After a, shall we say, less than ideal yet also somewhat necessary Friday at AIB, I headed home to pack for my last weekend of travel--WOW Switzerland! Mind you, this was also the weekend before several of our exams and finals, and our scores well reflected our hard work and dedication to our studies over this trip--picture us pouring over my textbook on the train and quizzing each other as we climbed up mountains. Hah, yeah, that's not what happened. Dedication to studies? Maybe it's more accurate to say that our scores well reflected the lack thereof. (Whoops?! Pro tip for prospective students: don't travel the weekend before finals. It's a trap! Also, don't lie to yourself--you will NOT be studying on the train. You will be sleeping.)
Once I was packed and ready, I decided to take a nap before we left. Ibk woke me up twice, first to say "hey our train was delayed thirty minutes, I'll wake you up again when it's actually time to leave" and second "we need to go NOW or we'll miss the last bus for an hour." So I popped up, grabbed my stuff and headed to meet the others at Hauptbahnhof. There were several bad omens on this journey for us all. First, Ibk and I bought some lunchmeat, cheese, and bread for everyone along with a few snacks for ourselves just before we had come home, but halfway to the bus stop she realized we'd left them. It was too late to turn back and we ended up running to the bus as it was. Second, as we walked up to the station, Mitchell joined us, but Corey didn't. Which is very odd because they are also roommates and usually pop up together. It turns out Corey hadn't woken up when Mitchell told him to get up. Not the first time, the second, or the third. So Mitchell left without him and saw him running up to the tram just as the doors were closing. Corey then took a different tram about halfway to the station and had to run the rest of the way. And of course, the most classic issue there is, passports. Pro tip: you need them when you travel between countries. Usually. Ibk and I completely spaced and didn't have ours the whole weekend, but we never got checked so thankfully it wasn't a big deal.
So here we all are, boarding our first night train of the trip around 12:40 am. And thus the decision was made! Sleep >> Studying. We had two train changes throughout the night and arrived in Lucerne about 8 hours later. With a strong need to pee. But here's the problem with European bathrooms: they make you pay! Unless of course you can crawl through the luggage slot like yours truly. And once I went through, the others all followed. Free to pee! Free to pee! (Anyone get that reference?)
Then off we went to our hostel, a 40 minute walk to the outskirts of Lucerne. And from there a 5 minute walk, sans luggage, to our challenge of the day: Mount Pilatus. I don't think I can express well enough how absolutely beautiful the hike was. We started off going up along lush green meadows, some with flowers and some without, but all equally as serene. Untilllll heat of the sun caught up with us girls and we ended up just pushing ourselves forward and stopping at every source of shade we could find to take a break. I could tell the boys weren't too keen on waiting up for us, but they did which I appreciated. Eventually we made it to a rest stop with a big playground area where we used the restroom and filled up on water. This also happened to be a stop on the cable car route, so the group split. Us girls rode up one stop, grabbed some popsicles, trespassed on a ropes course, and enjoyed our lunch (in my case some pastries I picked up in the morning) with a view while we waited for the boys to catch up. It really didn't take them long to get there at all, but while we were waiting we spotted the next thing we wanted to do: Giant. Slide. More accurately a toboggan? I'm not really sure but it was a blast. And once you've gone down, they hook up your sled to a mechanised pulley which drags you back up so you don't even have to walk! Highly recommend, but make sure you don't follow Ibk down cause she's a slowpoke!
We took the cable car up one more stop to the top of the mountain (again, without the boys) and my oh my what a view. There was snow everywhere, yet it wasn't cold at all, up until we started messing around and throwing the white fluff at each other. After many a photo at the peak, we explored the caves underneath. They weren't too exciting except that I slipped (but didn't actually fall!) more than a couple times and I got a photo that potentially has the boys climbing up a slightly lower part of the mountain. You can't really see them in it but I thought it was funny that I happened to take those photos right as they were climbing there, even though we had no idea where they were at the time.
We took the cable car back down one stop then hiked the rest of the way down, walked past our hostel to get things to make dinner, then finally returned and settled in. The boys had missed the cable car we took and it was the last of the day, so they were forced to hike the entire way down. It seems they had quite the adventure--losing the path, sledding down the snowy areas (sans sled), accumulating quite a few scrapes and bruises--and they didn't end up arriving back until after we had all showered, cooked, and eaten our portion of dinner.
The next day (Happy Birthday to Ibk!) was more of a city day. We took the bus into town and got off at the train station, then found a nice spot to sit and relax by the river. We took pictures with and on the oldest covered bridge in the Europe, climbed up a few watch towers along the old city wall, had a foot race, and wandered around back to the river. Next, we rented a paddle boat for two hours and set adrift! The setting was stunning, complete with a mountain background against the blue of the lake, which was picturesque in and of itself with the swans and sailboats roaming around at will. We had a really great time on the water just hanging out, listening to music, and enjoying the green screen backdrops we were looking at. Next up was more wandering, a hunt for an ATM, gelato, and dinner. Somewhere in there we also picked up our luggage, so our next stop was the train station for our overnight back to Bonn. And here is where we should have been responsible students, but once again, sleeping >> studying and we'll just leave it at that.
Random things:
- bed bug scare
- tried out some vlogging but 99% sure I’ll never be using that footage for anything, nevertheless it was fun to do in the moment
- Switzerland is expensive, be prepared to spend more than you thought if you’re planning a visit
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