February = travel month. Zurich, Bern, Interlaken, and then Vienna, Austria… oh, and Gruyère to a cheese factory. First weekend: Zurich
Zurich is the big town in eastern Switzerland, very much in the German part of the country and much younger and more alive than Genève, hamdollah (sidenote: French-speaking girl living in Geneva traveling in German-speaking Zurich missing Morocco bazaaaaf. Waaaah). It was an adventure from the start, as to save a bit of money we decided to shove 7 people into a hotel room for two. The two boys slept on the floor—how chivalrous— and we planned to only leave and enter the hotel once, on Friday, and then leave for good the next day. Mission accomplished: we dropped off our stuff and then left for the night, walking around Old Town Zurich, passing groups of young people laughing together and restaurants and bars with people spilling out onto the cobblestone streets. We ran into a man wearing a blonde girl’s wig, dressed as a female Viking, and walking with a group of women and babbling in German. He came up to us, realized we didn’t speak German, and said, “Oh, I’m getting married!! It’s my last chance to have fun! Please buy something to help the cause!” He was selling brownies, shots, pictures with him, and kisses from him…. We took a picture. It was a great start to the night.
After wandering for a while—past an extremely talented a cappella group and other street performers—wandered into a very traditional German-Swiss restaurant, and ate the country’s third national specialty: rosti, hash browns covered in melted cheese, an egg, and ham. Delicious, again! Our waiter and some locals sitting at the table with us gave us suggestions for the rest of the night, so we explored the Zurich night life—paid a ridiculous amount to get into the “discothèque”, the “young” place to go, as opposed to the “old” place where we had planned to go. It was a lot of fun, but probably won’t be paying that much to dance ever again.
When we woke up, we left the hotel (in groups of two and three—we were never caught once J) and had a picnic breakfast on a park bench near the train station. Then we started our museum/sight-seeing day: Swiss History museum, with some very very old history; walking tour of the river banks and the old town with some spectacular views from the top of a elevated park; a stop at a river-side café (great people watching…); and a beautiful church with geodes as stained glass. We also got caught up in a protest against Moubarak, fed some ducks, and got free maccarons. We ended the day with another traditional German dinner, delicious sauerkraut and brocht. Train back to Gland, home to sleep. But the weekend wasn’t over—Sunday, I went to a performance with my host family and some extended relatives and friends. Front row seats at a dance/theater performance by Charlie Chaplin’s grandson! It was fantastic, and so great to spend time with the family in an artsy setting. Between this and the street performers, I realized how much I had missed performances. One of the things that I had missed most last semester being in Morocco (see “Senegal” entry, where I’m pretty sure I raved about Piazza Navona for quite a while).
Back in Geneva for two days, then off to Bern for our first program trip. Bern is the capital of Switzerland, and is located in the German-speaking part. The Old Town is actually a UNESCO protected heritage site, for its “city planning”—the main three cobblestone streets are parallel, with these little alley ways connecting them. And lining these parallel streets are the “arcades”, little weather-hatch-type doors, like cellar doors outside a house leading down into shops and restaurants below. We got into Bern and I immediately got a sandwich made out of a pretzel, with herb butter as a filling… yummmmm. Pretzels are huge in Bern, it appears. We went on a locally-led tour of the city, to the oldest church in Bern with very ornate and detailed sculptures depicting figures from the Bible, heaven and hell, adorning the main entrance. We also passed by Parliament, which sits on the edge of a hill, and looking over the ledge you can see the rest of the town stretching out below, including the History Museum with a huge Einstein exhibit (a Bern local—his house is in the Old Town). That night—and for most of the trip—we had free time to do cultural observation, or sightseeing/doing touristy things. So we went to a micro-brewery/restaurant located right over the Bear Pits. Bern is known for these brown bears… the Bern bears. They were sleeping at night, but I saw them from afar during the day.
The next day, we had three hours of lectures in the morning, up in a turret of an old chateau, and then the rest of the day free for more “cultural observation”. The lecturers were actually very interesting; one man from the Swiss government, one from SDC, a Swiss development aid agency, who spoke about their projects in Nepal and Afghanistan, and a Swiss military commander. After the lectures, we found some bread and cheese, went to sit on the big ground-area in front of Parliament in the sun, and then explored some more. We climbed to the top of the bell tower of the church in the Old Town as the bells were going off at 3pm, and saw a spectacular view of the Alps in any direction we turned. After climbing back down, we tracked down a gingerbread store that our tour guide had told us about—gingerbread, actually a “hasselnuss” spice bread—typically Bernise, with the Bern bear outlined on the bread with icing. That and a strong European coffee in a tiny shop in the Old Town cobble-street-y area was the perfect way to spend the afternoon. The big clock in between the Old Town and new town was made in the 1500s, with intricate carvings adorning it and arranged in a little circle (mirrored in the fountain sculptures and carvings on the buildings lining the Old Town streets), which turned a number of rotations on the hour, depending on the hour. This clock also has astrological “clocks” on it, tracking the planetary and lunar movements. All of this was made in the 1500s… it was so impressive.
That night, I took a tram up a small mountain with some friends, and we walked around up there as the sun set. Being that high up on a mountain, looking down at Bern stretching and expanding all around us until it couldn’t go anymore because it ran into the Alps, was a humbling feeling. It was like being in the Sahara again, that feeling of being very very small and insignificant in the face of this natural creation, but in a different climate and with a very different atmosphere. The sunset was beautiful—we chased it around the mountain, and watched the frosty blue sky turn orange and pink and purple. Back down the mountain tram, and then we met up with a friend’s friend who is from Bern for dinner. Another delicious meal of rosti, and off to this friend’s roomate’s brother’s friend’s concert… when in Rome. It was so much fun, and a great way to see a different side of the city, to see a local show in this converted horse-stable in Bern, and talk with some locals (something I unfortunately don’t do very much here, yet anyways, being with a pack of Americans and a very full school schedule).
