Hark and be of good cheer!
A kind, eccentric writer lives here!
Some serious works, some silly rhymes
Show the passing of life times
Stories therein, some words too
Poetry for the fanciful of you
Read on, good soul, and may you smile
And stay herein for quite a while
- Created By toratiger
A Change of Trains and a Game of Telephone
So today I left Switzerland.
It started with an early breakfast (6:30 in the morning?! really?!) and man-handling my suitcase down the stairs. The thing was heavy to begin with, and going down stairs was a nightmare. Anyway, after breakfast it was out onto the (cobbled) street and up to the train station. It wouldn't have been nearly so bad if my suitcase did not pull incessantly to the right. Thankfully they had a decent-sized elevator at the train station.
Our first train was an hour's ride to Brig. We settled in and I continued my very good book, content in a quiet train ride. Then we got to Brig and knew we had around thirty or so minutes, but that we would have three to get on the next train after it arrived. We are all told how the groups split into cars and the leaders were given sheets with reserved seats listed on them, so we should have been good, right? No such luck; we heard a fuzzy, unclear announcement about a change of plans over the intercom. Our high-speed train apparently wasn't coming. So we piled on to a regular-sized train that came instead and tried to find seats-- the train was nearly full. Well, my suitcase is larger than every other suitcase on the trip, and it stands two feet tall and eighteen inches wide. There was no way it would fit overhead. I ended up in between cars with my overweight suitcase. Thankfully I wasn't alone-- Dr. and Rita Wohlers, the trip leaders, were also stuck between cars. Then someone from my group came up and said she heard that itwasn't the right train, that we had to get off at the next stop. Everyone turned to Wohlers, who coolly walked off to find a conductor and straighten the whole thing out. He came back saying that we would have to get off at the next stop but this was the train we were looking for. The high-speed to Venice would be at the next station. Apparently it never made it to Switzerland. So we train-surfed laden with suitcases while some unencumbered young men went through the train cars spreading the word.
We arrived at the next station without enough time to regroup and discuss which train we all thought it was. Some of us had very different ideas, but I trusted the guy in front of me and headed across the platform. Then I saw it, too: a sign above the train saying Venice. I knew it had to be ours despite the Swiss train system logo on each car. My group found car number four easily enough with six leaders finding it (we have a group of all leaders and haven't managed to bite each other's heads off) and I started the daunting task of finding everyone's seats. That's when I found out that the seats are numbered very strangely on that particular train. 105-108 was not, after all, in a row, but spread out over three seat pairings at odd intervals. Nor was 97 next to 98; 91-93 were scattered as well. We had to talk to some people who were just as confused as we were who were in our seats (but we had the reservation ticket that proved we were supposed to at least be in that area, so we had the upper hand). Soon we all settled down and I was finally able to get back to my book. At some point lunch was made and I ate two Nutella sandwiches and a handful of sour cream and onion Pringles and drank this really cool Swiss drink that tasted kind of like carbonated apple juice with orange and other tangy flavors mixed in with grain. I went back to my book, then fell asleep, then back to my book, then listening to people around me. Soon the announcement came on and everyone started packing up: we were coming up on Venice. I had left my hulk of a suitcase in the luggage area on the other end of the car, so I had to wait behind the noisy French school group to get it. Then we stepped outside and into the heat and sunshine of Venice.
Venice, if you don't already know, is a series of islands interconnected by canals and bridges. There is no room on the streets for any sort of vehicle other than maybe a bicycle. Maybe. This means that, unlike other cities in Europe, Venice has no train, trolley, or bus system. Instead they have a system of boats set up like buses, complete with lines and frequent stops. There is no other way to see the whole of Venice.
