Having said that...

I'd just like you to know that on my first night here in Zurich, I am sick, very sick. In fact, this is the most sick I've been in a while. I have a terrible cold that just won't go away, a killer headache, and am suffering from lack of sleep for 36 straight hours.

One interesting tidbit that I learned very quickly about Zurich is that everything here is closed on Sundays. Everything - even pharmacies! However, certain "big" train stations have all these stores, which are the only places that are open on weekends. I went to a Pharmacy (they are called Apotheke) at the big train station across from my hotel to buy some cold medication. The woman at the counter asked me to bend my head and point the areas in which I had pain (nose, head, etc) - she wasn't sure if I had a stuffed nose or sinus issues. Since I wasn't going to be doing any bending of any sort in public, I quickly told her that it was a cold. She told me that the pain in head and nose indicated that it was sinus related (?) and gave me a sinus medication. I asked her for a cough syrup and she looked at me like I had landed from Mars. She said any other medication was for body ache and other symptoms, and that for a runny nose, this was the only medication that would work.

So kids, here's Lesson#1: you have to be extremely precise in describing what you want or what you are suffering from when in Switzerland. Otherwise, like me, you will end up with a box full of green pills that you will need to take 3x a day for 10 days to recover from a common cold.

Also, Lesson#2: just because you haven't fallen sick in months, doesn't mean you won't in the future. So, let Nyquil and Theraflu be your friends; bring them with you when you travel. Otherwise you will have to learn lesson#1 and lesson#2 again and again.

It's about 3am on a Sunday night, so ponder over these life lessons that you have learned today while I try to salvage what's left of the night and try to get at least some sleep. Guten Nuit!