Swiss Day 1

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Switzerland is absolutely gorgeous. It is, so far my favorite place on this trip. But I’m getting ahead of myself right now.

Woke up around 5:30 and decided it was way too cold. I fell back asleep til about 6:30, where I had to repack my overnight bag and head to breakfast. Again, my breakfast today was just 2 slices of toast with apricot jam. Meals are becoming an interesting time. Eva and I ate with Boris, who had some funny tales from Eurotrip to tell.

After that breakfast, we boarded the bus and headed for Lucerne. First, we stopped at a stop in Germany where I had a KitKat bar (€ 1) and a Lentil soup with sausage and bread (€ 6), which was very very delicioso. The bread was very soft and so perfect. The lentils were nothing like my mom’s, but still good. Plus, it had potatoes, which is always a bonus.

So off to the Swiss Alps! On the way, Brek told us all about how the Swiss are crazy about time, and they have watches and clocks all over the place. Sounds like my kinda country! On route, I also paid my (€142.50) for my excursions, so now every dime I have left I can spend on me. Phew!

Then, after the scenic bus ride, we made it to Lucerne. Lucerne is a gorgeous, gorgeous, beautiful city. The first thing we had to do was find a place to exchange our money. Unfortunately, this is when we discovered that Hillary had left her purse with everything in it back in Germany. That sucks majorly. So it took a while before we could get started in the town.

We walked around for a while, and finally I took out ₣100. 80 of it is reserved for the cruise and Mt. Titlis tomorrow. This left me ₣20 for cash around the city. We cruised around a bit, and it was so breathtakingly beautiful, I can’t really describe it. There were perfectly white swans swimming in the river, and a really cute covered bridge. I felt really bad because I told the Japanese girls the wrong place to meet, so I would need to go get them or they would miss the cruise.

Before that, we went to the souvenier store, where I bought 3 chocolate bars, a Swiss Army knife for Joey, a patch, and a soda for ₣45 with my American Express card.

Thankfully, Brek had found the Japanese girls, so I didn’t have to go get them myself. We all met up for the cruise, which, again, was gorgeous. The views were so amazing. Plus, I got to fly my kite!

From the end of the cruise, we took our bus to the Hotel Bellevue at the “base” of the mountain. Well, we traveled through many many loops uphill to get to reach this “base.” The view—surreal. We even passed be a waterfall. It’s just too pretty for words.

The hotel is also really nice, maybe the nicest so far. The view from our window is glorious. So I sat on the porch for a while, enjoyed a revitalized Mr. Goodbar, and took in the fresh mountain air. “This is the life.”

For dinner, we had a creepy server guy with 1-3 eyebrows. Everyone thinks he has a monobrow, but I think its really a triple brow. Anyways, dinner was more pork with cream sauce, rice and carrots, with an ice cream cake. Not that great, but it’ll do.

After dinner, we went straight to the Eden Bar, where the drinks were a whopping ₣9.50! That was with a coupon! So I bought a vodka cranberry, wich was sour. Then a screwdriver, and there went my extra ₣20 for the city. So I went to the ATM to get another 20 francs to blow on drinks. Real smart. But I don’t regret it, because I got to dance and have a great time. I danced with several guys from our tour, and they were surprised by my dancing. I don’t think they have a lot of Latinas in Australia. I had a really great time, and we left around 12:40 and fell asleep right away. Don’t have to wake up early tomorrow! Ya!

Total: ₣178.50

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Photos

Lucerne
Covered bridge

Lake Lucerne
Views from our cruise

From our hotel
This is what Engleberg looks like. Gorgeous.

Eden Bar
wahoo! partytime!