We farewelled Lea and Pete before 7am and travelled to London City Airport to catch our flight to Zürich.

The plane had three seats on one side of the aisle and two on the other, an odd arrangement I’d never seen before.

It was a quick ride to the middle of Zürich and a short walk to our hostel, where we had booked a private room with ensuite. This room was costing us about the same per night as the whole flat in Camden… but it feels more spacious!

We’re on the sixth floor so there’s a bit of a view across the rooftops around us. Something we have noticed is many of the roofs have gardens, and balconies are often filled with plants too.

We had a shower then went out for a walk. The Otter Hostel is in the old town so we walked through the narrow back streets then along the river.

We stopped at the supermarket to get some food. Eating in a restaurant is pretty much a no go due to prices so supermarkets it is!

The prices of pre-made food in the supermarket is still high – the equivalent of $20 for a single serve bowl of fancy salad (dressing not included!) but little tubs of potato or pasta salad aren’t too bad and cheese is about the same price as at home. French champagne is much cheaper than at home but we had our duty free to drink anyhow.

We found some steps down to the river and stopped to eat.

A couple of people came by and jumped in for a quick swim. Imagine living in a city where the river is clean enough for swimming. Some people even say you can drink straight from it… I’m not quite willing to test that though.

In the evening we went for a walk along the river and the lights reflected in the water were beautiful.

We also found people salsa dancing in a rotunda in a park.

To finish the evening we decided to unpack, and drink some of our duty free while watching Have You Been Paying Attention (an Australian comedy panel show about the news), it was nice to hear some accents from home.

Unfortunately I got a bit free with the pouring of the drinks and woke up with a shocking hangover – my first of the trip by some kind of miracle. Lesson learned! (I mean, no promises but there’s always a first time!).