Cliiimb every mountaaaaaain

Okay, so I know it's been awhile since I last posted, and I have a TON to post, but I'm going to go one adventure at a time. And, since I think this is something that absolutely can't wait, this particular post is going to be about a place called Flüelen (at least, I think that's how it's spelled?).

So on Saturday, a bunch of us left early in the morning and took a train to the city of Flüelen. The train ride was, once again, indescribably gorgeous. I tried to take a video through the window, but that didn't really turn out, so I'll just let you imagine all of the mountains ringing the lakes, framed by the bright blue sky and a few fluffy white clouds floating in the background. I was facing the wrong way for most of the ride, so I kept having to crane my neck around to see the mountains...once, this little old woman sitting across from me tapped me to get my attention and point out the most breathtaking view.

Anyways, we arrived at last and got off the train to find this:

And it only gets better from there.

We walked a few minutes to the Seilbahn (gondola) at the base of the mountain, bought our tickets, and squished in to the tiny car.

The ride up was only a few minutes, but as we rode, we could feel the change in pressure almost instantly. The mountainside was green at first, but once we got about halfway up, a dusting of snow started to appear on all the trees, outlining each finger of the pine branches, and making them look like piles of Christmas cookies. Then, we came over a ridge and it transformed instantly into the perfect picture of winter.

Finally, we reached the top, and were met with several inches of powdery snow, packed on top of a much deeper layer. Most of us didn't have boots, so we all stopped to put plastic bags over our socks inside our sneakers, and then we were on our way. (Yes, I realize that this one of those times where I was woefully unprepared, with the possibility of disastrous consequences, but don't worry - it was warm enough that we were never really in danger of frostbite...when the sun was shining, it was pretty warm, and we made sure to stop and warm up before our feet fell off ^^)

We trekked for awhile through the snow, stopping every few minutes to take more pictures of the unbelievable sights surrounding us, and tried to follow a trail that would lead us over the highest point of the mountain, past a restaurant, and to the Seilbahn on the other side. All in all, the hike was supposed to take around two and a half hours, but we kept getting lost at the beginning, and had to stop practically every other person who passed to ask for directions, so in total it took us at least four hours.

But it was totally worth it. Everywhere I turned my head, there was a view that was just breathtaking. I took about two hundred pictures, which of course don't even come close to capturing what I was seeing, but there were a few times when I just had to stop looking and stare at what was in front of me.

After a couple hours of wandering through the snow, we finally made it to the Spitze - the highest point on our mountain. That's where it literally was breathtaking.

I hate the phrase "words cannot describe how [adjective] [noun] was..." because I'm a firm believer that there are and always will be enough words in the English language, not to mention the hundreds of other languages at our command, to effectively describe anything in need of description. But, standing in the middle of all of those mountains, I was honestly left speechless. "Beautiful" or "breathtaking" or even "wunderschön" can't come close to aptly describing what I was looking at.

If you're reading this, you may know what I'm talking about and be able to describe it better than I can, because my words really are failing me. I had expected to feel small and insignificant in comparison to the huge forms around me that dwarfed my tiny human existence...but I didn't. Instead of being diminished, I felt almost bigger, because it was as though I was being extended beyond myself, expanding to fill the vast space in front of me.

A badly-done panorama that sort of shows what I was looking at...more photos to come!

My favorite picture from the Spitze

Anyways, we stood there for awhile, and I don't know about everyone else, but that's when I started to lose feeling in my toes. We talked to some really outgoing Swiss people, one of whom yelled at us for not being properly dressed to hike in the snow, while his companions handed us a plate of snacks. Then, in a race against freezing, we ran down the slope in the direction of the restaurant we had planned to stop at.

Moral of the story: don't 'snowshoe' in canvas sneakers

Just a few minutes later, though, we came to a tiny shack that looked almost like a private cabin. We had no idea exactly what it was, but it was warm inside and we were cold outside, so we clambered in and sat down around a table.

Inside, there were two tables with benches around them, and a separate room for the kitchen. We ordered hot chocolate, and then after we had some time to warm up a bit, some people ordered lunch. I shared some of an Alpenkäseteller (plate of Alp-cheese), which was delicious and turned out to be made by the owner himself! Another family and a pair of older women shared the tables with us, and they were all really friendly and really talkative. We spoke for awhile about our home countries and about Switzerland or the weather, until finally we were warm and full enough to venture back out into the snow.

On this side of the mountain, the snow was much deeper and we kept sinking in, sometimes up past the knee. But the sun was shining, and we could see our destination, so we marched onward.

