I came home from thanksgiving with a giant bag of persimmons. Did I stop at the grocery store or the produce store? Nope. It was just my parting gift. The hosts from thanksgiving have this amazing persimmon tree in their front yard.  Actually, they have two, but the one in the backyard is not so fruitful. But this one tree alone, produced about 500 fruits this year. Can you believe that? From one tree?

Persimmons are a strange fruit. I don’t tend to meet many americans who are familiar with it, let alone who have eaten it. I grew up with them, so it’s one of my favorites. But also a fruit I eat very rarely. They’re not abundantly available in stores, you have to look for them.

There are distinct varieties, and the ones from this tree are of the nonastringent variety. It sounds very clinical, I know, but it really isn’t. Basically, an unripe persimmon cannot be enjoyed. If you eat an unripe persimmon, it will leave your mouth feeling and tasting fuzzy. It’s an extremely unpleasant feeling. I do not recommend it, even on a dare. But in a nonastringent type of persimmon, there’s less of this fuzziness initially, so you don’t have to wait so long for them to be edible. And these types are actually sort of crunchy, like an apple or a pear. But the astringent ones, you have to wait until they are soft and mushy. And once they are, they are amazing. And what does a persimmon taste like? Well, it tastes like a persimmon. There’s nothing you can compare it to! Like an apple taste like an apple and an orange tastes like an orange, a persimmon simply tastes like a persimmon.

After dropping off my rental car, I roamed the civic center area before watching a show at the orpheum. I kept seeing people with shopping bags of produce so I figured there was a big grocery store around. Then I came upon this farmers market. Yes, it is smack dab in the heart of the city.
A variety of green squash type things and eggplant and such. You know, veggies.Potatoes of all colors!
And fruit too, here we have persimmons. I’ve never seen persimmons in a farmers market before. It’s hard finding these in grocery stores even!
They have normal fruit too, like berries, berries, and more berries.
A table full of grapes! And a smiley posing vendor!
Cage free eggs!
Seafood too. Although I’m not sure I’d be brave enough to pick up fish at a farmers market. Am I that trusting?
And flowers too!
Along with the farmers market, there were tons of food carts. What a lovely thing to have in the middle of a busy city!

I hopped a train back to Zurich to spend the day there before heading back to Dublin. Zurich is super cute too, but much bigger. I walked tons that day, but never really made my way out of a tiny area of town. Let me tell you a little something about Switzerland. Damn, it be expensive people. Like it doesn’t make sense to me kind of expensive. But that’s just the way it is. The grocery prices are just somewhat expensive, but prepared food is just horrifically overpriced.

And here’s another horrible thing about eating in Switzerland. You can smoke in restaurants. Like 99% of them. And people just do it. All the time. Morning, noon, and night. Coming from Philadelphia, and having just come from Dublin, both cities which are smoke-free, it was such a strange reminder of the past. So finding places to eat that aren’t smoky can be extremely difficult.
Most department stores have a dining hall. They tend to be very popular because they are somewhat affordable. Well, relatively affordable, for switzerland prices. And they’re smoke-free. So I decided to check one out for my one lunch in Zurich. They had hot meals but my body was hankering for some veggies. So I got this little thing of salad. This is considered a medium salad in switzerland. I got all kinds of random stuff and quite enjoyed it. Yes, those are beets. You’re looking at a beet lover. The green drink you see is freshly squeezed kiwi juice. Not quite sweet enough, but still great! And don’t even think about asking how much this meal cost. Much more than you would think. But I consider it cheap here!
It was still cold this day. It was also raining. And then all of a sudden, it turned to hail! Yes, hail! I ended up walking back to the hotel in the middle of a hailstorm. Check em out! I watched it fall from my hotel room…