work and wondering what the artists’ lives were like. I wandered around the gift shop and got some postcards with my favorite paintings on them- I do this and I collect these postcards so that I have a little miniature art collection of my own that is portable.

After the Kunsthaus left me full of artistic thoughts, I spent some time in Starbucks, listening to five or six languages being spoken simultaneously, then wandered through the Old Town, or Altstadt, walking to the Grössmunster, the two-tiered church right in the middle of the Altstadt.

The church has agate windows and draws many tourists, but I didn’t stop walking. I wandered around the Grössmunster, admiring the copper doors and the height of it all. I walked across the bridge where the Limmat River meets Lake Zurich, and saw the Ferris wheel and walked down Bahnhofstrasse, past the shop of Luxemburgerli’s. Of course, I couldn’t resist going in, fighting the crowded space and getting a box of them for the ride home.

Right off the Bahnhofstrasse on the right side as I was headed to the Bahnhof (train station) was an English book store- thank goodness! I had been craving literature and bought 3 or 4 reasonably priced books, deciding that even if I was going to broke I should have some words to salve the wounds.

On the train home I made friends with a Turkish girl studying in Milan, got off the train at about 11 at night in the dark, took the bus home, and collapsed in my bed. I didn’t feel so insignificant anymore, and it was a day well spent.

I just looked outside to the cold, familiar world outside my window and now I’m back in my seat instead of curled up in the SBB train waiting to get off and go to my apartment. It seems like a whole other world.