Different people can have different experiences of the same town. I have never found it boring to live here. Simply the facts that i can access winter sports easily in the winter and dive into the lake in the summer, and have a reasonably ok social circle including locals who know whats going and where .... means my Zurich experience has been very positive.

Personally I much prefer it here than dirty stinky inefficient sarcastic london, where I used to live.

Groan away if you dont like that!

Two sites I check regularly:

whatsonwhen.com has listings of basically everything that's happening in your city, from family-friendly festivals to club parties.


spottedbylocals.com gives 'local' advice on what to do/where to go/where to eat/ etc. I found out about some really great flea markets this way!

I love sarcastic!

Seriously.

is zurich boring or not? depends on what you compare it to. the longer people are here, the more used to it they are and the less boring they find it

to put things in perspective, i'm travelling on business in the US at the moment. i had 6 hours in the evening to myself. during this time, i

- met 2 girls from the UK and had a short chat with them
- met 5 people from Iran and had drinks with them and also bumped into them later at another club
- met 2 girls from turkey, also bumped into them later at another club
- met a guy from chicago, exchanged details with a view to giving him some career advice
- met a TV producer, had an interesting chat and exchanged details to potentially work on a project together in the future
- met 2 girls while walking down the street and had a spontaneous karaoke/dance party with them and another women when her car parked by us with music playing
- chatted to 2 more people who were in a bar about their time in NY
- met a group of people practising a latin dance routine by the river for a competition and had a chat and gave some input into this
- went into an interesting shop and had a chat with the shop assistant there who gave a spiel on the history or RRL. chatted to another guy there about the opening of another branch in mayfair
- had quick chat with woman in starbucks while queueing up
- chatted with the sous-chef of a restaurant about his work etc. and then visited the restaurant for dinner
- had a waitress remember my drink and keep the drinks flowing without me having to ask
- etc. etc.

and that was just part of what i did in a 6 hour period between 1pm and just after midnight. this would never happen in zurich.

Chatting to people in the USA can be great fun, a confidence booster, and make one feel really good about themselves, because it often happens. I really like it!

On the other hand if you do it often enough you realise that most of the chats are contact for contacts sake, inane, not much learned, same questions. Ranging from "hi how you are... im great!" to "what do you do oh wow i do this" and the much more occasional meaningful interaction.

Yep, I have now officially been in Switzerland for too long

Zurich ain't so bad, but I'm not much of a partier anyway. I'd say it's a 'not a total loss' when it comes to nightlife - you can always find something happening on Langstrasse. I guess it's probably tough on a single person looking to meet people, but what do I know, I haven't been single for over a decade.

But there are far, far, far better places in Europe, and like people said, you'd be better off forking out some cash for the flight/train to a place like Berlin (my personal favorite city), Paris, or A'dam. If you're coming from NYC - Zurich is nothing like it. It will have its charms, but I'd say a bumpin nightlife isn't what sets it apart vs. other cities.

I agreed with candle.
I am 29 yo, from Spain, I lived in Madrid an Barcelona where you can always find good party. I spent one year living in the netherlands and going out in amsterdam and utrecht which I found OK. I spent 3 years in Prague where nightlife is fantastic and then I moved to Dublin where I was living right on temple bar. I still keep the same life style and I like to go out often.
I was afraid before coming here I will be bored to death and I couldnt be more wrong. I find Zurich a fantastic place to go out... I always find something new going on during the weekends and I even have to push back some invitations otherwise it would be a bit too much, specially for my wallet. This is the only real inconvenient I find, but this is as well something we all knew before we decided to come here
.

Frankfurt transportation is crap compared to Zurich.

Were these conversations in Swiss German or er, English? If you can get by in the local language you'll find people are people wherever you are. Saying it would "never happen in Zurich" ...well, it does. All the time. Some of my best friends are human.

Asking where the fun parts are is impossible to answer; it depends on what floats your boat. I could never have fun in Jade, but give me Gonzo, Pattaya or a squat party and no work in the morning...

Well, I guess when I'm in the USA I have less reservations about chatting to people because mostly people who chat just want to chat and have no ulterior motives. Quite often here whan total strangers come over and chat to me it turns out they want money or want to convert me to their religion or something like that and I end up having to make uncomfortable excuses to end the conversation. It has happned to me in the US too but much less.

Uh? Isn't that one of those places where the champagne is so expensive?

As long as they don't toss salads...

Do keep up. You'll need an invite though

well, no i don't think it would happen.

for a start, there is no RRL store in zurich. there's also hardly any ballroom dancing scene. TV producers, maybe they are. you start singing and dancing on the street: someone would probably call the cops.

it's not about the chatting - i agree you can chat to people here. it's more the easy-going lifestyle. maybe there are too many serious people in zurich?