Gone To Switzerland

Switzerland.

July 2, 2007

This was probably one of the best mornings I’ve had while being abroad. I had a great night’s rest and woke up refreshed. Then we walked downstairs to get some complimentary breakfast. It’s official, this has been the best hostel. The breakfast was very classy and I actually got enough to eat. There was cereal, rolls with butter, jam, and honey, various kinds of meats, yogurt, coffee, tea, fruit juice, fruit. It was soo good. I stole a couple apples for later. Then we paid for our two nights stay.

Then we went back up to our rooms to get ready for the day. I think most of the reason why this morning was so amazing was that we were going a at leisurely pace. I went back to the room, opened the windows, played some music, and stood at the window in my underwear. It was awesome. I think I got Bryan hooked on Coldplay. So we packed our stuff and headed out the door.

It was drizzling outside, but nothing unbearable and the wind felt really good. Our first stop was this castle church in Friedrichshafen. It towers pretty much of much of the town and I spotted it as soon as we got in yesterday. I don’t know much about it, but I really did like the architecture. We found our way inside, and I felt kind of out of place because there weren’t any people inside but us and this guy playing on the organ. But then again I really liked it that not only were we the only tourists in the place, but the only people there. The inside of the church was gorgeous. I really enjoyed it. Everything was so peaceful.

Then we walked around the grounds and found a secret garden, as Clair liked to call it. I wanted to go in, but there was a pretty tall wall. We followed it all the way to the shore. Bryan and I thought about climbing it, but chickened out. It turned out to be a good thing, because as we were walking away, this car parked out front the whole time just started up and drove away. This German dude was watching us apparently for a while.

So we made our way to the pier to purchase our tickets to get to Switzerland. We didn’t really know what we were doing so we found this ticket booth and were kinda looking around unil this German lady was like, “You want to go to Switzerland?” Us: “Jah” Lady “Well the ferry leaves in two minutes hurry shoo shoo.” So we ran onto this ferry without tickets, and tried to buy them on the ferry. Then the guy selling tickets is like, this ferry doesn’t go to Switzerland, tt goes to Constance, which is another German town on the lake. We all looked at each other and then I was like, “Exit the boat effective immediately!” Then we ran off right before it left. So then we walked around a little longer looking for the right dock and found it. We had the option of going to Zurich for a little more, but decided we didn’t have enough time, so we bought our ticket to Romanshorn, and then killed sometime before getting on the ferry. The security is pretty ineffective. Rebecca and Bryan walked right in and no one asked to check their passports. But Clair and I got stopped. Oh well, I got a stamp, nice. We were all very excited about going to Switzerland. It’s like what did you do to day? Oh nothing just went to Switzerland for a day, no biggie.

So we started out on the upper deck of the ferry. It ended up being a little too cold with the wind and rain, so we went down to the middle deck. This guy who works on the boat approached us and started talking to us. So apparently, he has two daughters both of which are studying in England as well. He lives in Germany but he has family in the states. His English was really good. Anyways so we told him about our study abroad experience and what we were doing in Germany. He was also telling us how the weather is supposed to be like this until Friday, which is the day we leave. That’s just great. Apparently the weather is a bit freakish and unusual. Then he proceeded to ask us why we were going to Romanshorn. We told him we just wanted to go to Switzerland. He was like, well Romanshorn is basically a dead end there is nothing to do there. We should have gone to Constance (which we didn’t do because we got off the ferry) or we should have gone to Zurich (which we didn’t do, because we felt like we didn’t have enough time). So basically we didn’t do anything right. He had to go back to work, but later came back kind of excited and started telling us about what we could do instead of Romanshorn. We could take a train to San Gallen (Saint Gallen I think Gallen means rooster so Saint Rooster) which is not that far from Romanshorn and has a lto more to offer with the old city centre, historical buildings, and shops. That sounded a lot better, so we took his advice. We got off the train and bought our train tickets to San Gallen.

Relevant tangent: Switzerland is kind of messed up. First of all, the speak Germany. Well at least they do in Romanshorn and San Gallen. Also their national currency is the Franc. What the heck. France doesn’t use Francs anymore. So why don’t they use the FREAKING EURO. This is irritating. Resume blog.

