Switzerland Update
Guten Morgen!
Yesterday, Carolyn, Ryan and I did some leisurely shopping in Lucerne, which was full of tourist boutiques as well as watch discount stores. We found some great deals and managed to avoid the rain every few hours. Although today was overcast, the humidity was still heavy in the air and the rain was minimal. For lunch, we got some authentic fondue and spent about an hour dipping pieces of bread, boiled potatoes and steamed vegatables in the cheesy mixture. It was to die for!
We made our way back to our hotel to partake in the pizza festival being held in the basement of our hotel where we got to choose what we would like the chef to put on our own pizzas and then had ice cream for dessert. I thought there would be more dough flipping and festive “when the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie” music going on in the back ground, but no, there was none of that. It was still really good though.
Breakfast and dinner is included in our hotel room packages so we are pretty determined to eat both meals at our hotel and only pay for light lunches while we are out and about. Every morning, while we are loading up our plates with cheese and croissants, yogurt and fruit, walnuts and deli meats…we look at the menu for that evening and try to decifer what our choices are. It is a fixed menu with a choice of two items for the salad and for the soup course. Then three choices for the maincourse and two choices for dessert. Being that the menu is in German, there is some much needed translation. I am in charge of speaking the language (even though I only started listening to the German CD two weeks ago) so I translate the menu on our way out each day. Our hotel is anywhere from a 10 minute drive to the closest town that is “happening” (Thun) to 3 hours from the furthest place we will go while I am here, which was Zermatt. Not sure if I mentioned this or not, but Ryan and Carolyn are hanging out in Switzerland a few more days after I leave on Sunday. Then they are heading back and forth a few days at a time to Italy.
Last night after the pizza festival, we went to Thun to one of the venues being held outside where a huge screen was installed in front of stands for people to come and watch–mostly for the people who could not afford or get the chance to buy tickets to the actual game. These venues are in every city in Switzerland. Some are more crowded and rowdy than others. However, we got to the one in Thun a few minutes too late and could not buy entry. The entire town was full of closed, quited shopes, but the streets were full of kiosks and tents selling jerseys and wursts, and showing the game on flat screen TV’s that were installed for the outside guests. We managed to find a spot and watched the Switzerland-VS-Turkey game with thousands of Switzerland fans. It was very fun and surprisingly civil despite Switzerland losing this game in the 90th minute.
Today we are heading back to Thun to do some shopping and after grabbing some lunch, we are all looking forward to heading back to the hotel to put on swim suits and the big fluffy bath robes they provide in the rooms and making our way down to the spa area to do a little swimming in the pool, soaking in the hot tub, and sweating in the steam room.
