Got up on time, early even, for the first time. Oh yes please be
proud.
Ate breakfast which was alright. Cereal, the most disgusting cheese I've
ever been exposed to - not kidding it even smelled like death - and some fruit.
Good start to the day right?(;
Then we were off on a walking tour of Lucerne. We had to take an hour
long bus ride from our hotel in Einsiedeln. It was beautiful to see all of
Switzerland. Seriously such a beautiful place.
When we got to Lucerne we took a walking tour of first, their main
landmark, the lion carving in the mountain. It's a sculpture of a dying lion
carved into a mountain which represents all the soldiers who died trying to
protect the king of France during the revolution, and saved his life. It was
way cool. There are lions all over this city in honor of it.
Then we saw a beautiful church building. From the outside it didn't look
that cool, but inside it was stunning. I even got to touch the baptismal
water. We sat in there for awhile looking at all of the beautiful carvings and
listening to the organ play.
Then we went to see a bridge which is another main landmark. It's a long
bridge covered with flowers near a water tower. It was badly damaged from fire
during the revolution so it lost many of the original structures and paintings
hung from the ceiling there. But the bridge has been fully restored and
some of the paintings still exist there. (: The water tower nearby has been
used for everything from being an actual water tower, to a prison and even a
torture chamber. It was a beautiful view though and made for lots of cute
pictures(: Which is important to us of course(:
Then it was free time. Kena and I went to get some dollar bills traded
for change and look for a watch for her. We got some change but never found a
watch and had to grab lunch real quick. It was again pretty gross. I ended up
feeding like half of it to the birds. Yucky(:
It was getting close to the time to meet our group so we headed off to
the meeting spot. Well. 15 minutes past the designated time and no one was
there. We started to freak out because we knew they'd be way mad. We realized
there was another shop similar to the one we were at and asked directions.
Luckily the guy spoke English. He directed us to the wrong one then chased us
to show us the right one. When we got there Henson was beyond mad and freaked
out at us. I'm sick of getting yelled at for miscommunications. We just had the
meeting spot wrong. So that was kind of a nightmare but things chilled out
again after a while.
We rode our bus up to the base of Mount Pilatus. We got to take some
aerial carts up the mountain, pretty similar to the sky ride. It was an amazing
view and kept us out of the rain!(: When we got to the top, there was snow
everywhere and it was snowing. All the groups were excited that they finally
got to see snow except us Utah kids. Like ughhhhhhh that's what we wanted to
get away from!!! Especially in June. Haha.
We didn't have the proper shoes or clothing for snow but we hiked it
anyways. We were at the top of the Swiss Alps and me and Kena don't waste
opportunities. (;
We froze our butts off. We were so high we were literally walking in the
clouds. They had lots of trails and steps. Even had caves for us to explore. It
wasn't that great of a view because of the storm and clouds, we couldn't see
anything. But the mountains were pretty! And knowing us, we of course stopped
for tons of pictures, so by the time we got to go back inside, we were ice cold
and close to the point of hypothermia. Especially my fingers were frozen
because of the camera. Miserable conditions, but we made the best of it and
still had a great time(:
Then we rode down the mountain on a cog work train. The wheels work on
the track like cogs in a clock! It's the steepest cog work train ride in the
world. They use this method because it makes controlling the speed of the train
a lot easier.
Once we got to the bottom we got to explore for a bit. Kena and I found a
super cute pier and took lots of pictures. This was the most beautiful area we
saw. Sitting on a pier by a clear blue lake surrounded by mountains. Wow.
Breathtaking.
I even fed a swan!! I was way nervous about it because they hiss and honk
at you, they aren't do very nice. The first piece I got scared and dropped the
piece of bread! But the second time, he ate it right out of my hand. (: It was
cool. (: Even got a video of me doing it. (:
We took a boat ride to the other side of the mountain to get back to
Lucerne. It was a steam boat with paddles on the sides, originally from 1902.
The area was beautiful and it was nice to escape the cold for a little
while.
We got back to Lucerne and had some more free time. We decided to go
shopping and picked up our souvenirs. Everything in Switzerland is way pricy
and so we didn't get a whole lot. Not like France. But I got a spoon for free
from the store, a darling keychain and postcards! And some Swiss chocolate of
course. The mocha kind is amazing. And things for family.
Then we went into a way over priced clothing store. Shoes were like 300
Francs. A little thin bracelet was 40. Not our place to roll, we're broke. Out
we went. So then we window shopped, even found a 30,000 francs watch. Holy
expensive. Didn't even look that cool!!! I was called the Ferrari Big Bag
though so maybe that's why.
Then we went to look at a more realistic teenage clothing store. It was
so cute. Reminded me of Forever 21. Wish I'd had more time, I would have bought
something!! It was interesting because we found a red and white t-shirt that
looked like a football jersey kind of. The weird thing was is that it said Utah
on it. Utah. A shirt that said Utah in Switzerland. Why. Hahaha we were
so confused!!! Why would that be in a small clothing shop in Lucerne,
Switzerland!?! Hilarious. We also finally bought some Swiss chocolate. It's
pretty good, but I'm not the biggest chocolate lover so maybe that's why I
don't appreciate it like everyone else obsessed with it.
Then it was back on the bus to return to the hotel for dinner.
Dinner was once again.... Well... Interesting. The bread was good as
always, and this time the soup actually was too. It was carrot soup or
something like that. Sounds gross but everybody actually liked it a lot! Then
we had a stuffed tomato, shniztel (spelling is beyond questionable) and a cream
topped rice. The tomato was weird, the rice was pretty good, and I still didn't
trust the meat because they still weren't sure what it was. I did pick the
mushrooms off the top though. For dessert they brought out another small glass
of what looked like frozen whipped cream topped with raspberry sauce. I was
super excited but took one bite and wanted to die. It tasted like bitter lemon
mixed with sour milk and pecans. Nasty. Everyone at our table had a different
opinion of what the flavor actually was. We heard everything from mocha to
orange zest to vanilla to pepper to soap. It was terrible. No one ate it. Swiss
food just doesn't measure up guys. We don't get a long. Yuck yuck yuck.
Then we headed upstairs to repack again for Germany tomorrow. So much
packing and unpacking to do when you visit four countries. Haha.
Overall a pretty good
day and a wonderful stay in Switzerland. I love how beautiful and peaceful it
is. I hope to come back someday soon. (:
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