Lots of walking and a little relaxation

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(Just a quick note to those who may be emailing me: for some obscure and hopefully temporary reason I can't log onto my BT account, so if you're emailing me there, don't! Use my oxford email address instead 😊 )

I'm still enjoying Switzerland and Hallie's family! Yesterday we went to Lucerne, in the centre of Switzerland (at the start of the Alps, with lakes) and it was glorious! When we arrived we wandered around the town, across the covered bridge, looking at shops and the amazing murals on a lot of the walls. Then we took a (very expensive) boat trip! It was fantastic, we took a tour of the lake, looking up at the mountains and hills and out across the lake (the lake of Lucerne...they're very imaginative with place names!) It took about an hour and a half, and I took an incredible number of pictures.

After that we wandered some more, trying and failing to find somewhere good and cheapish to eat. Eventually we gave up and climbed a hill to the Gusch (?). It was probably a chateau way back in the day, but more recently it was a really ritzy hotel, the owners had to sell it for possibly dodgy reasons. Anyway, Hallie and I climbed up the hill and stopped for a snack at an observation point part-way up. Lots of chocolate, of course! Then we got all the way up to the top and it was beautiful! There was an older part, clearly used to belong to the medeival bit, with a drawbridge. There's also, bizarrely, a couple of brightly-painted buildings which I think is a cafe in the summer (it's not yet tourist season, properly!). Connecting that to the rest of Lucerne is a cable-car type thing, which goes up the hill we climbed. It also looked pretty garish! Then the chateau itself - it was mostly new-looking, gleaming white with blue trip and a Swiss flag at the top, but there were some parts where you could tell they had kept the original wall.

We sat in the garden (along with one other random person with his book) and looked out over the city, the lakes and the mountains, and enjoyed the sun. The garden was a bit overgrown, but you could see all the paths and even what was clearly a bar, all shut up. There were some paths leading off into the woods too, but instead we explored the chateau. There were several gates marked 'privat', but one was open, and there was a car in the car park - the caretaker must have been in. So in a only-semi-trespassing way, we took a wander round the grounds and peered in the windows. It certainly was ritzy: there were marble floors and gilt mirrors and that was only the lobby!

We then decided to follow a different path down the hill, and came across another building, completely hidden from the town, which turned out to be offices of some sort. It looked like a villa, but had the sort of flags sport centres have, and there were a couple of bikes and a whole bunch of cars outside. We decided it was a conference centre, and headed downhill after we saw somebody come out.

Then we did find something to eat, at an Italian restaurant outside by the river, before heading back. The way back was complicated, because Hallie usually lives in Baden and is living with me and her mum in Neuenhof (I can spell it now!), so her stuff often isn't where she thinks it is. Last night she was playing hockey, so I went along to watch. We went into Zurich and up to the uni sports centre, where they almost didn't let us in because we didn't have the right kind of student cards, and Hallie got ready. I was joined on the bench by her frind Nora, and we watched her beat the others 11-4 or something! It was fun.

All her friends speak very good English! Nora and I were chatting, and of course they all spoke Swiss German among themselves, but I could sometimes follow the subject (Nintendo and drinken were fairly easy to decipher), and it was fun to listen to it. After the game Nora and I took a walk through the uni while Hallie got changed, and met a cat (on the ground) and a duck (on the roof!). Then we all went into town to the 'fun street' for Nora's brother's birthday. His name is Geronimo! And he has just graduated from a law degree taught by the cousin of Arnold Swarznegger!!

Anyway. We went to the 'fun street', as they all kept calling it (I think it actually translates as 'long street), and had some food and some beer, and then went somewhere else and met other people with good English and had some more beer. It was good fun, I felt terrible that I couldn't speak the language, but they all spoke mine so well it wasn't really a problem.

Hallie and I got back to Neuenhof about half 12, and slept, finally! Then got up again early, Hallie to go to uni, and me to go into Baden for the morning.

I started by sorting out my rail pass. I waited for about ten minutes to have someone tell me something you really would have thought they could put on the website: you don't need reservations anywhere in Switzerland, even on the fast trains!! So that is going to be phenomenally easy for the next couple of days!

So once I'd sorted that out I went to the thermal baths Baden is named for. The weather wasn't looking good so it was nice to go inside. And it was amazing!! So warm and relaxing, and there was even an outdoor bit. It wasn't too cold because of all the steam riding off the water, and it was so nice to be out under the trees and to hear the birds singing. They also had a relaxation room where you could just lie with your complimentary hot towel in silence. Me and all the elderly residents of Baden loved it!

When I got out and showered and so on the sun had come out, and it was beautiful out. I went through Baden and up to the medieval ruins above the town. It wasn't a long walk, and there was a tower with a flag, the remains of a couple buildings and some ramparts. All the explanations were in Swiss German, though, so I didn't really understand it, although Sarah (Hallie's mum) has since told me it was part of the Hapsburg dynasty. I don't know any of the history, though, really.

I got the train into Zurich (for free, this time!) about noon, after getting a cake/pastry/cheesecake at a cafe Hallie recommended. It wasn't really lunch, though, so when I arrived I had a PRETZEL SANDWICH!! It was a sandwich, but made out of a big bready pretzel! It was amazing as a concept, and a great sandwich too. I followed Hallie's instructions and took the green tram up the hill to the Kunsthaus, the big art gallery in Zurich. It was fun! Lots of abstraction and cubism and Picasso, although they had older paintings too. They seemed boring after the more modern stuff, though. There was also one floor shut off because they were installing a temporary exhibit, and I could see them doing it from the mezzanine! It was incredible, all the paintings laid out and the partition walls looking very temporary and sculptures covered in plastic.

I wandered around the Kunsthaus until I was too tired to keep walking, then went to the gift shop and bought some cards before meeting Hallie again. We walked down to the lake, then along the side of it, and happened upon a Chinese garden, apparently gifted to the city of Zurich by their twin city in China! It was amazing, totally random but lovely, and we took a LOT of photos. Then we sat by the water in the sun before getting a boat back to the centre of Zurich. We walked along the main shopping street - you can tell it's where the money is! So we ogled very expensive jewellery and chocolate and watches (of course), and I bought some souvenirs, and we headed our separate ways, Hallie to tennis and me to Neuenhof.

I've just finished having dinner with Sarah and her friend Valerie, which was lovely - some sort of bubbly that wasn't champagne, risotto and asparagus, salad, fresh strawberries and cookies and ice cream and very good china tea. Later we're going to visit Hallie's sisters (one of whom I remember from camp!) and to work out what I'm going to do tomorrow while Hallie's in uni. I might go to a whole different region of Switzerland, who knows!

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