We got out of the train station and headed down a short way through a street that branched off the Grand Canal to a seemingly random alleyway that we realized went to our hotel. Speaking of, it is quite charming with a garden courtyard and beautiful rooms. I am so blessed to have a room off in the far corner of the courtyard. It just makes me happy walking to the room with its cheery surroundings! We had a little under an hour to settle in before heading out to see San Giorgio, and in that time we found the wifi and I found out that an old friend of mine is actually staying in Pisa. I haven't seen the guy in, like, four years, so I was genuinely excited because we're going to Pisa on Saturday, or Sabbath as I call it. We found our way to that boat system I mentioned and got our tickets. We hopped on the number 2 line to Lido and got to see Venice from the Grand Canal. I took so many pictures I had to switch SD cards. Then we found out that we had gotten on the wrong boat because Lido was as far as this one went-- it did not go to the island with the San Giorgio cathedral on it. After we straightened out that debacle (switching boats was interesting, but we all made it safely) we found out that we had a half our to be in and out of the church before the doors closed.
We headed straight inside after some guidelines from Dr. Wohlers. As it turns out, Tintoretto has at least two paintings inside, the two next to the altar being the most famous. One is The Last Supper, featuring more movement and drama than Leonardo DaVinci's serene piece by the same name. The other is something about the blessing of the manna. I felt quite proud of myself for one thing I found that no one else did: a small statue of San Giorgio (St. George) on the pedestal on the side of the entrance to the choir. And they say I'm not detail-oriented. We then quickly made our way back through the church, oohing and ah-ing over the detailed statuary and beautiful artwork. Outside, we gathered in front of some golden modern-art pillars and learned the history of Venice as told by our illustrious Dr. Diller. I have to say, I love her lectures. I get it when she explains it. After that we posed for a quick picture, hopped a boat to the closest thing Venice has to a mainland, and split off for the evening.
My main goal for the evening was to get to this wonderful pizzeria called Gepetto's which offered an amazing pizza called Pinocchio (I'm a Disney freak), but there was no such luck. Turns out no one near where I thought the place was knew about it. We did have a fun time cutting through San Marco plaza and walking by the Ferrari shop, though some guy in the plaza tried to scam my guy friend into buying roses for all of us girls nearby. That's just so wrong in my book. I had to give the rose back, though I had thought something was up when a street-vendor-type guy handed me a rose. We made it to the Rialto bridge just fine (though I would have found it even without the signs, and in fact the signs led us out of the way). We found a different pizzeria that offered a primavera pizza with tomatoes on top (just the way I like it!!). We had a wonderful time even though we had a table with nine people crammed into it. We were making new connections, right? Anyway, after pizza and the check were handled, some of us got gelato next door. I decided, and my mother and friend agreed, to wait. It wasn't urgent. Then five of our group got this sudden urge to go on a gondola ride, especially after finding out that the group price was 100 euros. Five or more people riding makes that around 20 euros a piece-- not exorbitant in the least. The other four of us were feeling too tired to try it tonight, so we went back to the hotel after a mix-up and a boat ride. We stopped for better (cheaper) gelato, hit the ATM (unfortunately Italy doesn't handle Swiss franks), and came back without another hitch.
I will say this about our group's version of telephone: we didn't hear anything about the rain in Spain staying mainly in the plane, so we didn't do too horribly.
Alpsnacht, what?
Okay, so I love Switzerland. The people are a bit cold but, well, it is Europe. WE invaded THEIR space with our rude and obnoxious behavior, but to be fair their main industry IS tourism. Just saying.
So today we went to Luzerne, which is home of an amazing lake and an impressive view, following our morning church service. After two train rides that added up to about three hours we arrived in town, got tickets for something we didn't know much about, and headed off. All we knew was that we had to take a bus, gondola, cable train, and boat. Do you see how many things could go wrong here?! We managed to make it off the bus at the same stop (all 28 of us) and get up the narrow street without getting run over, which was a miracle in and of itself. The gondola, as it turned out, was to go up into the alps, and quite high into those alps I might add. The initial glass cage we were trapped in--I mean invited into fit four people with surrounding windows. The views were marvelous, and I don't think pictures quite did them justice. Let me try to convey the awesomeness of those mountainsides. The trees were taller than our cables in places and thin as a five-year-old, the faces of the mountains were jagged like they'd been sculpted with a razor, and the height climbed into the clouds. We did NOT get off at the first stop because apparently the goal was to get to the top of Pilatus, the mountain we could not see due to clouds. We got off at the second stop where the small gondolas turned around (the bottom was out of the question-- we were going on bravely) and were crammed like sardines into a bigger, standing-room-only car with glass from floor to ceiling. For the record, when that car crests the first ridge in that mountain, it accelerates as well as swings. There was a shriek from inside the car that nearly deafened me. Then we arrived at the top of Pilatus--7,000 feet up.
