Day 50: Business concluded

August 10 –

Well today was my last day of official visits. I spent the day with folks from the IT and Statistics Departments of the Swiss National Bank and had a day of interesting discussions on eStatistics, SDMX, web services and automated publications platforms. We didn’t meet at the main offices though; we met in the offices of the IT department which you get to by entering an unmarked door between an electronics store and a hairdresser!  I felt like I was in a spy movie!  Luckily, I didn’t have to rely on the shoe phone!

In the meantime, the family got on a train and traveled south the Lucerne to see if the cloudy but dry day would hold out for some sightseeing. After arriving in Lucerne, they wandered around town and across the famous wooden bridge over the lake. There they watched the resident swans struggle to swim in the incredibly high water. They grabbed lunch at a place on a backstreet and continued to walk around old town marveling at the abundance of souvenier shops when Zürich seems to have so few. After not really getting lost, they came upon Glacier Garden, a park/museum dedicated to the make-up of the local scenery attributable to glaciers. I have been assured that it’s *really* cool! Frank and Duncan really liked the glacial potholes, erosion caused by natural drilling/grinding forces as the glaciers were melting. Apparently, it’s a very strange phenomenon and these must be seen to be believed. Gillian’s favorite part was the maze of mirrors – corridors of mirrors that reflected everything with a similar floor pattern. They had to be very careful not to walk into a mirror that looked like a hall! The Garden is near the Lion monument – an allegorical symbol for the defeat of the Swiss Guards in 1792.

After this adventure, they worked to get back to the shores of the lake but there were souvenir stands in the way. Wallets lightened, they found the lake again and wandered along the shores looking at the clouds lowering over the mountains, the cruise boats going backwards and some angry swans. Apparently, they also found where some of the missing Zürich children have gone: they were in Lucerne being eaten by swans! (Okay, not really eaten but there were kids being chased by some of the swans so maybe that’s why they go into hiding!) A few ice cream cones later, they found themselves on the train back to Zürich where they met me, still hard at work in the hotel even after my meetings were over.

We finally got our Chinese food in Switzerland (now we’ve officially been here!) and got some more ice cream – my first serving actually – before heading back to repack and prepare to pick up the car tomorrow and head to France.

/san/

[Pedometer: 31, 722 or about 15.5 miles of which I probably managed less than 5! At least I only had *one* serving of ice cream!]