On Friday, I got up early to finish some errands before leaving for our Easter trip. I successfully applied for a scribe position back at a hospital in College Station, and finished my taxes for the past year. I was thriving, as I also finished packing early and was able to clean my room and the kitchen to impress my host parents when they came back. Once 3:00 pm rolled around, it was time to head out to catch our flight that evening. We are were so blessed because the bus driver did not require us to buy a ticket for the airport, so we all saved about 8 euro. At the airport, our flight was delayed by about 30 minutes, which definitely turned up our cortisol levels, because our hostel required to check in by 11 pm. After we landed in Zurich, we raced to change some of our Euros to CHF and attempted to buy train tickets to Lucerne. The go euro app wasn't working with our credit cards but we didn't want to pay the maximum ticket charge, so we decided to roll the dice and board the train without tickets in hand. While on the train, the lady checking tickets came by so I had to pull out my acting skills to try and get us out of this sticky situation. After telling her our app wasn't working, she allowed us to buy cheaper tickets from her. We were so blessed. Once we disembarked in Lucerne, we were able to find the correct bus that took us to our hostel. Once at the hostel, we paid our bills before checking in for the night. Lawrence and I were in a 5-person room with 3 other girls for the evening. Thankfully, they were very clean and quiet so we were all able to get to sleep pretty quickly. However, two of the girls got up at 5 am to leave, which woke us all up, but I wasn't too tired the next morning.
The next morning, we got up at 8:30 because the hostel stopped providing breakfast at 9:30. The hostel was a Korean-owned establishment, so they provided Korean-style fried rice for breakfast. The rice was delicious, and I ate two servings of it each morning until we left. After breakfast, we struggled to figure out what we wanted to do for the day. I decided to look up hiking sites nearby and we found a nice one near the town of Eigenthal. Thankfully, there was a bus stop right nearby our hostel that took us all the way out to the town. The weather was pretty wet that day, but since the bus took us up high into the mountains it began to snow pretty heavily. Once we got off the bus, we had to walk quite a bit to get to where the hiking trails began. I did not prepare for this kind've weather, as I only brought my tennis shoes for this trip. After about 30 minutes of walking in the slush, my shoes were completely soaked. Once we were on the trail, we took our time just playing in the snow and taking really nice pictures. The town was very picturesque, and reminded me sort've like a Winter Wonderland. We found a trail that went up high into the mountains so we decided to climb it. However, the combination of the snow and slush made climbing particularly challenging as well all kept slipping. It was pretty hilarious to see us all struggle, but fortunately none of us got hurt. After a few hours of climbing we decided to head back to Lucerne as we were all pretty wet and cold. Once we got off the bus, we decided to head to Aldi to pick up some snacks and groceries for the next two days in order to save some money. We bought noodles and tomato sauce for about 4 euro for dinner on Easter Sunday. That decision easily saved us about 20 euro each. After dropping off the groceries at the hostel, we decided to grab dinner back in Lucerne. Our first stop was at a local Vietnamese restaurant, but we were all put off by the prices so we attempted to find a cheaper place to eat. We finally found a local Indian restaurant so we all settled on that. I got the spicy curry chicken which was surprisingly decent and filling! After dinner, we got gelato at a local Swiss chocolate shop which easily had the best hazelnut gelato I've had since coming to Europe. After dessert, we decided to walk around town. We crossed the famous bridge on the Reuss River and navigated the Old Town which reminded me a lot of Salzburg. As the Sun was setting the clouds started to dissipate, which allowed us to see a beautiful sunset. After the Sun had set, we decided to head back to the hostel because we were all exhausted. That night, two Indian guys were joining us in the hostel which I didn't mind too much until the second guy didn't show up until 1:00 am.