The visitor center was spacious, and there was an outside viewing area upstairs. It's kind of freaky to watch the clouds roll through a platform, not gonna lie. There was this set up of rings and mats that we guessed (accurately was for a gymnastics show. Soon the whole platform was split in half by caution ropes. First some old yodelers sang (good, but soft-- I don't think I got them yodeling on video, just them mouthing the words). Then some gymnasts warmed up. Finally, they performed. Oh man. They were good and the guys were all hot and worth seeing. Doesn't hurt that they were setting a WORLD RECORD with that show. First gymnastics team to perform at that altitude. They beat the record by a couple of thousand feet.
Next was the cable train down. Good pictures, funny (sleepy) friends, and the gentle rocking of the car made for a wonderful ride. There were several tunnels chiseled out of the mountainside, literally. It was quite impressive and very dark with the occasional rustic window. Four of us Americans ended up sitting next to four German-speaking Europeans. They laughed with us when one of our friends fell asleep on the rolled-down window and inadvertently nodded into the glass. Priceless. Anyway, we eventually did pull up to Alpnacht... Alpennacht... Oh, I don't remember. Something like that.
We got off the train, thanked the attendants, and ran to the boat, making it there about two minutes before cast-off. Apparently the ticket place where we bought the Pilatus tickets didn't think we'd make the boat. Well we did, so, ha! We took lots of pictures and had a grand old time on the second floor until the ticket collector gently reminded us that we had second-class tickets... and therefore did not belong there. Eh, downstairs was crowded, but the water was so wonderfully clear that I did not mind as much as in a muddy-brown lake somewhere in America. It was then that I listened to the Moonlight Sonata, or Bach's Sonata 14 in C# minor, with the lake that gave it its nickname. It was quite stellar, I gotta say. Sure, it was daylight and not moonlight, but what could I do?
We got off the boat after almost an hour and ended up back at the train station in Luzerne where we had started. Our leader showed us this old bridge from like the 15th century (well, it has been rebuilt because wooden bridge plus plethora of smokers = not good for preservation)with beautiful flower-boxes, paintings, and old stone tower included. That was worth the walk. I hope the pictures turn out.
Well, unfortunately our time had run out. After (unsuccessfully) trying to find groceries for the LONG train ride tomorrow, we met up at the rendezvous point and headed back to Bern. Y'know, you'd think we'd be tired after this long day of adventure, and you'd be right. We went straight back to the hotel after finally finding our groceries and started making plans for bed. Then my mom got this bright idea to find apple strudel since this was our last night in Switzerland. She found it near the bear pit (long story as to why this was funny that I might tell at another time) and as she was discussing it with our desk-lady (who furnished us with bus tickets our first day here) the lady called the restaurant and made us reservations. So the clothes went back on and the group headed out for late-night strudel.
It was delicious.
Next Stop Uttigen
So, for those of you unaware, I am currently in Switzerland. Switzerland is not the most jumping place in the world, I mean, it's considered a relaxing holiday spot here in Europe. Their main industry is tourism and adventure sports. So today we went to this place called Interlaken, which is this neat little town squished between two gigantic lakes. From there we decided to splurge on a ticket to a different train into the alps.
