Switzerland is crazy expensive and it is nearly impossible to buy even breakfast for under 15 dollars, so we went to the grocery store the night before and ate our breakfast in our hotel room. We then walked around Lucerne a bit and found this really cool sculpture of a weeping lion. He's supposedly crying over the loss of all the Swiss guards who lost their lives defending the King and Queen during the French Revolution.
After walking around a bit, we decided to take the train to Zurich, since our overnight train left from there at 10:40pm. We couldn't have timed our arrival to Zurich any better. Right as we walked out of the train station, this enormous parade/festival started on the main street. The people in the parade were dressed in traditional Swiss garb, holding tons of flowers. We noticed that spectators would give someone marching in the parade a flower in exchange for three kisses on the cheek. Occasionally, the people in the parade would also give out flowers (no kiss needed if a spectator receives a flower) I got lucky enough for some man in the parade to give me a white rose with a pretty ribbon on it. Best parade ever!! The boys I'm traveling with kept teasing me, saying that I'd found myself a Swiss sugar daddy.
We walked along the parade route for an hour and a half or so and stopped to get these amazing fried apple rings. I gotta give Switzerland some credit- I thought taking something healthy and frying it was only something America was capable of. We noticed there was an enormous fire in the distance, so we went to go see what was going on. Turns out, there was a giant fake snowman atop a ten-story heap of burning kindling. Tons of explosives were going off, and the crowd went nuts when the snowman finally caught fire. Apparently the whole day was a celebration for the coming of spring. It was so exciting and a great way to spend our layover
We then passed the remainder of the layover reading our books at the train station. Once our train arrived around 10:20pm, we were shocked to realize our sleeper car reservations weren't sleeper cars at all. In fact, they were just 6 uncomfortable chairs in a very cramped space that we had to share with two old men. We decided it was worth the extra money to have our own private room with beds for everyone, so we paid up and moved rooms. The overnight train was an interesting experience! I'm just glad we didn't have to share our sleeper car with any strangers.
Liebevoll,
Katie
Picture: Zurich, Switzerland
Swiss sugar daddy? You're dead.
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