Zurich - Out and About During Coronavirus

 

Dining Out in Ruschlikon
(Actually this was closed, but still got the view from the window!)

I made it to Zurich just in time for the relaxed restrictions and before, well actually, during the time when restrictions started to be strengthened again (during my stay they increased mask wearing from public transport only to all shops and enclosed spaces). This was my rationale for coming over at this point in time – get across before everything changed for the worse and before travel wouldn’t be possible. To this extent, the trip was a resounding success.

The first two days were really hot – temperatures must have been in the mid-30s, and I was missing my air conditioning in Egypt (another reason for coming over just now was to escape the heat!). The hotel didn’t have any air conditioning. So, I went for a swim.

I’d hoped to try out the refurbished pool in Opfikon, but due to coronavirus, it delayed opening until September 1^st, by which time I would be back in Egypt. That was a shame and immediately botched up my plans for a daily trip to the pool. I did manage a swim in the outdoor pool at Seebach (an old haunt of mine).

I couldn’t see any rules in place, but I was exhausted as I swam. Not really sure why, but maybe it was lack of sleep (due to the heat). I didn’t even do one kilometre and got out once there were more than two people in my lane for safety reasons (I didn’t want them breathing on me, or me on them, given coronavirus). Maybe my underlying nervousness was also taking away from my overall energy. However, to compensate, I did go in a second time.

Most of my other highlights involved eating and drinking. I made it over to Basel to visit Steph (we ate and we drank) and then she came down to Zurich (more drinking and eating). We went to Haus Conditorei Schober in the old town. It’s lovely, very quaint, wonderful cakes, but it was packed. I was shocked at how many people they allowed in. No-one seemed too worried, but I fretted. As per regulations, one of us had to register for the track and trace in case any coronavirus was reported there. It was the only place I felt uncomfortable.

I met up with Yuen and had a vegan burger (hello Geraldine, I hope that made you happy!) in B. Good in Oerlikon. It was the first time I’d been there and the burger was great. Again, we had to register, but we were able to sit outside and the tables were distanced.

I saw Lena twice – we went to Ruschlikon for dinner with a great view over the lake (that’s what you come to Zurich for!) and then to our old haunt Café Felix on another evening.

On my last day, I met up with Hye-Youn and Candice in Terrasse; I’d managed to see Hye-Youn when I first arrived for a meal in a Korean restaurant, which was new to me. It was good to be trying new places while I was in Zurich!

Another evening was occupied with catching up with Nick; that was my chance to have my Zuri Geschnetzeltes – the local dish. I’d had it on the plane, actually, but it was good to have a “proper” one as well.

Even with all of this, I did manage two trips to the KFC in Zurich airport.

Huge apologies to those I didn’t get to see – Peter, we’ll definitely have to meet up next time I’m across, but at least I can see you on FaceBook! Rajashree, I don’t think you read this blog, but if you happen across this, also sorry I didn’t catch up with you. Gerard and Muriel – tut, tut, no reply!

I did want to do at least one cultural thing while I was across, but I didn’t make it. I went to the Kunsthaus, but was thirsty when I got there, so had a drink in the café (outside). And then I didn’t have time to go in!

So, all in all, a bit of a whistlestop tour, but really great to catch up with people and have a little taste of freedom.

Zurich - Admin Issues

 

Attacking my Finances

I wanted to sort out a lot of admin when I was over in Zurich, but it all failed miserably.

Here’s the list:

1. Change the address on my Swiss bank account

I know that I have to pay ridiculously high charges to keep my Swiss bank account when I’m living abroad, but I’d decided it was probably cheaper than transferring the money to my UK bank account. With Brexit, sterling is likely to fall and I’d lose money by transferring it.

You’d think it would be easy to change your address, particularly if you appear in person with your passport and bank card. But no! They advised me against it, saying the charges would be very high. I said I didn’t mind, so then they informed me I’d need to close the account and open a new one. What?! All I wanted to do was change my address - why is this so difficult?

I went back into the bank and decided to say I was just moving within Switzerland (I’ll just use a friend’s address, I thought). But they wanted proof of the address (and also said there was a note on file that I’d moved to Egypt – whoops!).

In the end I gave up. I’m not earning, so I wasn’t sure a new application would be accepted. I need to keep the bank account open until my credit cards are paid off anyway…

2. Change the address on my Swiss credit card

It’s a credit card with Swiss airlines. They fly all over the place. So surely it’s okay to have an address that’s not in Switzerland? Apparently not.

They too said I had to close the credit card. The expiry date was end of August anyway and my new one had got lost in the Egyptian post (typical). I said they had to let me use it until September 1st as I was using the card to pay for everything. With the pandemic, everything has to be paid contactless, so my Swiss credit card was a lifeline (my bank card was out of date). It would be daft to pay in sterling when I had money in the bank over here. That wasn’t a problem and they said they’d phone me in case they found a way of me keeping the credit card.