The next morning the other guy decided to get up at 6:00 am but turned the lights on to get ready! I was completely shook by his lack of courtesy and I was really annoyed. It got worse when he left his phone locked in his locker and his alarm started going off. He was in the shower so we couldn't turn it off manually and my annoyance level increased exponentially. After he got out of the shower he turned his alarm off but turned the light back on to start packing! I couldn't believe it but thankfully the other guy told him to use the natural light from outside instead. Thankfully, after he left we were able to get another hour of sleep but both Lawrence and myself were exhausted. After eating breakfast, we decided to go back to sleep for a few hours because we would not be able to make it while running on fumes. After waking up around noon, we decided to conquer the nearby Mt. Pilatus. Thankfully, the weather was partly cloudy so I we were all feeling great. The trail just to reach the start of the mountain was steep and I could tell I was about to get a workout of a lifetime. After we began our hike, my race was already racing from the steepness of the climb, so we decided to take numerous breaks as we progressed up the mountain. We took time out of the hike to explore nearby waterfalls, and to climb on fallen logs. We attempted to cross a stream but I was too scared to get my shoes wet like the day before. Once we reached the halfway point, the views of Lucerne and the lake nearby were already amazing. The difficulty of the climb was made worth it by the landscape surrounding us. When we were reaching the top, it began to snow and sleet, but thankfully the storm passed over pretty quickly. Once we reached the top, we took to time to admire the view and take a breather before deciding to head back down. The entire climb took around three hours, so we were all physically spent by this point. However, going down was definitely a lot easier on the muscles but a bit more difficult on the joints. Once we reached the bottom we decided to head back to the hostel to cook dinner as we were STARVED! We quickly realized we had a crap ton of noodles to cook so we were busy boiling two pots of water. I was in charge of the cooking while Claudia and Lawrence assisted me. Once the noodles were ready, we put the sauce in the pan to finish the spaghetti. Even though it was pretty cheap, our meal tasted so good. But I think the saving money aspect definitely made us like it a bit more :). After dinner, I FaceTime'd my best friend back in College Station before calling it a night.
The next morning after breakfast we quickly packed our stuff before checking out of the hostel. We had about an hour before catching the train back to Zurich so we decided to walk along the lake and get one last gelato serving from the place we had previously. It was just as good the second time and we were able to eat it outside this time because the Sun was completely out! After finishing the gelato we realized we were running late so we quickly ran back to the train station. We unfortunately missed the original train we were going to take so we had to take one about 30 minutes later. Once in Zurich, we ate lunch at a local hamburger joint before walking along the river. Around 2:30 we went back to the train station to make our way to the airport. Thankfully, getting through security was a breeze so we had some time to kill before our flight. Once again, our flight was delayed about 30 minutes. Eurowings has done me dirty so many times now that I am considering never flying with them again. However, the flight didn't take as long as I thought and we landed back in Cologne around 6:30 pm. We were able to quickly catch a bus back to Bonn and I made it home around 8:15 pm that night. Since I had the house to myself again, I decided to do some laundry and cook a pizza before calling it a night. I was so happy to be back in my own bed after spending three nights at the hostel.
Yesterday, we had an excursion to Bingen, Germany. The town was about two hours away so I was able to nap during the bus ride over. Once there, we visited the Hildegard museum, a museum dedicated to the nun named Hildegard who was one of the first women who contributed to medical history. It was very interesting hearing stories about her from Dr. Wasser, as he always makes museums so fun to learn about. After the museum, we ate lunch on a local restaurant on the Rhine River. I was able to get a glass of red wine with my chicken pasta so I was thriving by the end of it. Today was the first day of school since before Easter, and also marks the beginning of academic hell until the end of next week. My focus for these next few days is to finish my Pharmacology project which I will be presenting next Monday. I am pretty stressed about that, but I am confident I can pull together a nice presentation. Our Enmodes presentation is also next Friday, and we are all busy preparing our final project ideas. So these next 10 days will be pretty busy academically, but it isn't all doom and gloom as I have the Wombats concert to look forward to on Saturday! I will write about that and my pharmacology presentation on my next blog post.
Until then,
Tschuss!
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