Zurich, Switzerland

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Hello, we are now in Zurich. We spent the last few days in Tübingen hanging out with Anja and her friends, relaxing and generally enjoying what the little town had to offer. The day after the barbeque Swedish and Frenchie had to head back to Oxford which was a shame because they were both such great girls. It was a bit of funny situation because Swedish spoke English and Swedish (and can read Spanish), Frenchie spoke French and English, Anja spoke German, French and English and Kristian and I speak only English. So English was the only language that we could all speak meaning the other 3 had to converse in their 2nd language but Anja and Frenchie could speak French to each other, but then the rest of us could not understand. Even funnier was that Swedish learnt to speak English in.....: Northern Scotland. She had the funniest accent, quite often Kristian and I would be crying with laughter just because she was explaining how her camera worked or something. Dave Richmond might be able to fully appreciate what a little swedish girl with a scottish accent sounds like: very funny.

We spent last night in Tübingen at an Italian restuarant and later went to the only nightclub open in the small town on a Thursday, and it was packed. Anja tried to request a song for us, originally Autobahn by Kraftwerk (We had the pleasure of introducing the, err, umm genius(?) of Kraftwerk to a real-live German), but the DJ didn't have it (He did have it at home tho 😉 so she grabbed the mic and in front of the whole packed nightclub thanked us for making her previous week so fantastic. It should have been us thanking her! She is truly one of the nicest people that Kristian and I have met, not only on this trip, but quite possibly ever. She took us all over the Southern German countryside showing us things that we would have never even known about. She always had a plan for the next day and just generally looked after us so, so well. She is a fantastic person and hopefully she will come to Australia soon so you will all have the pleasure of meeting her.

So after our sad farewell to Anja we hopped on the train and headed south for Zurich. Now you may ask: What are 2 Aussie backpackers doing in Europe's most expensive city? The answer: Not much because its so expensive. Well I guess thats kinda not correct, we did have a quiet day yesterday because it was raining. But we did have a massive night at an Aussie Bar not far from where we are staying in Old Town. Yep an Aussie bar. Its kinda weird saying Ich möchte zwei VB und ein Fosters, and then paying for it in Swiss Francs.

Zurich is an extremely beautiful city and as previously mentioned, quite expensive, but it doesn't cost anything to walk around and take it all in. Tomorrow we are off again, this time to Innsbruck to stay with Kerstin, a girl we met all the way back in Montreal, about 2 months ago now. On monday we have officially been away for 3 months. To quote my favourite Bright Eyes song: I haven't been gone very long, but it feels like a lifetime. Certainly does. Quite often Kristian and I will say to each other: Remember Dallas? How long ago does that seem?!. Even recent places like Prague seem like months ago, its quite strange.

Speaking of Montreal, Kristian was walking dow the street in Tübingen and ran into a guy we went drinking with in Montreal! It was so random, Tübingen is quite a small town and Montreal is so far away. So thats about all for now. Hope everyone is still very well.

John

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