FIRST IMPRESSIONS OF ZURICH

I'd only been to Switzerland once before - memorable because of driving through the mountains from France in an intense lightning storm. This time, I'm here for work, so I haven't had a lot of time to admire the scenery. It helps that, on a sunny day like today, there's a great view down the street that the school is on. Framed by buildings, the road descends towards the spires at the bottom. Behind these, dwarfing them, not sky but a backdrop of slightly hazy deep blue mountains, still snow-capped even though we haven't had anything like a winter. It's all very postcard-photogenic, but I have forgotten my camera lead so I won't be posting any till later.

The buildings are unformly pretty - neat houses (Play School design) with bright coloured shutters. No high-rise buildings in our part of town, but a forest of spires, some thin like rapiers. Everything is extremely clean, and ordered. I haven't seen any homeless people on the streets - are there any? Cars actually stop for you as soon as you approach a zebra crossing. Of course, the trams run like clockwork. On my first day, taking a funicular (?) up into the hills, I travelled ticketless and inevitably ran into a whole team of inspectors. (I argued, as much for the opportunity to use my German as anything, and wrung a compromise from them.)

I can't get the idea of this perfectly ordered state like Castalia (The Glass Bead Game) out of my head.