To start off, we arrived in Zurich, Switzerland the 26th of August. We left Chicago the 25th and flew through the night to arrive here in Switzerland in the morning. We had a great flight. SwissAir is luxury. You have your own private screen in front of you to choose what movie you want to watch (new releases even) or TV shows. On the way here we watched Rio (a new cartoon comedy) and Arthur the newer movie with Russell Brand. However, by the time the Arthur movie came on, I was already going in and out of LaLa land from my Dramamine intake. It was fine though, we needed to sleep on the plane because when we arrived in Switzerland, we had to keep ourselves awake for a whole day to try and battle the strong sleepy warrior.... Jet lag.
When we arrived in Zurich, we had to go through customs and then grab our luggage. Good thing Brett had been in this airport before, back in April for his audition, otherwise we would have probably gotten a little more lost. It was nice to finally be out of the plane after a long 8 hour and 40 minute flight. We sat down for a quick moment, and then grabbed our luggage and we were off. In total, we packed 3 luggage bags, 1 stuff backpack, camera bag, and Brett's euphonium. Luckily, Brett is a bit stronger than me... I was in charge of the smaller luggage and the backpack, which weighs more than his euphonium, so don't think I made it off easy! After we had everything we needed from the airport, it was off to the train station, which is conveniently across the street from the airport.
We bought two one-way train tickets from Zurich to Luzern. The trains are really nice; clean, fast and very quiet. You can hardly feel them stopping and getting up to speed again. This was a bit of a bad thing for us... because now we would fight our first battle with the tempting sleep master... Jet lag. We spent the whole train ride trying to make deals with each other to let the other one sleep, but knew that we had to stay up to try and beat out the sleepiness. Brett started to doze off, so I kicked his feet, waking him up... 5 minutes later, the same thing happened to me, so he had to wake me up. This went on for about an hour. As soon as we arrived at our Luzern stop, we grabbed our stuff and headed out into the very busy train station.
After being so reliant on our iPhones equipped with Google Maps, we now had to figure out how to get to our little hostel in a city we really didn't know much about. We had an idea of where our hostel was, so Brett figured out which tram we had to take to get there. We bought our tram tickets, and we waited. Their tram system is highly organized with multiple pick up and drop off stops. Multiple trams go to the same destination and take different ways to get there. They have a digital sign at every stop showing how much longer until your tram number arrives. Your tram, or a tram going in your directions comes every 5 minutes... so you are never waiting long. On the bus we go, luggage and all.... and quickly realize we are heading in the wrong direction. We had to go the opposite way of the way the tram was going, so we had to get off at the next stop and wait for the tram to come back again, but on the other side of the street. This wouldn't really be that big of a deal if you weren't carrying around 3 luggage bags, a backpack, a camera bag, and a giant euphonium... but oh well.
We get off at what we are pretty sure is our stop and start walking into the direction we are pretty sure we need to go. Obviously, none of the street signs or directions are in English, so it was sort of a guessing game. Magically Brett got us to our hostel. We were thoroughly exhausted by the time we got there, but somehow got a second wind after beating the jet lag. Still, those bags were heavy! We checked into our hostel, and brought our stuff up to the first floor... (yes, here in Switzerland, the first floor is really like the State's second floor.)
Hostels in Switzerland are not how most imagine hostels to be... dirty, smelly, dusty, and crawling with bed bugs. The hostels in Switzerland are probably cleaner than your average Holiday Inn in the States. We were surprised too! It was nice though. You check in, they give you your key, they check your passports and you give them your driver's license as a deposit hold for the key. They hand you sheets and two pillowcases. Pressed and very clean. When we arrived to our room, the floor was sparkling clean, pillows waiting on bed, two small side tables with lamps on them and a small desk area to the side. There were lockers to hang your clothes up, a drying rack to lay your towels, and a balcony with a table and two chairs outside.
We dropped our stuff and headed off to start exploring. It's easier to explore when we aren't walking around a foreign city with double your body weight slumping off your back. It was a warm and sunny afternoon. We started to walk towards the lake, which is right outside our hostel. We saw this group of kids maybe a little younger than us doing back-flips off the bridge into Lake Lucerne. It looked like a lot of fun! We knew the next warm day, we were going to join in. We came up to this open grassy area, where all these people were laying out soaking up the sun, some with wine and some with beer. Hundreds of people laying out on this grassy field, also playing frisbee or soccer.
We made it all the way over to Old City Lucerne. There's the new City, where our hostel is, and the Old City, where cars aren't allowed to drive and the roads are still made of cobblestone with many shops and places to eat. We of course came across this chocolate shop. They had what looked like peanut brittle, but it was chocolate instead.... amazing! The woman saw us drooling and offered us some samples. We tried a milk chocolate and hazelnut one, with large whole hazelnuts, surrounded with hazelnut milk chocolate. It was like Nutella, but better. Then we tried this chocolate that was supposed to taste like a Cappuccino... it did! Very tasty!
We went around and looked at some of the shops. Stumbled upon a grocery store. The popular grocery store here, at least in Lucerne, is called Migros. Prices are higher than in the States, but much more affordable than going out to eat. We went in there looking for a little lunch. We got a bottle of water and split a cheese sandwich with mustard, tomato and lettuce from their deli area. It was really good. Their breads are so soft and full of flavor, but their cheeses are definitely the winner.
After some food in our bellies, we wanted to go see the Lion Monument or Lion of Lucerne...in German it's, Löwendenkmal. It commemorates the Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution, when revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries Palace in Paris, France. It was very pretty!
After sitting by the Lion for a bit, we walked back to our hostel. We relaxed a bit, and then headed out to enjoy a nice night walk. The weather here cools down very quickly when the sun is no longer in the sky. It was in the low 60's. We thought we would venture out and see the city at night. First we checked with the woman sitting behind the hostel desk if there were any places we should stay away from... she said no. Perfect! Safe city. Then we asked about the water, if we were able to fill up our water bottles at public fountains. Answer: yes. All running water in Switzerland is part of the Swiss water system. All clean to drink. The only water not to drink is the water that comes out of the faucet on the trains. And the water is yummy and very cold!
We walked to the train station (it's a pretty busy area at all times of the day) and then realized it was a Friday night. We saw youngsters (14-17 years old) in groups of 5-10 people drinking out side on the sidewalks. They would have bottles of liquor or beer lined up next to where they were standing and just chit chat and drink. The older adults were inside the bars drinking... but the younger ones were outside. We don't know if it's because there's an age that you have to reach in order to get inside of a bar, but certainly, the drinking age here is not enforced as much as it is in the States. We saw what looked to be a 14 year old girl swaying back and forth around 10pm being held up by her other 14 year old friends. Not really a bar scene... mostly a 'gather in groups and drink on the sidewalk and next to the water' scene. Also, open intoxicants doesn't seem to be a law here either. There were people on the trams at night with open beer cans, people walking around the streets with beer and even in the train station. It was kind of nice and on the more important side, no one was causing any trouble, just having a good time.
From there, we turned around and went back to the hostel. We were tired and knew we would need to get a good night's sleep for the next day we would have much more exploring to do.
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