Know Your Currency

This is ridiculous how hungry I am.

Switzerland isn’t on the Euro so I have no idea how much money the honor bar stuff costs.  All I hear about Zurich is how expensive it is so I’m scared.  There isn’t much food either, just some chips and a Tolberone.  The rest is alcohol and soft drinks.  The chips, the candy, plus a Coke would be nearly twenty CHF.  I have no idea what that means.  I stare at the chips and candy for about five minutes before I shut the door and look outside for signs of life.  There is nothing open as far as I can see.  I can’t even see people.

I find the Hotel Service folder and try to find out the currency conversion.  They don’t have it, but they do have room service 24 hours.  A simple ham and cheese sandwich is 20 CHF and tomato soup is 10.  Last month some flight attendant didn’t understand the conversion somewhere and ended up spending $134 on a phone call.  I don’t want that to happen to me.  I think I should get dressed and wander around the hotel.  Maybe there’s a vending machine.

I find out there’s a pool on the 32^nd floor with a good view of the Alps.  That closed four hours ago though.  Okay, I gotta do something.  I’m starting to get nauseous I’m so hungry.  Maybe I can just walk down every floor and eat the leftovers from other people’s room service left out in the hall.  I’m not above that.  These people don’t know me.

Well I did it.  I walked around but didn’t see any vending machines.  I remembered the crew lounge was on the 2^nd floor so I went down there to look for random food, but there was nothing but tea packets.  I thought about taking the cheese out of mouse trap.  There was a microwave and a rice cooker but nothing to put in them.  There was soy sauce and other condiments but nothing to put them on.  I got on the Internet, did a few emails, checked out the basketball scores, and went back up.

I opened the mini bar again and stared at the coke and chips.  The coke was in a glass bottle so it looked really inviting.  I couldn’t see an opener anywhere though.  I took the bottle out and tried to pry off the cap with a drawer handle.  It came right off so whether I wanted to or not, I have now started my mini-bar tab.  With the coke being opened I grabbed the Lunica tortilla chips with chili flavoring.  They’re stale and not that tasty but right now they’re the best thing in the world.  I savor every bite and wash each down with a big gulp of coke from my .33L bottle.  European Coke is so much better than American coke.  I was hoping the chips would be enough to fill me up.  I didn’t want to get into that Tolberone.  The chips didn’t last that long though.  I ate every crumb and it barely made a dent into my hunger pangs.  The Tolberone is a no-brainer at this point.  It’s now 3:15am and the Tolberone is out of the fridge and into my mouth.  It’s sweet, too sweet.  This much sweet on an empty stomach is not good.  I’ll need to fall asleep as soon as I finish so I don’t get a stomach ache.  I don’t want to even think about how much this is costing me.