Lakes, mountains, and cowbells

As of Saturday, I am now in Freiburg, Germany and am already living with my host family – all is going well. But I am really behind on the blog since I didn’t feel like paying for internet access when I was in Switzerland last week. So I am catching up first. Here’s my attempt to do justice to three busy days last week in 1 post….

Thursday and Saturday - Zurich

Exploring Zurich was incredible. Zurich has (by one magazine's measure) the best quality of life of any city in the world (see the article here). When you're here, it's not hard to see why. First of all, the buildings and streets are beautiful, as is the lakefront. Here’s a taste of the city:

A view of the city from the Lindenhof, a hill used as a former Roman military checkpoint

Small winding pedestrian streets in the Altstadt (Old Town)

It's striking how everything is so clean, organized, and incredibly efficient. Trains never run late - when they are 1 minute late (which is not even late by American standards) people are grumbling at the train station. Trams, cars, bikes, and pedestrians all share tiny streets, but everyone follows strict right of way rules and it all works out. Everyone on the street religiously follows pedestrian traffic lights. On crosswalks without lights, cars will always stop for you, no matter how inconvenient it is for them - but if you try jaywalking, you will be either be cursed at or crushed.

 

Sharing the road	All hail the pedestrian traffic signs

But there's a price to pay for all this beauty and order - literally, a price. Everything here is expensive – yes, even more expensive than the rest of the Europe.

Friday - Lucerne

The highlight of the trip was definitely Lucerne (Luzern). I’ve always wanted to hike with a view of the Swiss Alps, and so I made that my first task in Lucerne by traveling to Mt. Rigi.

My expedition to Rigi started off with a boat ride across Lake Lucerne on a historic steamship. The views were pretty stunning on the ride, as we passed little towns and huge lakeside mansions.

View from the boat on Lake Lucerne

Then I took a cogweel train halfway up Mt. Rigi. I got off at the station, and I heard this ringing sound. It sounded pretty cool, but I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. Then, a few minutes up the trail, I figured it out – there were cows with cowbells on the mountainside, the most stereotypical Swiss Alps scene I could have imagined.

Cows grazing on a mountainside – loved this view

The views kept getting more and more spectacular – here’s the view facing the north (away from the Alps).

The view to the north (and the town of Kussnacht)

Then I wandered around the city of Lucerne, especially famous for its famous covered bridge, the Kappelbrücke (Chapel bridge), which is still standing from the 14th century. It’s also famous for its frescoed buildings, may of which are also from the 14th century or earlier, and of course its own view of the mountains and the lake. I won’t bombard you with pictures of each of these here… but I’ll have a full album up soon on Picasa.

Before I can finish up this entry, I have to make a quick note about languages in Switzerland. It’s pretty amazing - everyone in Switzerland is multilingual (even moreso than other Europeans), since the nation has 3 major languages - German, French, and Italian (and a fourth if you count Romansch, though it's hardly used anymore). And of course, English is often a common middle-ground for locals and tourists alike. Then of course, tourists speak all sorts of languages. I heard tons of Hindi—apparently Indian flock to Lucerne. The total effect of this is pretty cool - walking around the city, you hear an incredible number of languages and dialects, even from locals. Many of the tourists I saw were actually Swiss, but they didn’t know German (only French and Italian) and were having a hard time finding their way around just like I was. Every major announcement is usually done in at least 2, if not 3 or 4 languages.

Last thought: The German spoken in Switzerland is very strange. The Swiss German (Schweizerdeutsch) spoken there sounds completely different from regular German - and it’s unintelligible even to fluent speakers of standard German (Hochdeutsch). Obviously, then, I couldn’t understand a word of real Swiss German when I heard it – but many people spoke a mix of standard and Swiss German, or just regular German, so I could get by.

That’s all for now!