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Awake On A Train
This was taken on the train in Switzerland. I would have liked to have been on that boat.We are back in Austria, there are worse places to be than in a country where Schnitzel is King and Struedel is Queen. We are staying with our friend Kerstin who has been kind enough to put us up at her cool little apartment near the university. Innsbruck has twice been the host of the Winter Olympics and is therefore surrounded by massive snow covered mountains. Even though the temperature is about 20 degrees celcius and the sky is blue and the sun is shining, the tops of the huge montains are still covered in snow.
Our stay in Zürich was a brief but a good one. Out of pure coincidence I ran into a guy I went to school with in the hostel! Russell used to sit behind me in Year 12 English but I have actually known him longer than high school because his Dad was our Cub-Scout leader when we were little tackers. Quite strange to run into him all the way over here. We caught up over a few (too many) Fosters at the local Aussie pub.
The next day we dragged ourselves out of bed and down to the train station to get the
In Zürich
In Zürich's old town standing beneath a Swiss Flag. Ahh, how swiss. We were on our way to Starbucks though :) train to a little place called Lichenstein. A few years ago Marcus and I bought Mum a Lonely Planet coffee table book with a double page devoted to each country. I remember reading about Lichenstein in there and thinking it would be a fairly random place to go so when the oppurtunity arose to go there we took it. Basically it was directly on the way from Zürich to Innsbruck, we just had to get off the train and get a connecting bus. The story is that it was a principality set up by the powerful Lichenstein family. It is still ruled by a prince but has close ties to Switzerland and uses the Swiss Franc as its currency. It s famous mostly for being a European Tax Haven and for stamps and dentures, yeah..false teeth are apparently a big industry there. As I said it is a tiny place. It also brings our tally of countires to 10 (including the Vatican but hey if the UN recognises it as a country that's good enough for me.😉
The train trip from Zürich to Lichenstein and then Lichenstein to here was definitely the most spectacular so far. So much so
Ich Bin Ein Berliner (Jam Doughnut)
Bob Payne was spot on when a few posts back he said that JFK had inadvertantly called himself a jam doughnut. In German you don't use the indefinite article when referring to oneself. In German you say I am Australian NOT I am an Australian. Using "ein" means he is calling himself the non-human jam doughnut :) that you actually feel quite guilty if you opt to read rather than stare out the window at the magnificent scenery. Lakes Mountains, Hills, Pastures roll past kilometre after kilometre, just amazing. Its hard to take good photo's while the train is moving but a few turned out okay so I have posted them here.
Yesterday we took a little trip down to Northern Italy. Innsbruck is located in Western Austria, seemingly a stone's throw away from Italy, Germany and Switerland, so we went down to Italy to get some Pasta and Gelati but ate too much pasta and left no room for gelati. The scenery again was magnificent and the weather fantastic. Today we are having a bit of a quiet day while Kerstin is at University. Tonight we are going to Students night at the beer garden in the botanical gardens which should be quite good.
Hope everyone is well back home.
John
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Linda, Bandon, Oregon
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Looks like you're still having lots of fun and your photos are a nice addition. Wow...could really go for one of those doughnuts!