Zürich Curse
Ok, so I've spent two nights in Zürich (this is my second). The first time was before I left for Istanbul the 2nd time, a few weeks ago.
The first time I got off the train at the main station and had to run for the bus. In the process, I was unable to buy a ticket outside at the bus stop, and tickets were not available inside. Even though chances weren't much higher than getting struck by lightning, I was tagged for 80 Swiss Franc fine ($65) on the very first stop I've ever ridden to in Zürich, and I only had to go 2 stops total. That's a pretty big shock to the pocketbook.
Now to tonight...
To give a background, last time I stayed with a really nice Swiss girl named Seraina, who runs IAESTE Switzerland, the organization that got me my internship. Everything went great with that so I asked if I could stay another night (tonight), before leaving for home. She said "yes" but that she and her roommate were going to be in Interlaken this weekend to do river rafting, but she would gladly leave a key in her mailbox for me.
So I got there about 10:30pm, reached for the key, and found nothing...
I was standing outside the door for about 10 minutes looking through a guidebook for a hostel to stay in, and some guy in a suit offers to let me in. I said sure, but there's no one home, so I'm not sure what good it'll do. I knock on the door, no answer, turn the handle, and it opens. I look around and immediately notice that Seraina's computer is gone... Maybe she took it along? Then I noticed drawers open, cabinet doors open, and the roommates monitor was gone. In total, they at least lost 2 laptops, a DVD player, monitor, and very possibly other computer supplies.
So they didn't forget to leave the key, it just got found before me...
I have pretty much no idea what to do this point. I'm all alone, I have no phone (theirs appears to have been stolen too), and I'm the first one to see anything. I decided to just ask the apartment upstairs if I can use their internet to find Seraina's mobile number... They turned out to be really nice, young artsy people who actually came down with me, called the police for me, etc etc etc. As we waited for the detective, we all had a glass of red wine together.
Detective came, took every bit of my information, and he was amazingly thorough with the whole thing. You'd never get this out of an American cop. He was showing me how he could tell the burglar used gloves at some point because of a smudge on the printer, and how he could tell he knew what he was doing, because he only opened drawers and doors, but didn't close them. The closing process other leaves prints.
So I found a laptop that the burglar didn't steal, so that's how I'm connected to the internet right now. I'm still staying in the apartment to protect the remaining things. Someone still has the key, so the only way to lock the door is from the inside, leaving the key in the lock. I'm still a bit on edge. Everytime I hear something, I go into fight mode. I would just love to catch him coming back for another score. If I see him, he's going to get a (European) sized 44.5 pair of Pumas up his ass.
Tomorrow, as long as the curse doesn't continue, I will be back to Chicago OHare via Atlanta.

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