Blogs from Switzerland, Europe - page 252

So I finally did it. I managed to get everything organised and actually managed to arrive in Switzerland, after much nail biting as to whether I would be actually be accepted into Albert-Ludwigs University in Freiburg (the reason I’m in Europe in the first place) and as to whether I would be insured or whether I’d have to pay for the excess 7kilos I had (fortunately I didn’t, at least not for the first leg of my trip!). So it wasn’t until I was actually on the plane that I could breathe a sigh of relief...but even then it was short lived. I had three different flights to catch to get to my destination: Zürich, Switzerland. Malaysia Airlines from Perth to Kuala Lumpur, then a connecting Malaysia Airlines flight to Frankfurt, Germany, then a completely different, ... read more

Switzerland Sucks. No wonder they have the largest suicide rate. Hell, I wanted to commit suicide when I was there! I went to Geneva, Luzern, and got tired of Switzerland (it didnt hold a candle to any of the other countries I have visited) so I decided to get the hell out of dodge. I booked a flight to Greece from Milan, Italy. How to get to Milan? Well, 350+ Swiss Franks (I told you to pull out your wallet) so I thought, "hell no!" and set off to hitch-hike to Milan. A wonderful gentleman dropped me off in a small town on the border of Italy, and I decided to stay for the night. the bus ride the next day to Milano would only be 26 Swiss Franks. (Grampy... you taught me well!!) Do the ... read more

hello all, wow it's been a few weeks since ive done one of these and what an insane few weeks its been after i last sent out a group email ive been all over the place!!!! first off was barcelona which was AMAZING.... its such a chilled out place and the weather was amazing... I spent a lot of my time just walking around and having fun at the beach which by the way, so far, european beaches, or spanish beaches, have NOTHING on the beachs back in australia, the sand was really dirty, it left a brown stain on the back of my board shorts.. awkward... and in the ocean it was all peebly and not so nice..... but still it was nice to be at the beach!!!! i so desperately wanted to go to ... read more

Yes, the wheels on our bus went round and round, all day long. We did some major driving today to get to Lucerne, a fabulous town in Switzerland. Thankfully, we had a few stops along the way to break the trip up. We left our little hotel in Wiesbaden fairly early in the morning - 7:15am…I am afraid these early starts will be fairly commonplace on our tour. No more sleeping in till 9am. Our first stop was a couple of hours later in Heidelberg - still part of Germany - and were able to stretch our legs. The castle here is right up on a hill above the city, looking over a small town square. Like most places in Europe, it looks like it is straight out of a postcard. Jon gave us the low-down ... read more

Alright. This isn't fair. Every country has a different keyboard. Dammit. "Alt-Gr"+2 tp get a "@" sign? Ridiculous ... What a difference a day makes. I woke up, with no Eurail pass and had to get to Interlaken, Switzerland as that was where my lodging reservations were made. Pass showed up early in the morning, was able to make my reseravations forthe train, and made it to Interlaken easily. From the train, Europe seems to have skipped the whole "exburbs" and "McMansions" boom, which was refreshing to see. I get the feeling that if these countries were under American control, everything would have been developed into endless sprawl by now. For whatever reason Switzerland was able to avoid it, I´m thankful. Interlaken rocks. I'm moving here. Interlaken is in the heart of the alps and is ... read more