Munich to Lausanne

July 3, 2011

First night in a dorm bedroom in a hostel was interesting.  The girls who had gone to sleep at 9:30 woke up first, and as soon as they left, susan and I woke up and did our thing while the two other people were still “sleeping”.  It was really awkward trying to be quiet when we were trying to pack our bags, transferring all our purchases from the day before out of the loud plastic bags into our luggage.

i loooooove reading!  and listening to music.  simultaneously.

We made our way to the train station to figure out how in the world we were going to get to Lausanne, as I only had an address, no phone number to Rachel, and just hoping she was expecting us from my email late Friday night.  A nice info man from the train station gave us an itinerary and instructed us to go validate our EuroRail passes.  As we stood in line, we filled in the parts we thought we had to fill in.  When we spoke to the German lady (and let me tell you, she fit the “strong like bull” german broad stereotype – very scary), she told us we had filled it in wrong and had to get new passes for 30 euro each.  That was an expensive mistake.  It also put us behind schedule, and we pretty much made it on the train and 2 minutes later it left.  We were scheduled to go to Stutgartt and transfer trains there.  We barely made it, as the train arriving was late.  Zurich was next.  The platform number was wrong, and so we wandered around for about 15 minutes trying to figure out what was going on.  We figure it out, and barely made that train as well.  We spent enough time at the station, though, to really want to stay more time in Zurich.  It was such a bummer that we had to leave so quickly – the views were gorgeous, and there seemed like there was so much to do. 

Modern Train...

old train

a coffeed cassie is a happy cassie

Zurich Train Station

I want a roof like that!

I am in love.  with train stations.

The trainrides were amazing.  The only way I can think of to describe the views is to call them pristine.  Everything about Switzerland was pristine.  The water was a beautiful greenish blue, the bridges modernistic, the mountains perfectly blue, and the random nuclear powerplants startling. 

It was hard to take good photos thru the train window - it washed the photos out... but it looked amazing in person!

YEEEEEEIIIIKES!

Arriving in Lausanne was interesting.  We had no clue where Rachel’s house was, so we came out of the Metra, and low and behold – there was a map right there with a list of street names and locations.  I took pictures of the map with my phone, and we made a bee-line for the ATM, as the Swiss do not operate on the euro.  Getting the money was super exciting, as the colors of the money were brilliant.  I just wanted to look at it.  All day.  But that was not a good idea, as we hadn’t really eaten all day, so we went to the McDonalds right next to the station and paid 11 francs for a big mac meal.  That is about…. $9.00.  Ridiculous.  But you will do whatever it takes when you are starving.  We then faced the GIANT hill, wove our way through the streets and found Rachel’s building.  She was not home, but left us a little note and money to call her if we needed.  We waited at her doorstep until she and her husband got home, and it was such a pleasant little street. Susan and I decided that we could totally live in Switzerland – we just had to learn French first.

 Rachel and Bryn were so kind and took us on a night walking tour of the area around them, and the place was HOPPIN’!  It was the last night of a city festival, so everyone was out in the streets enjoying the music and watching the really weird and random plays that were being put on.  We learned some fun facts about Lausanne:

Right across the lake was France, and the town that we could see was the producer of Evian bottled water.

Lausanne had a population of about 320,000 people.

It had a very famous and good graphic and interior design program right in town.

The Swiss don’t like Americans.  Go figure.

They like us better now because of Obama.

Unemployment is pretty much 0%.

Healthcare is free. 

Every Swiss man has been in the army – it is a requirement for them. Actives can be mobilized in about 30 minutes.

For every resident, they have beds in a bunker below ground, food and water prepared in case of a nuclear attack. 

The town was very close to sea level, so it didn’t get much snow.

You have to be a resident in order to acquire a bank account – and it requires about 25 different documents and a very long procedure to get one.

Apartments are very hard to find and require a 3 month deposit upon moving in.  They also have to know that you are debt-free.

Etc Etc….  They were very good tour guides.

We went to bed that night very late, and had epic plans for the next day….