eine andere Mauer - a different wall

medieval walls are so much prettier than the berlin wall.

day 2: what do you want to do? no, what do you want to do? no, what do you want to do...

7:00am: sound cue: phone ringing
"dammit."
yawn. "what the...who's calling us here?"
"nobody, go back to sleep."
5 minutes later: "i can't."
"dammit."

30 minutes later: sound cue: key in door
"still sleeping!"
"entshuldigung."
door closing.
"dammit"

this would be how we began day two of our trip to switzerland. it seems that the hotel had forgotten to cancel the previous occupant's wake up call. i'm not sure why they decided to clean the room so early, especially when we hadn't turned in our key to the desk so we were obviously still there.

we farted around in the room and then headed to breakfast, and went off to wander the town. i had a mission for today. buy a swiss army knife, swiss cheese, and swiss chocolate. i realize one can buy all of these things in the US but i'm a sucker for the illusion of authenticity. we bought the knife at a real knife shop, not a tourist store, so i was pleased. we checked the knife off our list.

unfortunately, i have had some unexpected, seemingly european only, allergies, and we had to make a stop at the pharmacy. normally dan doesn't do too much talking as i know more german than he does, but in switzerland, where the accent is crazy hard to understand, we were both at a loss. we managed to find an employee who spoke a little english and spelled out the chemical compounds found in the eye drops i was purchasing. thankfully this meant something to dan. a few drops later i was able to see my way to the cheese shop.

since nothing is ever open on sundays i was worried about refrigeration. but the main cheese shop in lucerne is prepared for tourists staying in hotels and traveling about. they vacuum packed a lovely assortment of typically swiss cheeses, ranging in sharpness, for me to take on the plane. so we checked that off our list.

next we decided to walk along the medieval walls of the city. they offer a great view of the town and the mountains. you can even climb up a few of the towers, including the clock tower which still operates using hunks of granite as counterweights and the pendulum. as we descended to the outer part of the wall we came upon a brand new, spotless high school running track, and the yaks that apparently call it home. only in switzerland.

from our lovely overlook we could see the clouds rolling in. what to do? we wanted to go up on the mountain where you can ride a cog railway, a fanicular, a gondola, and an alpine slide, all as part of the "golden triangle tour". we figured we had some time before the rain came so we decided to buy the chocolate, at a cute little store near lucerne's progressive theater, and walked back to the hotel along the shore of the lake.

turns out we were right that we had some time before the rain. we were wrong about how long the tour would take. what we figured was (music cue) a 3 hour tour, a 3 hour tour (end music cue), turned out to be a 5 hour tour and they were no longer selling tickets. so said the slightly bewildered girl working the ticket counter. it was as if she had never seen tourists so stupid. hard to believe...

sprocket voice: now comes the time on vacation when we dance. the dance of indecision. it hits us once every trip to the point of paralyzation. this is how we end up in hotel bars and on bus tours. we don't know exactly what will make us happy so we just say screw it and do whatever is nearby. in this case, it was the paddle boat rental dock. hey, what the hell.

we spent an hour on the lake enjoying the view. we were only slightly freaked out by the lack of marking for shipping lanes or restrictions on where we could paddle our boat. luckily we were not run down by any cruiseliners or the 5 year old driving his dad around in a motor boat.

after the paddle boat adventure we wandered back to the hotel, stopping at one of the 5-star resorts to see how the other half (.001%) live. we had looked at this hotel on line until the $500/night for a street view single figure came up. our waiter was only mildly condescending though, so we enjoyed watching the storm roll in while sipping our expensive ("could have bought us groceries for several days") drinks.

back at the hotel the storm rolled in and we decided it was time for a nap or some cards. just as the rain started yet another hotel employee came into the room unannounced. she asked if everything in our room was ok. i was so shocked that i didn't think to say, "yes, except that you have just walked into our room." i just said yes, and she left.

nap over, hunger sets in, rain hasn't let up. we make a mad dash down the street and duck into the first restaurant we see. it's a chinese restaurant called "bing" which, it turns out, are a northern chinese specialty that they don't have in germany or anywhere else in switzerland. we order them and love them and spend 2 hours having the first truly spicy food we've tasted in months.

i know you think this is where the story ends... no. we end up dashing into the casino and playing for a few hours, breaking completely even. we even made up for the 4 francs we paid for the coat check. on the way home a man standing alone in the rain on a dark street approaches us and asks us to point him to the nearest disco. he is standing outside of a joint called the "pick up bar." we point to the casino directly across the street, to which he responds, "how far do you think it is?" dude.

ok - now the story is done.

stay tuned for day 3 when when we schlossfahrten. dan: "schlossfahrten? that's my new favorite word!!"