When I realized I couldn’t keep my bank account, I decided I may as well just cancel the credit card for Sept 1st. I phoned but they said I couldn’t cancel the card until they’d phoned me back as originally agreed. Gawd.

They phoned me back when I was on the train. I’m not comfortable on the phone at the best of times. We agreed I would cancel the card, but I forgot to ask about the associated travel insurance that went with the card. Yet another phone call before I could sort things out. Sigh.

And then there was a final call when they wanted to double-check that I'd keep my bank account open long enough for the direct debit to go through to pay my credit card bill. Ha ha. If they only knew how much I'd been joking all week about doing a runner!

3. Cancel my Half-Tax railcard

It was a fortnight before my half-fare railcard was due to be renewed. I asked for it to be cancelled. Not possible. You have to cancel one month beforehand. I said I no longer lived in Switzerland and hadn’t received the letter asking me to cancel. Still not possible. 

It’s all a huge con. It’s all electronic. All they have to do is change a date on their system. Why does this need a month’s notice? It’s not to do with making more money from those who leave it too late, is it? Surely not?

4. Change my address on my UK credit card

This was easier to do phoning from Switzerland when I’d bought an unlimited calls SIM card than from Egypt. This actually went fairly easily.

However, I registered the address on my credit card without a postcode. They don’t use postcodes in Egypt. But Amazon won’t accept an address without a postcode, so I made one up. But now the two addresses conflict and I’m unable to make online payments. 

I need to phone the credit card company again, now from Egypt, but I ran out of money today trying to get it sorted (in part because my first lot of phone credit was automatically swallowed on renewing my bundle instead of towards calls, which is not what I wanted to happen – I hate phones!!!). It will likely cost me around ten quid just to do this (I'm having to spend money in order to spend it, how ridiculous is that!). Ugh.

I will speak about happier things next week!

Zurich - Accommodation Problems

Basel (I needed a drink!)

I arrived safely at Zurich airport. My plan had been to have a KFC on arrival, but in the end decided it was better to arrive a little early at the studio flat I’d booked with AirBnb. The host had never confirmed that it was okay if I came a  little after 6pm, and since the flight arrived early, I had a chance not to take any risks.

After a little dithering, I did find the flat easily enough and there was a bell with his name on it. I rang it, but nobody answered. It looked like the top floor flat from the photo and I made a mental note to myself to check that a lift was available next time I booked anywhere.

I trudged up the stairs with all my luggage. Nobody was around. The flat had another person’s name on it and I saw a girl (who was presumably not called Davide) enter. I waited and waited, peered downstairs every time someone entered the building. It was opposite a psychiatric clinic, so I felt a bit conspicuous.

After half an hour, I tried to phone, but his number was not a valid number. I tried texting a different number, thinking maybe there was a typo. It was a valid number, but no response.

I ended up eating at a restaurant round the corner, my luggage piled up beside me, still hoping he’d arrive. Finally, I had a text from the other number saying it wasn’t the person I was looking for.

Eventually, I had to give up. After searching on my phone for a cheap hotel, I decided just to go to the hotel on the corner where I used to live. It had the advantage of being close to the airport (aka KFC), which would be handy for my leaving day when my flight was very early.

I was quite proud of how Egyptian I’d become. I went in and had to phone at reception to speak to someone. I enquired how much one night was and then asked for a “special price” for ten days. It turned out to be the same price as my AirBnb in the end, which was a relief.

With coronavirus, hotels are no longer providing room service. If I wanted clean towels, toilet roll, etc, I had to bring the old towels to reception and ask for replacements. It was a bit of a pain, particularly since I didn’t like advertising how much loo roll I was using! Due to corona, buffet breakfast couldn't be offered (the main reason for staying in a hotel, in my opinion!), just a brunchbox. The free (but not refilled) minibar was stashed in a fridge in the room, so I just bought a bowl and a spoon, and kept milk and cereal for my breakfast. That was a treat as there's not many of my usual cereals in Egypt. I was so grateful for that fridge.

There was a big sign in the foyer to the coffee machine, so I helped myself liberally and didn’t discover until the third day that I was supposed to pay for it. Oops.

I spent ages on the AirBnb site (which I could access only via my laptop because I didn’t know my password [as the password was automatically saved on my laptop] and I no longer had the phone I registered with, which I needed to retrieve my password). From the rules, I decided I needed to apply first for a refund via my “host”. I was skeptical since he seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. 

After waiting 72 hours with no reply, as dictated by AirBnb, I needed to phone AirBnb. They were discouraging people from phoning due to the many phone calls during coronavirus. I gave up the first time as they wanted to confirm who I was via the phone I no longer have. Am I the only person who changes phone numbers regularly and finds this a real pain?

