" SWITZERLAND"
(sung by The Last Bison)
You've taken way my breath now once again..."
"Oh Switzerland
I never thought id have you as a friend
I'm praying it was not at all pretend... "
I never thought id have you as a friend
I'm praying it was not at all pretend... "
"Our drinks were hardly worth the price we paid
But we thanked God for them anyways and
With five minutes left we broke our backs
To spend more money than either of us had"
But we thanked God for them anyways and
With five minutes left we broke our backs
To spend more money than either of us had"
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| On lake Zurich looking out onto the Alps |
So, Zurich is AMAZING! From the city to the mountains, it is breathtaking! It far exceeded every expectation that I had for it. Yes, it was just as if not more expenxive than anticipated, but it was so worth it! I don't even know where to start and this blog probably won't even do the trip justice.
DAY 1:
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| Ready for Zurich, even though it was like 5 oclock in the morning! |
Stepping of the plane with no real plan at all was really intimidating but we soon found out it was okay cause Switzerland has the friendliest people who are so ready and willing to help you! We got to city center, but still really have our bearing so out of all of the first meals we could have had in Switzerland we wound up at Micky D's. But don't look down on it! It was super nice, like 4 stories with PS2's and flat screen TV's nice! Anyway, after lunch we were still unsure of what to do so of course we just stood at the closest bus stop with maps out, visitor guides open, and confused expression on our faces, and that brings us to Roger, the man who literally made our trip! We must have looked super lost cause he ended up walking up to us asking (in perfect English like almost all Swiss people) if he could help us. And help he did! We had thought we may visit some little botanical garden type thing at the edge of town but after talking to him he ended up offering to take us to one of the old bridges that now has shops and markets underneath. Doesn't sound that exciting but it gets better!
At this point we're walking down an ally and my professors comments of "Americans are just so trusting, they'll just follow anyone" followed by stories of americans getting hurt, robbed, etc. start rolling through my mind and I started praying to God that we came out on the other side alive! So we finally get to the bridge and the market which were really cool but then Roger disappears and comes back with local swiss chocolate and some other type of swiss spice cake dessert for all of us! (like I said he was the nicest guy ever!) They were delicious! Okay, so now I'm thinking that's it, end of the tour, but NO! He walks us out and down the street and says he wants to show us the tallest building in Zurich, Clouds Tower.
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| Clouds Tower is the all glass blue one |
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| The old bridge with the shops underneath |
But he doesn't just show us the outside, after talking to some people at the counter he takes us up to the top floor to the (I'm pretty sure exclusive) restaurant! And then buys us all tea, pie (apple cinnamon, chocolate, and poppy seed), and lemon cake bites! And to top it off, the restaurant had the most amazing view!I thought I had died and gone to heaven, my luck has just never been quite that good...
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| The girls at Clouds Tower |
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| Everyone, including Roger! |
The Rest of our day with Roger:
1. Historical Tour of Zurich
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| A view from one of the famous parks |
2. First Taste of Swiss Roasted Chestnuts: One of the 3 trips I made to the chestnut stand during our trip
3.Trip to the Sprungli for the swiss macarons called luxemburgerli, where of course he got us a box to try for ourselves.
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| The Spungli store |
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| With my little Luxemhamburgerli! In case you didn't pick up on it before they're shaped like little hamburgers, so cute! |
4. Making ALL of our reservations for that night and the following day and helping us figure out how the trams work!
And that ended our day with Roger Huber! I would say he was a Swiss Angel but we looked him up later (we figure any guy that dropped a bunch of Franks on 6 American College kids had to be famous) and turns out he's the CEO of a couple companies in Switzerland. Okay, so he's that meant he wasn't an angel, but that still makes him pretty stinkin' cool!
After getting to our hostel (which was more like a hotel) we realized we were only a short walk from one of the mountains, so we decided to make hike up there. Hiking didn't last too long though and most of the our time was playing in the super deep snow that we found there, so much fun!
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| Epic Picture! Yes, that is a snowball in the middle of the picture! |
Of course we were hungry after all that fun, so we set back in town for dinner. This is when we realized how expensive Zurich was, but we managed to get a table for 6 in a restaurant that Roger had showed us earlier even though they had said they were completely booked! This was our luck on this trip! This was my mammoth meal. I finished it ALL!
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| The most delicious Weinerschnitzel and rosti (Swedish hashbrowns). Best $32.50 (swiss franks not dollars) I spent in Switzerland! ha |
And then there was dessert that night : The highlight of our trip. I was the only one that said I wasn't gonna get dessert and then it came out and it was raspberry and ice cream and short bread and raspberry sauce all rolled into one plate of deliciousness. I consider myself a winner cause I kept myself to only three bites! I don't think I've ever seen plates as clean as ours were at this restaurant, it was superb!
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| To date the most delicious dessert I've tasted, then again I'm a sucker for raspberry's so I may be being a little partial. I highly doubt it though! |
DAY 2:
One word: Sledging! EVERYONE needs to do it! I haven't laughed so much or had as much fun as I did there in a very long time. I'm still finding bruises all over from it, but it was so worth it! I think for this pictures are better than words: A before, First half (until we got the hang of it the second round), and an after!
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| So excited to start! |
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| The crash! well one of many, very painful crashes... |
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| Champions by the end! |
After sledging we continued up the mountain (we started our day pretty early so we still had a lot of time) and got to the top where there was one of the prettiest view I've ever seen! In one shot you overlooked the city of Zurich, lake Zurich and the Alps!
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| Straight out of Narnia |
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| The Boat actually had a really nice cafe on board, where we warmed up with some hot chocolate! |
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| Our Boat! |
Much more low key then the other days. We were all exhausted so there's not too much to write about or see. We pretty much just spent the day looking for souveneirs and getting our share of Swiss things (swatchs, chestnuts, etc.). One more long stop at McDonalds for lunch and we were headed back to Bonn!
And that concludes our trip to Zurich, Switzerland!
But my adventures in Europe have just begun!
Next week:
Monday- Friday: Vienna, Austria
Saturday-Sunday: Paris, France
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