Well, I arrived in Switzerland on time and ready for the day, even if I was a bit tired. Plus, I saved 50 euros by taking the train from Ravensburg instead of Munich. All that hassle and Amy's flight was about 2 hours late! It's okay though because it gave me some extra time to relax and refresh. And for the life of me, I could not figure out where an ungodly odor was coming from that seemed to be following me. It wasn't until Amy arrived that we pinned it down. It always helps to have an external olfactory gland. Turns out, my shoes (thankfully not me) were ghastly that day. She was really nice about it and claimed she couldn't smell anything for the first 10 minutes and I kept pestering by telling her she had to be sick because there was absolutely an odor. I set my bag down while we organized the hired car (yes, I abandoned the vagabond status for about 10 days...) and it seemed as if the odor disappeared. It was at this point Amy admitted that she could in fact smell it before and was thankful that it was my shoes and not the person she would have to spend 10 days around. She just didn't want to offend me. It was so bad people that I even contemplated throwing them away right then and there. Pee-yew!
I could rehash the ins and outs of the trip but that wouldn't be very entertaining so I'm going to tell you about some of the cool things we did. First of all, my favorite city that we visited was definitely Bern. Perhaps it was because my friend Alice (met her in Ireland) showed us around, but I just think it was slightly different from the rest of the country. Zurich is too much business, Interlaken has too many tourists, my grandparents would live in Lucerne, and Lausanne was near the end of our trip and I was really burned out to thoroughly enjoy it. They were all definitely beautiful though. Bern has that mix of the spectrum: young and old, modern and antique, big but small, etc. We spent the day seeing some sights but also taking in some of the sunshine by just lounging in a park for lunch. To top the day off, we went up to the university quad which overlooks the city and had a beer as the sky went dark. Thanks for showing us around Alice!
Secondly, a day trip to Liechtenstein is totally worth it. As small as you believe the country is, I am telling you right now that it is smaller. Before the GPS could calculate directions from Vaduz to Schaan we were there. The country is really beautiful though and we were lucky to have great weather. It also happened to be a festival day in Schaan. Now this isn't anything like Times Square for New Year's but the town was bumping. For the drive back, we decided to take a different route where the weather was a bit less friendly. We ended up going through the Alps and several small little Alp towns though so it was worth it.
Thirdly, Switzerland is expensive. Even though the SWF is about equal to the USD, things just cost more. When you're traveling with a certain budget in mind, going to Switzerland should not be on your list of countries to save money in. Besides, you really don't want to skimp on the trip there. It really is worth a visit though. I could easily have spent way more than we did but thankfully Amy didn't push going out to eat at every meal :p She claims to have enjoyed it, and I'm sure she did, but let's hope she wasn't just being nice. I will say that traveling with me isn't your typical rodeo. I'm not exactly the guidebook kind of guy.
Finally, getting to see a friend from back home was an especially nice treat. Since September 2010, I had not seen anyone from California. That's a long time people. Let alone getting to spend each waking moment with them. Well, to be fair I went on a run or two in Interlaken for some alone time. A guys gotta have some time to think to himself! My favorite moments in the trip were chatting over a meal or beers catching up and hearing about life back home. Well, we did get stuck out in the rain while in Lucerne, which was hilarious.
I've sent Amy an email as well to see if she wants to post a story as a guest writer since she was there too. We'll see what she says. Until then, the pictures are pretty good and describe this part of my trip better.
Photo Album
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