But it had to be done. I logged in via my laptop (to think I nearly didn't take it with me!), changed my phone number on my profile, got my new number confirmed. Then I phoned the helpline. Phew. After about forty minutes, even the holding music stopped and I was left with silence. Should I stay or hang up? My phone was still flashing, which seemed to indicate the call was still ringing. I carried on waiting. After another five minutes, the phone was finally answered. Hurrah.

Upshot was that I got a full refund. Once I got through to a person, it was fairly smooth, but getting there in the first place was an issue. It wasn’t how I’d intended spending my time in Zurich. 

Hurghada to Zurich - Flying During a Pandemic

 

Arriving into Egypt

Whoops, sorry, I forgot about last week’s blog. I flew back to Zurich early Monday, meant to write it as soon as I got back, but in the end I was just too tired.

Anyway, I booked my flight to Zurich with a plan to stay there for ten days. As soon as my taxi arrived at Hurghada airport, a porter took my trolley and pushed it to the airport building (maybe 200m). Then he asked for a 50LE tip! I ended up giving him 20LE, which I still thought was quite generous, given I didn’t even want him to provide me with the service in the first place.

My luggage was scanned; I don’t think distancing was too much enforced (but not too huddled either), but everyone was wearing masks (compulsory). I checked in, then had my luggage scanned again. They made me take my laptop to an additional desk where it was swabbed for bomb detection (that was new!) and then I had to sign my name on a list.

Once into the gate area, I was thirsty and thought I’d buy myself some water. However, when I went to the café I usually go to, their water was on “special offer”, down from 90LE to 60LE for 500ml, if I recall correctly. The normal price is about 5LE, at the very most 20LE if you’re dining out somewhere expensive. There was no way I was paying those prices, so I decided to remain thirsty and grab a drink on the plane (I was in Business, so it was all included anyway). A cup of coffee would have been cheaper, but I didn’t want coffee.

On the plane, I had two free seats next to me, an aisle, then two free seats, then another person. Two people were sitting in the row directly behind me. I felt pretty safe, and we had to wear masks whenever we weren’t eating or drinking (Business class still served hot meals and as much as you wanted to drink). They gave a nice explanation that the air wasn’t being recirculated, so with that and the mask wearing, experts had deemed risk of infection as very low. I found this very comforting and felt very safe during the flight.

Before they showed the safety video, they added that if the oxygen masks come down, you should take off your face mask! All these little things they have to think about.

For some reason, I took my mask off to go to the toilet. The air stewardess looked at me a bit strangely, but didn’t say anything. Afterwards, I read that someone got infected by not wearing a mask in an airplane toilet, but I don’t actually believe that (my theory is that the person didn’t adhere to quarantine strictly; they didn’t show symptoms until day 14 of quarantine). Anyway, I do think I should have kept my mask on, so that’s something to bear in mind if you are going to fly!

Wearing the mask didn’t bother me too much. I was wearing my summer clothes and I’d forgotten that sometimes planes can be cold, so I fretted for a while about that, but in the end I was fine. Over here, wearing the mask makes me ridiculously hot and I find it very uncomfortable because of that, but that wasn’t a problem on the plane as I wasn’t in a 40 degree heat.

On my return trip, my flight was very early (06:45), so the business lounge wasn’t even open. I was delighted to see that a Pret A Manger had opened in D gates and was open, so even though I’d had breakfast, I took a coffee and a chocolate croissant. I’d forgotten just how heavenly that combination was; I’m so glad I added that into my culinary experience of being in Switzerland!

The return flight was fuller since in the mean time Egypt had brought out a ruling that from September 1^st, everyone entering Egypt had to have a PCR test to show negative for coronavirus. The regulations are continually changing with countries changing (mostly adding) countries on their quarantine lists daily, it feels. That’s a major stress of travelling just now; will you be able to get back? My return flight was 31^st August, so I was extremely lucky with my timing. I guess many people rebooked to my flght to avoid the expense of having the test done. I did feel less safe with more people on the flight (particularly since the woman (next to one) beside me kept on shouting back to her husband behind her – I’m sure her breath must have been coming out that mask!), but it was fine. Again, everyone wore masks, of course.

On arrival into Hurghada, I was proud of Egypt, since they sanitized all the luggage handles as the bags dropped onto the conveyor belt. I got a wet hand grabbing my luggage, but I’m happy that it was a safe hand and a safe piece of baggage.

I’d ordered a taxi and requested the driver wear a mask. He was there waiting for me and wearing a mask with the company logo, so, again, I was impressed.

All in all, traveling wasn’t such a bad experience. The uncertainty of constantly changing regulations is probably the biggest stress.