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Published: October 27th 2008
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View from Train
Training through Switzerland truly was beautiful Well, arrived in Rome! But I suppose I should back track a little...
I arrived in Switzerland on a train through Zurich and had my passport stamped by some friendly border patrol dudes... that stamp marks the last time I would see my passport. Which is a total bum since I had just gotten my 11th stamp! I was really upset about it, but realized that my stamps were gone, but my experiences at those places were not. I got into Zurich and to my hostel which is when I discovered that my passport was gone. Laaaaaaame. To keep from freaking out, I played solitaire in my room a few times to calm down while singing my NEW fave song ''Ich kenne nichts'' by Xavier Naidoo. It's a GORGEOUS song... I suggest you have a listen.... Thanks to my German buddy Hermann for the tip off 😊 (Don't call him Hermann the German though... he hates that :p)
The basic lyrics are:
I have never felt thunder or lightning like this.
I have never been struck by a wonder like this.
Ich kenne nichts, ich kenne nichts das so schon ist wie du
(I don't know anything
as beautiful as you)
REALLY? WHY don't guys talk like that in real life? Anyway, its a beautiful song and it calmed me down. So I played 3 rounds on solitaire and won all three times.... which I thought was a good sign, because I usually have to cheat to win and I didn't! In the morning, I went over to Bern and was nervous because I had always heard horror stories about Embassies and it really wasnt that bad! The guy that helped me the most looked inSANEly like a pirate and I greatly regret not snapping a pic... but I wonder if that might have offended him, hee hee. I arrived at the embassy at 1:30 and had to wait until 2 for them to open... I walked out a little before 5 with a new passport, and that was WITH me having to go all the way back to the train station to get some pics (My pic is AWFUL... even the lady said it didn't do me justice and some mildly creepy guy was talking about it too... good story if you wanna hear it!)
From Bern I went to Interlaken, all excited about
Baaaa
My ew goat friend! skiing. I get there... I see... no snow. Crap. Yea, turns out its too early to ski even though Hermann and I looked it up online and it said year round! Year round if you want to pay a whole lot for crappy snow. No thanks! So I opted to go horsebackriding instead and still kinda feel like someone beat me with a stick. But alas...
Horsebackriding was amazing... I got to canter through a small path that wound through the forest and golf course. It was more exhilarating than usual, because I've only cantered in a ring and in a field...I had fences and trees VERY close to me! During the morning I walked around and discovered the ruins of an old Harbour fortification and had a nice little picnic all to myself. I hadn't heard of it anywhere and it was really cool , I'm gld I went! INterlaken was very foggy the whole time which at first was a bummer, but it lent a sort of ethereal beauty to the scene.
I went ahead and peaced out of INterlaken early because it was kinda expensive and went on to Luzern. I had heard good things
Picnic View
This was way off the beaten path that the people who worked at my hostel hadn't even heard of! It is an old castle that used to protect the harbor! The green is where the harbor used to be about Luzern from a nice INdian couple at the Embassy and was eager to check it out... even MORE expensive there! It was a cute little town though, and they were hosting a marathon. Luckily I decided to check into night train prices for sleeping earlier than I intended to and found out ot sleep was €50! PASS!! That's 75 bucks a night! Triple what I would pay for a hostel! I thought I would be SAVING money by going on the train! So I switched my plan and instead of arriving after sleeping in a bed for 8 hours at 9 am... I was going to be arriving at 5:40 am after sleeping in a seat for 5 hours. Oh well, I can always take a nap later! I was forced to pay a reservation fee of 9 bucks (twice) for two diff legs of the train. Lame. Especially since in the first train, it was so empty and the dude didn't even check. Well, ont he final leg to Rome, I hadn't made a reservation because Ih ad deemed it too expensive. Whoops. TOTALLY FULL! I was standing in the aisles NEXT to seats... didn't get one! Since
Riding Carly
MAN I was sore for like 4 days after my trip! It was a beautiful ride though and a lot of fun I Had such a big bag and was in the way, I went to the area between cars where there was more room and sat on my bag and read. A nice guy helped me out of my pack without me asking, awww... About an hour later, 2 Italian boys that I had seen walking around the train starting talking to me. They looked at me expectantly, and had just come thru the door and left it open. I thought they wanted me to close it, so I did and they laughed and found out I spoke ENglish. Apparently one of the boys had reserved a bed, but didn't want it! He wanted to stay up and hang with his friend and told me I could sleep in there for free! Snap!
We were in car 3 and the bed was in car 12...we had to SQuuuuiiiish by people who reFUSEd to get up and had to get off the train at one point when it stopped in order to get back on it to be allowed access to the sleeping cars. I finally get there (they carried one of my bags, awww) and let me in, showed the
Squished!
That was my bed the nice Italian boys gave me... SO close to my head! conducter his ticket and told him the senorina would be sleeping there instead of him, smiled happily and walked off. When we were waiting for the train to stop so we could get to the sleeping cars the other one who didn't speak much Italian was trying to teach me something so I did the same hand movement and he laughed. Later he said something about Caraina or something and said thats why they were doing it, and I said..:Cara? Like face? and pointed and they smiled and said Good job! I guess they said they were helping me out because I'm pretty. Thanks Mom and Dad! Free €50 sleeping couchette! I had a kinda rough time getting to sleep at first...took me about 1.5 hours, but it wasn't too uncomfy, just a little hot. Took a pic so you could see how tiny the beds are!
Well, I arrived in Rome mildly rested and checked in alright! Its almost 8 am (why am I up at 8am???) and I think I might check out St. Peterìs before it gets crowded.... I'll put pics up soon!!
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