Friday, I went to an art (“kunst”) museum with some friends, and saw a huge variety of art, from impressionist Monet to Rothberg’s to modern multimedia pieces. I could have spent so much longer in there, but we had to re-convene at the train station for those students going back to Geneva. I had plans to go to Vienna, Austria with some friends, and our train didn’t leave for a few hours so we decided to take a train to Interlaken to fill the time! (This is a really unbelievable semester, take 2) It took about an hour to get there,, and we spent about two hours walking around town; Megan, my resident German-speaking friend here, talked with an elderly lady for a while who was prepared to give us a tour of Interlaken herself, but directed us instead to go to the café at the top of a hotel. Hang gliders just scraped by the windows of our café, looking like they were having the time of their life, floating through the snow-covered Alps. We could see the Jungfrau, home of the highest railroad track and station in Europe. Another beautiful view—I’m losing track of all of them. You can see a lake to your left, and one to your right, hence inter-laken, and the little toy village in between. We needed to get back to Bern to catch our next train, but managed to take a cab to a lakeshore as the sun was setting, turning the water and snow caps pastel pinks, purples, and blues.
Back to Bern, board train #1, switch in Zurich to train #2, and switch somewhere in western Austria to train #3 for the 8-hour over-night train ride. Rolling through the dark in a soft red compartment with gurgling German and loud laughter outside the compartment door, the past six months really took a hold of me, and all of the incredible places I have been and things I have seen and done piled up in my head, overwhelming me and making me tired but at the same time more excited to keep rolling on and seeing and doing more, leaving me in the end just feeling incredibly, incredibly lucky to have had this year that’s not even over yet.
We arrived in Vienna at 7am, and started our marathon day. Half of the group was staying in a hostel, and it wasn’t open yet, so we went to a tiny neighborhood café, traditional cheese pastry and strong black coffee for breakfast, and got some advice from the elderly man who owned the place. At 9, our room wasn’t vacant yet, so we changed in the reception area bathroom and went out to meet our other group of friends for a tour led by one of them who is studying in Vienna this semester. We started out in one of the main downtown subway stations (how I’ve missed subway systems…) and walked around the main shopping street, with high scale clothing stores and specialty food and glassware shops. We saw the famous Vienna Opera House from the outside, and the Stephensdom Cathedral, probably the most impressive old church I have ever seen besides Notre Dame in Paris. It was beautifully intricately carved on the outside, and painted and embellished and stained-glass-ed inside. Horse-drawn carraiges lined up outside, ready to take tourists around town; past a quaint old section of town, marveled at the varied architecture and colors of the stone buildings; walked to the old Hapsburg empire government building/palace, with an old copper statue of Goeth outside, then walked further to realize that before we had been looking at the back of the building, and the front was this elaborate curved, pillar-ed construction, with the Spanish riding school through an archway that led out into a cobblestone plaza. We also wandered around the Parliament building—likewise intricately carved and decorated on the outside, and the Burgh Theater.
A lunch of traditional Viennese food and delicious locally made beer, and then on to the other Hapsburg palace. We admired this impressive, yellow, sprawling building from the grounds and then inside, which was set up as a museum. We took a quick tour through, through the old rooms re-created to look the way they did in the time of the Hapsburgs with all of their princes and princesses and state rooms and music rooms. Note: I had forgotten until I arrived that Vienna is the seat of classical music—Mozart, Beetohven, Schubert, and others were represented everywhere.
After touring the Hapsburg palace, we finally went to our hostel to check in, set up our beds, and shower. Then we took the metro to see the big Ferris wheel in the main Platz (plaza), one of the symbols of Vienna. It was all lit up at night, which was beautiful although somewhat creepy to be in a deserted amusement park at night. I rode on the Ferris wheel with a few other girls, and when our car stopped at the top you could see the lights of the city, with the major buildings and areas illuminated. From there, we went to the Sacher Hotel’s café, where we each ordered the famous Sacher tort, an un-earthly delicious chocolate cake with real whipped cream. We spent the rest of the night exploring the nightlife of Vienna, and returned to the hostel late at night, our numbers having dwindled throughout the day. As you can see, it was a jam-packed, over-exploding day full of seeing Vienna. Instead of going to the Belvedère art museum the next morning, for two hours before we had to catch our train back to Geneva, I decided to sit at a café and see Vienna a different way; I enjoyed a traditional Viennese mélange, coffee with milk and a bit of cream on top, and watched people going about their Sunday things. It was the perfect way to end a trip, and on the train ride back it started to snow as we were leaving the city, lasting most of our way through Austria. We saw another incredible sunset (number 3 of this crazy week), as the sun dropped behind the mountains and over the lakes when we were back in home-sweet-home Switzerland.
This weekend, a friend from GW visited me in Switzerland, and we spent Saturday traveling to, around, and back home from the town of Gruyère-- as in the cheese. We took a train through the foggy mountains and arrived in Gruyère, and saw the Maison de Gruyère cheese factory right outside the station. We walked through the factory, where you can view exhibits on the cheese-making process, and also view people making new cheese through a glass wall. We walked around with free samples of gruyère cheese aged to varying degrees, then took a local train through the mountains to the town of Broc, to see the Maison Cailler chocolate factory. Unfortunately we were to late for the tour, but ended up walking around the huge chocolate shop and having a coffee.
I am about to get off a train in Brussels, going on our second and last school trip to Brussels and Paris this week. What a trip, what a month, what a country, or continent, I suppose…
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