A day and a night in Zurich

Arriving into Zurich, I took the train into the city and found a locker for my overweight backpack and then headed downtown to the lake.
The city was rather normal, but I feel in love with the flowers shows cascading from balcony's. There were markets open selling cheeses, meats, breads, fruit & vegetable's and I would've been quite tempted to stop for a snack had I not just finished consuming breakfast. They definitely wouldn't have measured up to our Australian Hygiene standards. I walked around the lake for a couple of hours and then stopped at a jetty and watched an old man pull in a fish. He then tried to talk to me in Swiss-German. It was real, my adventure had begun, I was in a foreign country and i had no idea what he was saying. He couldn't speak English either.
As I was walking around, all around me tents were being set up for large pavillions, and excess amounts of alcohol was being taken out of vans and set up in the tents. I found out that the Zuri fescht was beginning at 5pm. To celebrate Zurich they eat, drink, dance & have fireworks every 4 years, and were expecting 2 million ppl to attend over the 2 days.
I caught a passenger boat back to the other side of the lake, and managed to find the correct train heading up to a lookout on the top of Zurich. It was serious hard work. I think I read somewhere that the Swiss have the most efficient train system in Europe, or maybe it was in the world, but there were a lot of trains, and a lot of signs in German, and a lot of ppl who didn't seem to speak English.
There was a 10 minute steep walk to the summit of the mountain and then a incredible 360 view of Zurich and the surrounding countryside. I climbed the tower for an even more incredible view. On one side was a short stretch of land around the lake, incredibly populated, and on the other side were beautiful green fields and villages. Even though the lake was pretty, I thought the village would be lovely to live in.
The weather was very windy and it had rained during the morning, so the view wasn't the best, it could've been a lot more impressive in the sunlight. Then it was off to the hotel to find out if the Hot Chocs in Europe were as fantastic as the Polish lady on the plane made them out to be. I'd been feeling a little faint so went the whole hog and enjoyed a gorgeous pastry as well. Actually, the Hot Choc was given to me as a Mug of hot milk, and a sachet of ingredients. Wouldn't really say it was that different to Australia, but maybe that wasn't a REAL European hot choc.
On the way back down the mountain, I happed upon some wild rasperries, and made the most of them, then when I got down the bottom, now that my eyes were opened, I found some wild strawberries as well. They were only little, but very sweet.
Having checked all my luggage through from Singapore, it was a quick process at the airport. I would like to state at this point that I was over 2.5 hours early for my flight. I then waited an extra 3 hours after the scheduled time of departure before the hostesses finally told us that the flight was cancelled and would be rescheduled for 7:10am the next morning. There was a lot of angry shouting which shocked me a bit. How could the hostesses help what had happened? But hey, I was in Europe, and the people weren't happy.
It was a little hard for me as all the announcements were mostly said in the Swiss tongue first, and with a difficult accent, so i didn't always know what they were saying, so it was nice to have a lovely elderly couple to spend the hours with, and then to head on to the Novatel Hotel with.
It worked out very well for me (apart from me wanting to see the people in Brum) as I had no connecting flights that had to be reschuled or anything, and I managed to get a good nights rest in the hotel. I had also managed to get them to reschedule my flight for 12pm instead as I had no compulsion to arrive at the airport at 5am in the morning at all.
Then it was back to the airport, and this time I made sure I got the stamp in my passport. Proof that I had been there for just over 24 hours!!
This time the flight was only delayed for half an hour.
I just loved sitting by the window on Swiss air on the way to Birmingham, it was so relaxing looking out on the gorgeous fields, all a diffferent shade of green.