All the excitement happened on Thursday afternoon. It was actually a rough day for me because I realized I bought opera tickets (La Traviata, one of my favorites!) for the evening of my train ride to Switzerland, which I booked a few weeks in advance. I was set to go with Dejan and Tim, friends from Duke and UVA, respectively (although Dejan has an international connection, I'll get to that later). So... i was really annoyed that I would have to choose between Switzerland that I'd already paid for and the opera with my family. I ended up going to Switzerland after talking to my family. I'm actually still kind of annoyed at how it happened - it is so hard to plan in this country! Wait- I'm generalizing. I'm just a bad planner, that's it.
Speaking of plans, I'm going to the train station tonight to drop about 250 euro on train tickets. Emily Igo is coming down from London (she's a BC friend studying there this semester)and we're going to Torino for Easter, followed by Genova, Livorno, and Roma. I may go to Firenze on the way back to Venice, but we'll see. Emily has booked all the hostels so it's up to me to make this happen. ATM, here I come (gulp).
So anyway, I'll get back to the Swiss adventure. I got on the vaporetto with Tim and Dejan with more than a few qualms about the trip, and here's why. We had a train running through Milano to Luzern, but our stopover was only 5 minutes (which is no time at all especially since Trenitalia is always late). But on top of that, we had no place to stay in Luzern and no places would let us check in at midnight, when we were set to arrive. So it was a really shaky situation. Like I was worried.
Anyway, we were all thinking it, but as American men, we couldn't say anything. We went to the train station, realized our train was already running about 10 minutes late, therefore eliminating any chance of us making our connection in Milano. The train ride was nice though, and the three of us played a makeshift version of Scattergories (although Dejan protested our adding "Movies" and "Musical Groups" since his cultural experience is different from Tim's and mine. He grew up in Croatia, moved to Germany for ten years, and then came to the US). So we got into Milano and went to the Trenitalia office (the Milano train station is beautiful, by the way). We weren't expecting much from the Ferrovia dello Stato. BUT guess what? They put us on the 9:00 train to Zurich in the morning (we'd have another connection to make to go to Luzern) AND they booked us in a nice hotel in Milano for FREE! This was incredible because we had no place to stay up until that point for Thursday night!
We checked into the hotel. This was Thursday, for reference. It was around 9:00, and all of us were really tired, but we decided to go downtown and check out some of the main sights of Milano, like the Duomo, which is the 3rd largest church in the world. We were in bed by 11.
The next morning, we caught our train, no problem. The train ride was beautiful! We went by Lago di Como, which we would've missed entirely if we'd traveled by night. Another fortunate consequence, we figured. But our luck didn't last - the train was somehow 20 minutes late, so there was no way we'd make our connection to Luzern at Arth Goldau. So we just continued on to Zurich. At some point, lakes turned into mountains and signs were in German, not Italian. Also, the train conductor spoke over the loudspeaker first in German, then in Italian. Dejan is fluent in German though, so we knew we wouldn't have any problems.
When we arrived, we checked for hostels. The one in the center of the Old Town was full, so we decided to stay at the Jungenherberge (?) which is a pretty famous and VERY nice hostel about 15 minutes outside the center. We spent the afternoon walking through Zurich, getting some lunch, gazing at the view of the Alps from the bridges, and walking along the water of the Zurichsee. We also got some AMAZING Swiss chocolate - literally, the best I've ever tasted. For dinner, we ate at a pretty traditional German-Swiss restaurant. We all ordered the veal sausage and potatoes. It was kind of funny because it was so full in the restaurant that we sat at the same table as these two Swiss women. Dejan talked to them in German a little, which was really helpful (he was asking directions or something) and I could follow some of what they were saying. But it made me miss Italy because it's so easy to understand everyone there!
So the next day we took the tram from our hostel (breakfast was included - lots of bread and cold cuts, a German thing I think) and went to a suburb of Zurich to "look for some Serbians." I know this sounds weird, but Dejan is Croatian, and the languages and cultures are really similar. He knew that there would probably be a big Serbian gathering at some club in Zurich that night, so we walked around, looking for Serbs, I guess, and we found one! Dejan asked this lady if she knew where the clubs were, and she said, "What? You mean you haven't been? I don't know where they are but my daughter always goes!" So after some chatting and internet research, Dejan found out that the famous Serbian singer Mile Kitic was singing at Grodoonia, a discoteca pretty far out from the center of the city.
