My European Trip – Lucerne & Mt Titlis – Day 2

Where is this in America?

Intro         Day 1, Zurich

I woke up early on Wednesday to get a complementary breakfast that I paid for at the Hotel Adler. When talking to the staff who asked me “word, word, Kaffee, word, word”, I used my go to “Mein Deutsche ist Schlecht,” which inevitably has the European person saying, “it’s ok, I speak English.” There were no eggs for this free meal and they wanted to charge 7 Euro which I declined. I decided to eat a shit ton of bread, a hard boiled egg, and some multi vitamin juice. Everyone, literally everyone, says “morgen” when they greet you.

My tour was today so I dressed in my warmest gear which included two pair of socks, long underwear pants and shirt, jeans, sweatshirt, and my jacket. I walked over to the HBF to buy a train ticket to Innsbruck, Austria which cost about 100 Euro for the next day. I wandered over to the bus station where I got on the bus and awaited for the tour to begin.

Selfie with the Lucerne dying lion.

We set off to see the city of Lucerne, Switzerland which is about an hour away from Zurich. It was freezing cold. We arrived in Lucerne and saw the dying lion which was about 30 ft wide and incredibly detailed stone work. You can read more here. We were given some free time to walk around and Lucerne was a truly beautiful city. I also spent a few Franc and bought a Swiss pocket knife in the white color, which is exclusive to Switzerland.

After Lucerne we traveled another 30 minutes to Mt Titlus. I got in a cable car with 2 gentlemen from India and fully expected them to be able to talk which each other. As such, they both spoke broken English because there are 1,000 dialects of Hindi (I’m guessing on that one). We arrived to the top of Mt Titlus and rode a lift chair around the mountain. I struck up a conversation with a girl who was from Austin and on a Euro trip for the past 6 weeks. I also met this Australian bro who was on a complete bender and said he was partying at the hostel until 5 in the morning last night. The Indian guy I met was hilarious as well. I asked him to take a picture of me and this is what he took:

There was a cool suspension bridge that led to the best shot of the Alps that you can see. The $150 I paid for the tour was worth 10x that for the views. Truly unbelievable mother nature. After this I met another Indian dude who was once a lawyer and was now a pastor. He was telling me how Americans don’t believe in God because they are wealthy and have few needs, whereas people in India all need God because they are poor.

Video of the Top Across the Suspension Bridge

We headed back to Zurich and I made one bone head move. I should have asked the girl from the US what she was doing after, because I had zero plans and I imagine she was in the same boat. It wasn’t even so much that I wanted to bang her as it felt like my social obligation as an American. Oh well. I ended up going back to the hotel and fell asleep at about 10pm. Once again I awoke at 1am and tossed and turned through the night. My train the next day was scheduled for 7am so I had to get up early. Next city, Innsbruck.

By |2017-01-27T06:53:28-05:00January 26th, 2017|My Life|1 Comment

My European Trip: Zurich, Switzerland – Day 1

Pretty sure these colorful bills are for Monopoly

Without getting much sleep on the plane, I knew it was going to be a long day. I got into the Zurich Airport at around 8 am and had no issues clearing customs or getting my bag. I knew that Switzerland used the Franc and I would have to exchange some Euros for it. I swapped out 200 Euro figuring I’d need it to eat and get around.

My first unusual encounter began immediately with getting on a train to Zurich Main Station. In German, Hauptbahnof means main station and is designated by HBF. I went up to the Kiosk with a line behind me and must have missed the English translation button and purchased a random ticket to a random destination for a few Franc. I boarded a train heading in the right direction and fortunately it didn’t matter as the airport is about 5 minutes away from the main station and no one asked me for a ticket.

Hotel Adler

When I got off it was cold. Not like regular cold, but cold where if I didn’t have gloves on, my hands would start numbing. I used Google Maps and walked to my hotel. Another tip to travelers is not to waste your phone battery on long flights. Google Maps is the easiest way to find a hotel without relying on other people. The Hotel Adler allowed me to check in early and I got showered and cleaned up before I began to tour the city. The accommodation was small for $125 a night but modern and clean. I give a 5 star rating to the Hotel Adler for their professionalism and service. The shower also had a door instead of…nothing. If you’ve been to Europe, you know the shower I’m talking about.

I decided to walk around a bit to get my bearings and managed to head right back to the HBF. Near this location is the Bahnhofstrasse which is one of the most exclusive shopping destinations of Europe. What I sort of understood, but didn’t really get, is that Switzerland is one of the richest and most expensive cities in the world. Near the HBF was the National History Museum which I toured and was not that impressed. I then went to the Fifa Museum which was completely overpriced (24 Euro) for the 45 minutes that I stretched. Gourlay and Brookes would have died and gone to heaven. Argentina is ranked 1 in the world and USA is Here is a short clip of some jerseys.

I ate a Bavarian Pretzel with some salami off a street vendor which was delicious. I imagine this took me to around 1pm and I hadn’t slept in over 30 hours so I decided to go back to hotel to re-charge the phone and take a nap. I got up at about 3pm and put all my winter gear on for another venture out in the cold. I went to the Zurich art museum which was interesting to say the least. I know very little about art but without a question, Pablo Picasso and Monet paint the most impressive pieces.

After that I ate a Currywurst from a vendor near the HBF and kept wandering around. I eventually found the Lindenhofplatz, and the University of Zurich, which produced some beautiful pictures.

I was still beat from the day and called it a night relatively early around 9pm. I watched some TV, lot of Storage Wars and Pawn Stars are on, and fell asleep. Unfortunately for me I woke up at around midnight and tossed and turned until around 3am due to the weird schedule. My initial impressions of Zurich was that it’s clean, expensive, fit, and nice to live in.

By |2017-01-25T17:27:14-05:00January 25th, 2017|My Life|2 Comments

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