I really love how we do things on the fly. We don’t have much planned. We have an idea of what we want to do, but our ideas are so fluid and things change instantly.

So the train ride took about 45 minutes. I fell asleep per usual. When we got off, the first order of business was food. We found a tourist information center and asked for locations of historical attractions, shops, and restaurants. This younger girl who worked their was telling us about a fondue place that she really loved. We figured we might as well go get some Swiss food while in Switzerland so we made note of that. Then I remembered the last time I was in Switzerland, I bought this awesome Swiss army knife, one with like a metal grated cover. I don’t know where it is anymore, so I wanted a new one. Plus I need one to replace the one that the English police confiscated from me. This is my goal for today. So we asked this other lady about like a Swiss army shop and she directed us towards some sort of military store. Ok, so we had our bearings and we were ready to go. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the melting pot in Austin, but it’s pretty freaking expensive. But I was curious to see if it was cheaper here. Fondue here we come.

So the first thing we did when we got outside the doors was walk in the wrong direction. For about 20 minutes. Awesome. I don’t know what happened since I usually just follow, but it was fun anyways. Turns out we ended up near the military store that the older lady was telling us about. Except they didn’t sell Swiss army knives. Instead they sold automatic weapons and sniper rifles. Ehhhh.

Eventually we got to walking back in the right direction for a ways and found the old city center. The fondue place was tricky to locate but we didn’t mind walking. Bryan and I stopped in every store with a knife in the window looking for it, but were usually let down.

There is no difference in price between fondue in Switzerland in Austin. Screw that. Random food stand it is. We found one inside the deli. We all hat a bratwurst and Bryan, Rebecca, and I got some pasta. My food was surprisingly good. Rebecca’s noodles tasted literally like plastic. Sucks for her. Haha just kidding. We shared some of our food with her.

Now that we had some food in us, we were ready to go. Then we headed to the Cathedral of San Gallen. Before I get to that, the landscape of San Gallen is awesome. If you look not very far from the town center, you can see these massive steep hills with buildings and such going up them. I really wanted to go run up a hill, but only if time permitted. Ok so the cathedral. Didn’t know much about it, but I liked it. There is seriously a cathedral everywhere I go that just blows my mind. There was some sort of event going on later that week, so there was a lot of construction inside going on. But there was a huge massive dome and everything inside was gorgeous. I took pictures.

From there we walked around and looked for a bathroom. Bryan and I found these fenced off port-a-potties. There was no one around, so we moved the fence and relieved ourselves. These were some nice port-a-potties. They had sinks in them with a foot pump for the water. Nice. The girls kept looking.

Ok drinking water fiasco. So we found this one court yard that had this statue and two fountains under it. One shooting water upwards, and one spouting it out. I see a sign that says ‘Trinkwasser’ above the one shooting water upwards and I get excited. Trinkwasser sounds like drinking water. NICE. Anytime I see free clean water I get very excited. How am I supposed to fill up my water bottle. Answer: the one spouting it out. This one says ‘Klein Trinkwasser.’ Nice, clean drinking water? I felt it, it was cold. My life was complete. So I fill up my water bottles (plural) and ‘trink’ until I get full. All the while Bryan is on the phone, so I offer him some water and he drinks a lot. We tell the girls about it and we all walk to get some free water. Then it goes downhill. I see Bryan refilling my bottle on the one that shoot’s water upwards. I’m like Bryan, just use the spout. He’s like no, that’s not drinking water… Uhhhh What? Apparently the sign says ‘Kein’ not ‘Klein’ which means NOT in German. And ‘klein’ in German doesn’t even mean clean. I was like uh… oops. Bryan then looked at the bottle he just drank from and was like, “Damnit James.” Rebecca and Clair had a good laugh at this. I told them about the klein and they laughed at me some more. Ok so I realize my logic was off. I was just too excited to think. Here’s my question. WHY DO YOU DISPENSE NON SANITARY DRINKING WATER IN A VERY ACCESIBLE MANNER TO DRINK FROM? I CAN’T READ GERMAN. So Bryan and I had some bad water. At the moment I feel fine, and I haven’t got sick yet, knock on wood. I’ve had the water in London, the metal water from DAMTP in Cambridge, the water from fountains in Rome, the tap water in Paris, and now God knows what water in Germany. I must have a really strong immune system. Either that or now I have tapeworms. We’ll Bryan and I have tapeworms. Freaking Germany.

