The Swiss Saga, Day 1: Some Cheesy Pun

And so, in the grand tradition of bringing you the latest news, days or weeks after it actually happens, I begin my series of short day-by-day descriptions of my academic vacation in German Speaking Switzerland!

On the day of, I woke up at 6 AM, fretted for an hour, walked to the train station in the windy cold, sat at the train station for an hour, tried to buy breakfast with a credit card but they only took cash, and wandered around looking for an ATM for an embarrassingly long time. When everyone showed up I found out to my dismay that pretty much everyone but me seemed to smoke cigarettes, in the same sense a scuba diver smokes compressed air. I got on the train and chatted with people, but mostly I just hovered on the edge of wakefulness.

When we got to Luzern, we deposited our bags in the hotel and went to lunch. Lunch which was a sort of potato and macaroni and cheese casserole of truly monstrous proportions. Afterward, we got on another train (this will be, by the way, the most train-intensive set of posts I will ever make) to Schwyz (Motto: “Th Tywn Wythyt Vywyls”) and took a walking tour. We saw the original charter of the Swiss Confederation, from 1291. As the day waned, we went to where any weary traveler in a new land would go: the cheese factory. Really. It was there that I found out all about the cheesemaking process, and that it is as complicated as it is disgusting as it is delicious. I also learned from a tour guide, speaking shaky English, that full-fat cheese can be used as a replacement for Viagra. Really. I say his English was shaky, but then again, I sure as hell couldn't say something like "our cheese cures erectile dysfunction" in any of the foreign languages I'M familiar with...

For dinner we were treated to fondue, made with homemade cheese. Of course, "homemade" in this instance means "made with various giant stainless-steel tubes and vats," but you get the idea. When we finally returned to the hotel, I went straight up to my room and passed out, possibly from some kind of cheese-related hemorrhaging. Interestingly, I would have been sharing the room, but my roommate, who is passionately (excessively) in love with his girlfriend who is also the trip, slept in her room that night and every night subsequently. It was mixed blessing, in that I got the room to myself, but that I was constantly reminded that I am alone...so very alone.

And now, time to inflict-a-pic or two from day 1 of my exodus into the hoary Teutonic foothills! They will be culturally enlightening and highly informative (or just immature pictures of funny German words)!

The square in Luzern outside the hotel. Some of the buildings date back to the 1400s, but most of them are younger than that, because apparently Luzern has fires ALL THE TIME. Seriously, I cannot count the number of times we were told, "...but then it burned down" over the course of our stay.


The store next to our hotel: Mephisto Footwear. The devil really DOES wear Prada!


Now THERE'S the money shot.