Escape!

AM took the train up to Zürich for a little wandering and alone time. Stop #1: Cabaret Voltaire, dada’s birthplace (in the teens it was owned by Hugo Ball, but it fell into disrepair in the late 20th c., and apparently became a squat until it was re-dedicated by a group of art-history-minded entrepreneurs).

I tried not to wail upon discovering that it appears to be closed not just today, but until August 25th!

There was nothing to do but peer into the very dark windows and then traipse down the oh-so-hot Speigelgasse to no. 14, where Lenin lived in exile, pre-revolution. Just a plaque here, on the building, and an ironic trace of the building’s history in the design- and puzzle-shop’s window downstairs:

Finding a bed was none too easy; it turns out this is (at least in part) because a major conference of applied and industrial mathematicians has begun today. I discovered this in the evening shortly after I strolled up onto the university grounds and into a manicured-but-not-too-much garden that, after several terraces, gave way to an idyllic sunset view towards the city:

As I made my way back down off the hill, I ran smack into a wall of name-tagged folk buzzing and milling and sipping wine at the 6th annual International Congress on Industrial and Applied Mathematics’ opening reception.

I wandered around the city, had a chicken kebab and found yet another veranda with a water view to eat on (the thing in Switzerland, I suppose, though this version was merely a bench), and wandered some more. Zürich is full–CHOCK full–of antiquarian booksellers. Luckily, they are books mostly in languages I cannot read. After the Tinguely, my bag is already substantially heavier than when we set off.

The dorm-room bed I found, at Hotel Martahaus, turned out to be a steal at about 40 ch including breakfast, bedding and towel, internet access, and an oh-so-clean non-bunk, cordoned-off, single-bed area with chair, lamp, and locker–all right at the edge of old town and next to the university and the train station. The place is filled to the gills with pocket-protector wearing conference attendees.