So then we headed to this library near the cathedral. Oh my God. I never could have imagined this place. It’s not very big, but it was gorgeous. I think this was how it was laid out in the past and has survived over the years. The place was basically frozen in antiquity. They preserve the floors by making you wear these huge slippers over your shoes when you walk in. Felt kinda goofy. Slip n’ Slide. There were no pictures allowed inside sadly, which greatly hurt me because it’s amazing inside. The shelves are filled with old texts, books, and atlases. I can hardly imagine the wealth of imformation they must have in there. They even have a mummy in there, I don’t know why. I love how everything was made from wood and the ceilings were ornately painted.

From them library, we walked around shops looking for some Swiss chocolate and Swiss army knives. There is a famous chocolate store in San Gallen but it’s closed on Mondays, of course. Every so often I would try to find the base of he hill but kept getting stuck at another building in my way. We found a grocery store and went inside to buy some snacks. Then we walked around some more. Eventually Bryan and I found what I was looking for. The Swiss army metal pocket knife. NICE. We each got one. I also got a ball cap with the Swiss cross on it, and Bryan got a lighter for his brother. This really made my day, I cannot explain my excitement. The girls went and got some pastries too. We are always eating, I love it. So we walked around a little more before catching the train back to the ferry.

The ferry ride back was breathtaking. The rain had stopped, and the clouds were breaking up here and there. The rays of sunlight were cutting through the clouds onto the water and the visibility was virtually endless. Gorgeous. Again, of course as we were leaving. We stayed on the top deck and watched the scenery. Bryan and I got bored and started doing pull ups. I know I’ve gotten weaker, but hey 27 pull ups is still good enough. Then it was the girls turn. They get an A for effort. Just kidding, they did good. Rebecca ended up grabbing onto Clair and like squatted her while she did pull ups. Pretty funny.

When we got back, we found the grocery store that the Chinese lady from the restaurant was telling us about yesterday and went inside for snacks and such. I bought water and a thing of apple juice. I love apple juice. We all bought lots of candy. I got the sour glow worms. And the sour coke bottles. We also got various snacks and Bryan got some body wash. Oh we were highly amused that vodka in Germany is wodka since they have no ‘V.’ We decided to split a bottle of Jagermeister. Bryan and Rebecca’s idea. I don’t like licorice much, but we’ll give it a try. There were these German kids that kept saying Konicheewah to me because they thought I was Japanese. Oh well, I didn’t care. I think Bryan may have given them the finger.

Apparently the store closes at 8 and the entire store was like herding us out. I think they were annoyed. No wonder they don’t like Americans, whoops. At the counter while we were paying, something catches my eye. It was a 2 gigabyte Kingston SD memory card for 16 Euro. I was like UHHHHH isn’t this a really good deal? Answer yes. This comes out to be around $25.50 American, which is a great deal considering mine cost around $27 off Amazon. I’ve been really annoyed since my 2 gig card broke the third day in London, and I’ve been having to use a 512 mb and 256 mb cards that I have filled completely on certain days. This tops everything. I am so happy. How random that it was in the impulse buy area of random German market. So from here we need food for dinner. Always about food.

We decided to go back to the Doner Kebap place that we had gone to yesterday. It was really good, cheap, and there was a lot of it. When we got there, the couple was so happy to see us. Bryan and I each had a pizza and a doner kebap. Clair and Rebecca split a pizza and a kebap. We took a couple pictures of them, then we walked back to our hostel. We sat in my room and ate the food while watching Russell Peters. He’s a comedian. Then we watched Talladega Nights on my laptop as well. Bryan and Rebecca have never seen it. Shake ‘n Bake.

After the movie we sat around and talked for a while then went to bed. Tomorrow we are off to Ulm, the birth place of Einstein. Pretty exciting. For some reason, I don’t want to leave Friedrichshafen. There’s surprisingly a lot to do here and I am so comfortable. The people are all so nice, makes it hard to leave.

Goodnight Friedrichshafen,

-James