i can’t help but think of how my friends back at school are killing themselves over finals. me? i spent my final weekend in europe relaxing in the swiss alps. don’t remind me that i’ll be returning to reality in two days.
what a wonderful way to end my time in europe. we left at the crack of dawn on friday morning for a three hour bus ride to lucern, switzerland. when i woke up towards the end of the ride, the alps came into view for the first time. they seem so much more impressive when they’re spotted in snow. i’ve been to switzerland before, four years ago on my people to people trip. but for some reason, i don’t remember being quite as awestruck at the sheer beauty of the swiss landscape as i was this weekend.
we spent a few hours in lucern. first, a guided tour. i think our group is pretty much past their limit on guided tours, because i don’t think anyone was really listening. of course we visited the lion and the covered bridges, as picturesque as ever. we also had time to meander through lucern’s christmas markets. the best thing about visiting local christmas markets is discovering what kind of new tasty treats are special to each area. hands down, the best of these discoveries was in lucern. their special thing is to slice apples, then batter and fry, topped with cinnamon and sugar. it’s delicious because it’s fried, but still not as heart-attack inducing as american fried things, like twinkies. mmm. i had a little trouble with the conversion of euro to swiss franc. first of all, i often forget that i speak not a word of german. at least with french i can understand enough to get my point across. i tried to buy some apple cider from a woman who didn’t speak anything but german. i paid in euro but couldn’t understand her as she tried to explain that my change would be in francs. in the end, i think i ended up making money on the deal because she gave me 29 francs change for my 20 euro note. at least it worked well for me.
anywho, we left lucern for the trip to engelberg. engelberg is a tiny village nestled the mountains, below the 10,000 ft. mt. titlus (hehe, funny name for a mountain). we checked into our hotel, appropriately called the edelweiss. they had scheduled a two-hour walking tour of the city, but it ended up being rather ridiculous because the town was only really two streets. we had dinner at the siu “campus”, fortunately the home base of their culinary program. it was delicious.
this weekend was the official opening of the winter sport season in europe. to go along with the obvious action on the mountain, there’s a huge party in engelburg that we had admission to. we went, we danced, we partied with those crazy germans, oktoberfest style. i love that the germans are happiest when dancing to cheesy wedding-reception music. yes, we danced the cotton eye joe. where did you come from, cotton eye joe?
when leaving the party, we discovered that it had started to snow. already a solid four inches was on the ground, and it didn’t stop until the wee hours of sunday morning. a group of us decided to ride the lifts to the top of mount titlus (hehe). first, i bought a sweet hat. then we hoofed it to the bottom of the mountain. it took four different lifts to reach the summit. the first two were enclosed gondola-style that carry six people. and yes, i could not look out the window, nor let go of the death grip i had on robyn, my fellow fear-of-heighter. the third lift was more of a suspended tram, holding thirty-ish people, all standing. the final lift was pretty crazy; it rotated as it ascended the mountain so, piled in to this thing, standing, with forty other people and their skis and boards, they spun us around. surprisingly i handled it rather well. it was a little disorientating to be moving upwards and lateral at the same time, but not crippling. the top of the mountain (at 10,000 ft) was actually kind of disappointing. sure, it was cool to be on a glacier (the top of the mountain is a glacier.), but it was snowing so much still that visibility was next to nothing. it felt like we had taken the lifts straight into a cloud, but couldn’t get out. and it was frigid outside. there was a restaurant at the top, so i enjoyed a delicious lunch of some sort of wurst and pomme frites. then it was back down the mountain.
by the time we got back, it was time for dinner. we were reunited with the snowboarders of the group and were regaled with stories and adventures of that expedition. after dinner, a group of us made use of the hot tub on the terrace of our hotel. ashley made a joke about jumping into the foot and a half of snow that had accumulated on the deck in our bathing suits, but was taken seriously by yours truly. so we collectively hopped out of the hot tub, frolicked in the snow for a few frigid moments (attempted a snow angel, but ended up looking more like a vaguely katie-shaped snow plop), and then scurried back to the hot tub. invigorating. brisk. unfortunately some pictures were taken during this adventure, but lucky for me, i am perfectly camouflaged in the snow with my pasty winter white skin.
i stayed in saturday night with some other people. there was a piano by the bar. i sat down to play one of the three songs that i know and was handed a book of christmas music. surprisingly, after eight years of not taking lessons, i was the one in the group that had any sort of musical skillz, and ended up playing christmas carols as the others played cards by the fire, with a view of the snow falling on the mountains out the window. lovely.
instead of spending money on new-fangled snow boards and the like, a group of got some cheap thrills by sledding down a dinky hill behind the hotel. it’s quite amusing to watch half a dozen twenty-somethings frolic in the snow like eight year olds, i’m sure. we did this both saturday afternoon and sunday morning, so you know it was good. also, some old fashioned snowball fights took place. as it turns out (which of course i knew before), i am terrible at the offensive side of snowball fights; i cannot hit anyone with a snowball. but apparently i’m pretty easy to hit, because i got destroyed. and these people would not let up.
on sunday, a group of ten decided to go ice skating. despite being a midwesterner, i had actually never been ice skating before. still, i know how to rollerblade, so i was pretty much a natural. i tried to gracefully skate by some people in our group that weren’t skating, and do a trick. but the trick didn’t go as planned so i ended up falling, rather purposefully. and then i did it again and again. those didn’t hurt too bad, but it opened up a pattern because i fell twice more, not on purpose, and jacked up my knee kind of bad. it doesn’t hurt anymore, but i had a sweet bruise.
switzerland was a very laid-back, relaxed weekend, but one of my favorites. it was so beautiful, the perfect way to spend the weekend after finals and our final weekend in europe.
cheerio.
-k
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