Friday, September 2, 2011

Vacation in Switzerland - Impressions #19

For a change in perspective, hop in an airplane!




I left Riyadh on the red-eye to Dubai where I changed planes. Here are a couple of views of the desert playground as I flew out of Dubai in the early morning.





Flying up the Gulf, dry and sandy...


right over Iraq, the Tigris river winds its way below



oh my God! Clouds! I haven't seen those in ages. This is somewhere over Turkey, with the Mediterranean visible in the distance


Flying right over Istanbul...


First glimpse of the Alps rising up as I fly over eastern Austria




First glimpse, outskirts of Zurich ... green! ... water!


Touchdown


After landing I didn't stay in Zurich. I hopped on the train and went straight on t Luzern. I'll write about that in the next blog post. I had no internet access while I was in Switzerland. So, now that I'm back in Riyadh, I'll put a few posts up over the next 2 weeks.



It was a beautiful week. It was a real pleasure to be back in a place where Big Brother doesn't forbid you having a glass of wine with dinner for fear that you'll become a raging alcoholic and where women don't have to put black bags over their heads for fear that the mere sight of their hair will send random passing men into uncontrollable paroxysms of lust and might even, God forbid, think taboo thoughts!

4 comments:

  1. I enjoyed seeing your air journey, seeing green and mountains and clouds!

    So glad you had a nice week in Switzerland. Looking forward to more posts.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Excellent! Glad you could "get out of Dodge"!
    I'm in Cambridge holed up in a conference at Queens' College. And yes, the apostrophe is in the right place. The college is named after two queens.

    You are so close to Africa, maybe you could go on safari in Kenya next.

    Love
    T

    ReplyDelete
  3. Africa sounds fascinating, but I must admit, I really appreciate the ease and comfort of traveling in a place like Switzerland, where you can walk for hours in Nature, not see a soul, then head back to the village and have a delicious cup of hot chocolate and a perfectly baked croissant.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Switzerland! Anybody who thinks it's too perfect and clean is just out of his mind.

    ReplyDelete