Switzerland the Jinxed

We’re in Switzerland now, and I’ll address that fiasco in a minute, but I haven’t blogged at all about Munich! So here goes…

The morning we got to our hostel after our crazy overnight train, we got to shower and hang out while waiting for our free walking tour, which was really nice. And we were right next to a huge supermarket and huge organic supermarket, so we had yummy food the whole time. We got escorted to our walking tour in the FREEZING cold. Like I mean 1 degrees cold. We were wearing our pants, sweaters, hoodies, and rain coats, and we were still frozen. It even snowed for most of our walking tour! It was pretty, but cold. We promptly bought cheap mittens from H&M afterwards! And I got a really cute touque. Mom had put her back out a bit, so we found a beer hall and had beer, pretzels and mustard and it was really yummy. The beer didn’t warm us up at all though, so we went back to our hostel for a quick nap and then more beer. Our hostel was cheap, so we drank there as often as we could. Good beer, and really good sangria lol.

Day 2 in Munich we went to Dachau. Dachau was really similar to Sachsenhausen in Berlin, but the tour was still good and informative. Our tour guide was funny, but sobered right up for our tour. On our tour was a bunch of Canadians, two Germans, a tall Aussie (6’8!) and an older Greek guy who couldn’t speak English. Our tour guide was trying to talk to him before the tour, and managed to understand that his father had actually been imprisoned in Dachau and died there. The man was welling up just talking about it, and he took lots of photos. That just made it all the more real, it was sad. Anyways, it was a good experience. After the tour we got some beer (surprise) and hung out with Josh, the tall Aussie. He was buying gloves and I was buying new headphones in another store, and we lost each other! We planned to meet in the middle, but we never found each other again. Josh, if you’re out there, we waited but never found you! Sorry about that!

After drinking more beer and sangria at the hostel, and feeling quite good and warm lol, we went to a sushi place recommended by our hostel. I’ve been craving sushi for about 40 days now, so we ran to the place. We got there and there was no sushi menu, so we asked. “No sushi, too late,” we’re like, ok, it’s 7:30 it’s not that late! So we asked what time they were open in the morning, as we wanted to get sushi to go for the train. “No, no sushi now, too cold for sushi.” That’s a new one! Too cold for sushi. Alrighty then! Guess I’m not getting sushi till I get home! After grabbing another beer at our hostel we went to bed.

Our train the next day was at 12:30, so we got up and walked to the market that we had seen on our walking tour. It was a good sized food market, and lots of venders had dips, oils, and food out to taste. We found one vender with TONS of olives, dips, and other veggie stuff it was so good. Next we found this cute little man selling vegan dips and pesto. He pointed us in the direction of their big tent, and we got to try all these different vegan dips and pestos, vegan cakes, breads, and cookies it was so fun! On all their jars are pictures of different animals and they say, “The animals thank you” in German! So cute! Mom thought it was so cute she cried a little. No kidding. But I’m pretty sure it’s all just a part of her going through the change, so I just let her go. We ended up buying a creamy Italian dip and ate it with our tomatoes on the train.

Our train to Luzern, Switzerland took 5 hours, and we crossed two borders, Austria and Switzerland. We sat next to a really cute guy who helped everyone one with their luggage, so I had a good time haha! Once in Luzern, we struggled to find our bus, and a bus driver ended up helping us buy our tickets and get on the right bus. It only ended up being 2 minutes down the road; after all that waiting we could have walked there twice! After checking in we went down the road to grab some soup for dinner at the Co-op. Oh my goodness the prices here are UNREAL. It is SO expensive. We’re now in the Swiss franc currency, so its basically the same as the Canadian dollar. To give some examples, our 2 oranges were 2 CHF (Swiss francs), a small box of take-out sushi was 11.90, and a teeny box of cereal was 9.90. Like a teeny box. Crazy! The thing cheap was water and beer, but we accidently bought fizzy water so we couldn’t even drink it! Ef. Our jaws were dropped the whole time in that grocery store. At Starbucks, a tall, plain latte is 6.90. !!!. A starter of samosas at the Indian restaurant next door is 8.90. I could go on it’s crazy! Anyways we got some Mr. Noodles for 1.20 (as opposed to 25 cents at home!) and had dinner at our hostel.

We hardly slept last night as the 2 boys in our room snored like mad, but we got up this morning and got ready for a walking tour. After finally finding a bank machine that would accept my debit (they all were telling me my card was broken, and my backup card!) We found our walking tour and joined in. 5 minutes later I think we both realized it was a mistake. The lady was nice and all, but it was a German and English tour, so while she spoke for ages in German, we stood there in the rain and cold listening to gibberish. We hardly even walked at first! When we did it was like across the sidewalk, so we were freezing. And she was totally one-sided with the German language; she’d talk to them for 10 and then us for 5, and then announce where we were going in German and we’d just be herded off not knowing what was going on. Mom and I we’re contemplating leaving, when she said we were going into a church, so we did too to warm up. As we walked in I took off my mits and the strap of my camera went with it, and my camera fell screen down onto the floor. As I picked it up it looked fine, but it wouldn’t turn on. Even putting mom’s battery in it wouldn’t turn on. Not pleased. So so far, we’ve had expensive as hell food, no ATM’s that work, a stupid tour, and now my cameras broken. Great. And nasty weather on top. Oh, and the plugs here are different than the rest of Europe, so we can’t charge anything, and mom can’t do her hair. Scary place to be right now! The only pluses have been cheap beer and a really cute town.

We wandered off on our own after the church, both pretty depressed and cold. We stopped into Starbucks to get tea, and a tall was 4.10! No thanks. Instead we made our way to a veggie café/store and luckily they had amazing vegan soup that cheered us right up. It was like carrot, quinoa, squash and potato soup, perfect for a day like today. After getting warm we hiked up the old city walls and got a decent view besides the weather, but it was fun and we were definitely warm after! We then got a bunch of souvenirs and went and saw the Lion Monument, which is one of the things Luzern is famous for, as well as it’s water tower. The monument was really cool, set unto the stone in a hill, with a pool in front of it and garden around it. It would be a nice place to picnic if the weather wasn’t crap!



We made our way back to the hostel, hoping to have some wine, pay for our rooms, and head to the train station. Mom sees a sign saying the reception is closed until 5 pm, and they had my drivers license because we still hadn’t paid! We thought we were jinxed or something, as the whole day seemed to be going wrong. Luckily the girl was just upstairs and came back down a few minutes later so we got to pay! Now were drinking the rest of our wine, and soon we’ll head down to the train station and go to Interlaken. If you’re reading this before Oct. 20th, post on my mom’s face book and tell her to go skydiving with me in Interlaken! I think it would be amazing, but she’s way to chicken. She needs encouragement!! Back in 16 days!