One city's homeless is another's traveler

I woke up and was pretty much ready to leave. I got all of my suitcases together and repacked my backpack and a small duffel for my travels and put the big bags into lockers. I didn’t even want to ask if it was ok to leave them for an extended amount of time, but it seemed unlikely they would notice. I had the hostel breakfast, an international norm of bread, cheese, ham & yogurt, with your choice of coffee, tea and juice. The difference with this one was that everything was pretty much epically delicious. There were little signs saying all of the meat and dairy was local (ah hah, backyard cows!) and it tasted the part. I had heard from my Swiss air traveling friends that Swiss bread was waaaay better than American, but my extensive experience with American bread had me well-trained to be afraid of a plain, untoasted piece of bread for breakfast. I put butter on it under the cheese and ham to mediate the assumed dryness. Even though it turned out to be perfectly soft and delicious, as the girl had said, I continued with the extra butter layer every morning. Homemade butter is goooood.

I headed directly to the MBA office. I wanted to do the following: get my student visa, open a bank account, find an apartment and buy a train pass. I stayed for two more days but accomplished none of those. I went to the Rathaus (city hall, great name huh?) but could not get my visa without 120 CHF (Swiss Francs). So I went to the bank to open an account, hoping to avoid all of the fees for foreign transactions through CitiBank. Well, duh, you can’t open a bank account without an address. So I withdrew the money and went back to the Rathaus. Oh, you can’t get a visa without an address either. Trainpass? Need both the visa AND an address. Finding an apartment leapt to the top of my list.

I arranged to see a place in the afternoon and hung out in the MBA lecture hall sending email and catching up on work. I met all of the people who admitted me to the program (I had tried to dress as nicely as I could, but I still was carrying a duffle and a backpack, so how classy could I look?) and they were great. Very friendly and at least pretended not to mind that I hung out there for the next two days, all day on the internet and left my suitcases in their closet.

The first day I met a current MBA student from Malaysia. We got Thai for lunch and he gave me some tips about St Gallen and Singapore (Malaysia’s southerly neighbor). After I looked at the apartment I went back to the school and we got to talking again. Turns out it was his apartment I had looked at…weird right? He confirmed all of my fears about the place: overpriced, bad landlord, not having a living or dining room sucks, kitchen is too old and small to cook in much. I’m still considering the place as a fallback, but it is definitely not ideal.

The second day I went to lunch with a Nigerian MBA student. I got a few more tips about St Gallen and a bit of interesting info about Nigeria. Both days the guys’ immediate suggestions for lunch were McDonald’s. Both times I hastily declined, stating that I just didn’t eat there. Both refusals were met with shock and something along the lines of ‘oh, I thought you American’s couldn’t live without your McDonald’s.’ Good god, McD’s, what have you done to our poor country’s reputation? You and Bush, man.

I looked at another apartment that second day (Thursday), but it was not my kind of place... On my way though, I got lost and found myself in the southern part of town, outside of a massive, 7th century Cathedral. It was quite a sight to behold, but I again didn’t take any pictures in my rush.

So, let me clarify my situation slightly. Every day I was hoping to find an apartment, move my stuff in, get my visa/bank account/train pass, and bounce. The hostel I was staying in was not very accommodating as it didn’t have wi-fi (which pretty much made it only worthwhile for sleeping and bathing). So everywhere I went I had my backpack and duffle. I was pretty much homeless. On Thursday night, I walked up the big hill to my stupid hostel and they didn’t even have a room for me. Ms. Particular (who ended up being fairly cool) sent me to the Pilgramage Hostel. What is this, you say? I’m not sure actually, but it involved an old lady (think the mother from Sideways) and a tiny apartment through a doorway so small I had to duck to get through. It turned out to be half the price of the hostel, and was my first experience of rule-bending in Switzerland. It required membership to this hiking Catholics club, but the lady (who spoke no English) let me stay anyways, thank heavens.

I walked around town looking for food but couldn’t find anything with a menu I could even remotely understand. Then it struck me: McDonald’s. No, I am not insane. From the plethora of billboards and my new MBA friends I had gathered that in Switzerland it is required that all meat be not only local but meet some sort of quality standard. So, I figured, perhaps McDonald’s is good here. It has been probably ten years since I ate there, although I can’t even remember any specific occurrences. I am as adamantly against McDonald’s as any other good hippie. But I gave it a shot.


Now, check this out. Price: 12.50. Ketchup: weird packaging. Fanta: yellow and COMPLETELY unsweetened – I am talking OJ in club soda, about 20 – 80 ratio (just the way I like it). Burger: deliciously cheesey-greasy. Fries: normal. I don’t know, maybe McDonald’s is delicious in the US. Maybe I was just really hungry. Maybe I just wanted it to taste substantially healthier than an American burger and fries. But it was goood. And I didn’t even feel sick afterwards. I won't go back unless pressed, I don’t want to support McD’s no matter where it is, but it was interesting. Oh, and I couldn’t even understand their menu, and it was in English. And they had shrimps. Hehe.

I slept pretty well except for a dreamy visit from a large gnome (who knows, the place is ancient, maybe it was real) and planned to go to Starbucks (no, not because I wanted to, don’t worry I haven’t morphed into a different person overnight) to use the internet. The lack of internet is a reoccurring theme here in SG. I was starting to lose it – I couldn’t work, call all of you, look for apartments, nothing. It was wearing on me. As I sat there using my $7 half an hour of internet (well, it included an iced chai with a shot of espresso – they don’t have iced tea!) looking at nobody being online (damn 9 hour time difference) I got antsy.

I stood up, bought a loaf of bread, hunk of cheese, cucumber, bell pepper, carrot, small container of yogurt and a train ticket to Paris. Enough is enough. No more wandering around a small Swiss city homeless. No more hungry long-distance trips either, for that matter. It was becoming increasingly apparent that even if I found a place, it wouldn’t happen as quickly as I wanted, and this was no town for those without an address.


Oh, and while in the market getting food, I saw this old lady with ankle sweet tattoos.