After that little mission, we went to the base of one of the small mountains near Zurich, and started hiking. It was SO steep at the beginning. And it was also ICE cold in Switzerland - I had on long sleeves, a sweater, my coat, scarf and gloves. So as we hiked, all of those things became unnecessary - we were practically running to the top. Oddly, there was a playground up there. We continued on toward the summit, where there was a lot of snow and ice that made the climb a little tricky (don't get any romantic ideas, technically we were climbing the Alps, but it was really more like hiking in New Hampshire, or whatever. And we only spent a couple of hours, like three, so it wasn't even as big of a trip). But the view was AMAZING! We reached the summit, took a lot of pictures, watched the hanggliders in the sky and got some food. There was an observation deck that offered a great view of the city and the Alps in the distance, past the Zurichsee. We were exhausted though, so we took the train back down the mountain. Weak, I know.
Following our alpine excursion (wow, I did that!) we went back to the Old Town and ate at a restaurant that the two women recommended the night before. We got the spaetzle, which is kind of like pasta with cheese and a little baked, so a little brown. It's not as good as the pasta I've had in Italy but it was warm and tasty, perfect after the mountain climbing. I should mention that by this point we'd changed hostels - now we were staying conveniently at the downtown place.
After dinner we caught the train from the Hauptbahnhof (main train station) to a suburb of Zurich where there was supposedly this Serbian Club called Grodoonia. Dejan was leading us, and we asked for directions, but not many people knew where it was. It was about 9:30, so dark, and we were walking along some pitch-black roads in the country. Like literally, cow pastures. Anyway, we found a hotel right next to a McDonalds and Dejan went in to ask for directions. Tim and I waited outside, but here's what happened. Dejan (in German): "We're looking for Grodoonia, and we can't find it. Do any of you know which direction it is?" Man behind the desk (in Serbian): "Who's singing tonight?"
Next thing we know, the guy is driving the three of us down the road to this big building. The club was on the top floor, and we took the elevator up with some Serbians about our age. We decided to go in even though the entry fee was a little steep, 20 euro. The drinks were also prohibitively expensive inside. But the club was really cool, really suave. Everyone was dressed up so nicely! And Dejan kept pointing out the finer nuances, for example, "That's a Serbian cross that that guy's wearing!" So Tim and I really got an education. Mile Kitic didn't start singing until 11:55, so the party started late, and it was supposed to go until 5. We took a table not too far from the stage and really took in the scene rather than participating actively. The people there, we decided, looked like a cross between Russians and Greeks, which makes perfect sense geographically. Anyway, Grodoonia was really an unforgettable cultural experience for us. We stayed until 2 and then decided to call it a night.
We got on the train at 2:40, and decided to risk it by buying day train tickets instead of the mandatory night tickets. Which ended up being a bad idea when the controller came up to us and asked for tickets. Dejan knows perfect German, but we played the role of "tourist" in order to avoid an outrageous fine. The controllers made us pay the regular ticket price, however, which was a little bothersome - I literally had no more Swiss Francs after that, and didn't feel like changing any more money. We had bought a few things for breakfast the next day, but I had a weird feeling the next day wouldn't be as fun.
I was right - we had to check out of our rooms at 9, meaning we got a little less than 5 and a half hours of sleep. It was just awful, and we ate breakfast and ended up spending most of the day in the lobby of the hostel. We did get out later on though, and we visited the Frauenmunster church, where there are inspiring stained-glass windows by Marc Chagall. That was really a highlight of the trip. But literally, the last day in Switzerland we felt a little like vagabonds. And sooooo tired! Oh well, we just went to the train station and hung out for a couple hours before our train left. And WOW was it an incredible feeling when I got on the train and the woman next to me was speaking in Italian! I felt at home, actually. The train connection in Milano went over well, surprisingly, and we made it back to San Servolo by 1:40 AM.
This week has really flown by, that's all I can say. So I'm kind of skipping over some of the finer details to tell you all that I just made travel plans for this weekend! I'm traveling to Perugia and Assisi with three friends from VIU. And I just bought the train tickets for the epic tour of western Italy I'm making with Emily over Spring Break. Wow. Vi dico piu a dopo. A piu tardi!
Ciao,
Andrew
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