The alps were incredible. After my friends took a picture with a carabineer-mug hooked on his ear (don't ask), we decided to get lunch in this cute, I mean uber cute, town called Grindelwald. The place was tiny, and the main event there must have been skiing, as most of the shops we walked by were ski supply shops. We then climbed up the mountain-- and I mean straight up, by the way-- on a cog-wheel train. B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L. We then got off at the top of the train route at Jungfrau. The draw for Jungfrau is that the Top of Europe is located on one of the five peaks nearby. You can see the Matterhorn from that place. I unfortunately couldn't stay long because my friends wanted to make it to the next town without waiting a half-hour. It was fine, I just have to find a post card or something with those mountains labeled. I can't spell the next town name, but it's the place with the cable car that goes up to the Schilthorn, or the James Bond mountain. My friend couldn't do that, though, because the car was not running today. We ended up catching the next available train back to Interlaken anyway because the Castle at Thun, which was my treat for the day, closed at five according to our information. It was almost four.
So we time it just right and hop the train to Thun. We get out and start seriously speed-walking (have you ever tried to run with a backpack on in a cobble-stoned area?) towards the castle spires. It was really inspiring. We probably shouldn't have crossed some of the streets in the manner we did, but hey, we're not in Switzerland every day. So we tried to go as straight as we could to the castle, but the streets were not laid out in a way as to make it easy. We ended up passing the castle, going all the way around it, up some stairs, down a few other stairs, up another flight of stairs, and under an archway just to get to the main courtyard, and the ticket desk was inside the wall to our right. Only then did we discover that they had already closed. Something about an event, which may have to do with this being their 750th anniversary. It was on our way down that we found the staircase that led to the street we had walked the length of to find the entrance. Whatever. Then we had one thing on our mind-- finding a place to sit down. We wandered in circles for a bit, and an old petite lady whacked me in the arm because I almost ran over her (she gave me a glare that could toast bread, so I didn't feel as bad as I should have). Soon after the grumpy old-lady thing, we decided to seriously look for some food.
Pizzerias are fairly common in Europe and, let's be honest, Switzerland is close to Italy. We found two pizzerias, and though I had had pizza for lunch, I was very willing to sit down to some good Italian food. Boy did we make the right choice-- it was an excellent location next to the crystal-clear river with a view of scenic town-scape and swans (though I thought the swans wanted to pickpocket my backpack. I had an excellent tomato soup that only cost, like, ten bucks. It was wonderful, and I don't usually like tomato soup.
We were very tired still and had seen most of what we wanted to see, so we decided why not go back to the hotel in Bern. As we were standing in the train station discussing schedules, a train pulled in that said Bern on it. It wasn't the type of train we took from Bern, but we felt that if it was going the same way, who cares? It was only after we were seated in the second level (trains seem to be double-decked a lot) that one of my friends got this weird, panicked look on his face. His eyes got a little wider and he fumbled into his backpack for our Eurail Pass. He muttered to me that it was the wrong train. He got up and found the rest of our group and gave them the heads up-- we were getting off at the next possible stop. He sat down next to me when we heard this tik-tik-tik noise down below. I was pretty sure he'd blow a gasket, especially when I informed him the noise came from downstairs. Hey, he asked. Ticket collectors go down the train to see who has a ticket, and they often carry hole punches, so you know where his mind went. Thankfully we got to the next stop, Uttigen, before he collapsed of fright.
Uttigen, you have to understand, is a tiny station with two tracks running through it and an unmanned station. There was no town that we could see, just a platform with one set of tracks on each side. It was not a place one expected the national railway system to stop. Several of those big trains did pass us, but they didn't slow down. This meant that every train that passed was deafening. My panicked friend soon discovered that he had reacted too quickly to the situation-- the sub-line that we had ridden on was owned by the national railway. It was just a smaller train run by a smaller sub-company. The next train was in 40 minutes, so we had fun waiting by telling jokes and discussing the reactions of the four personality types to this situation: a sanguine would laugh, a choleric would yell, a melancholy would cry, and a phlegmatic wouldn't really care. We got on the next train and rode with no problems to the train station in Bern, though we approached it from a different angle than normal and thus were uneasy about the drop-off location at first. We got back to the hotel and have pretty much crashed after our alpine adventures.
Do you blame us?
End