All too soon, we came to the next Seilbahn and it was time to go down. We all squeezed in, and rode through what could have been a scene from a movie. Shortly after the snow-green line, the line ended and we had to transfer. This car could only hold four people, so half the group went ahead, while the rest of us stayed behind to take more pictures of the postcard-like view, and to buy some Alpkäse.

Homemade by a woman who lives at the top of the mountain!
(and for the record, it's delicious)

At last, we were all on the ground and started on the bittersweet journey back to Zürich. As we passed through Altdorf (on the way back to Flüelen), though, there was a band playing "Call Me Al" at the foot of a William Tell statue, that made for a celebratory end to the day. [Sidenote - after some Googling, it turns out the legend of William Tell is really important to Switzerland, because he started a rebellion in the 14th century. He wasn't from Altdorf, but the entire town is filled with William Tell memorials because it was the site where Schiller's play William Tell was first performed.]

Sorry for the bad quality, I took this one through the back window of the bus

There should be a slideshow down below of the rest of my pictures that I didn't want to include here...there will probably be a few duplicates, because I made it before writing this post. Can someone let me know in the comments if it's not working?

Click to view slideshow

Alpine Adventure Feb 22

So I guess, to conclude this very long post, I'll leave you with this Ohrworm:

One Short Day in Luzern!

Wow, it's been awhile since I last wrote. I have a ton of new things to share, but in order to keep from overloading you all with pictures, I'm just going to make this post about my weekend. As you can see from the title, I got to go to Luzern!

It's known in English as Lucerne, I think, and it was about a 45 minute train ride from the center of Zürich. We got on the train at 9:30, and then got to ride around Lake Zürich and against the mountains in the morning sunlight...My neck started to hurt from craning it to try to take in every sight through the windows!

One view from the train window

All together, there were eight of us (all but one were from my dorm), which I think was the perfect number, but it got kind of problematic when we realized that we had each been expecting someone else to have a plan. We stepped out of the train, and then stood in the station for awhile looking at each other, trying to choose our first direction.

Luzern is getting ready for Karneval, so the
station was filled with these displays

This one was my favorite!

In the end, we picked up a map at the information services and decided to follow the self-guided tour listed inside. (Awfully convenient - I hope the rest of the cities have these too!)

Our first stop was the massive gate outside the train station, and then we walked along the river for awhile...

The gate! 

I'm not sure what he's reaching for but it all looks so intense!

The Kapellbrücke One of the two wooden covered bridges that
cross the lake. This one is from the 14th century! 

The Wasserturm, which once was used as a jail,
archive, and treasury vault.

There were swans everywhere! And they would come right up
to the humans. They're beautiful but I'm not gonna lie, they
scare me a bit...

It was a beautiful day, so we walked by tons of stalls where
people were selling the most delicious-looking things...

Did I mention that Switzerland is gorgeous??

We finally crossed the river at the second covered bridge, which was built in 1408, destroyed by a storm in 1566, rebuilt in 1568, and then partially burned down in the 1990s during a football riot. Inside are signs to represent the different Guilds of the city, and the red Kuppel is a sort of shrine (which is really hard to see in the pictures).

That was one of the two main attractions we had come to see, so after we crossed it we wandered almost aimlessly through the streets, looking at fountains and pretty buildings and trying to follow the red line on the map.

A pretty building

Down by the waterfront on the other side of the bridge. There
were more markets here selling meats, cheeses, and even plants!

After that, we trekked further into the city to find the Lion, the other main attraction of the city (and the only one I had heard of when I started out on the trip). It was carved in 1820 to commemorate the massacre of the Swiss mercenaries in 1792 during the French Revolution. Supposedly, there is another animal hidden in the sculpture, but even after staring for ages, none of us could see it.

It's really moving, though - the longer you look, the more details you start to notice, like the fact that the lion is lying on the shield that represents france, or that the lion's face looks like he's really in pain, or that the spear sticking out of his side is broken off at the top. Supposedly Mark Twain called this the most moving sculpture, so I guess there's something to it!

After staring for a long enough time to all agree that whoever claimed there was another animal was out of their minds, we went back towards the lake to get lunch. Meals are crazy expensive here, and it was a beautiful day, so we went to Coop (a supermarket) and bought some things, and then headed to a park next to the lake.

I swear I forgot for most of the day that it was only February - the sky was crystal clear and a bright, summery blue, and the air was surprisingly warm, as high as 15°C (~60°F)! And as we walked along the lake, I simply could not stop taking pictures:

Ahhhhh I can't even handle these views!

By the way, here are some pictures of the lovely people I went with:

The last stop left on the walking tour was the cathedral, which was - again - really beautiful.

And then, before we went home, we went to get gelato, which we ate sitting on the edge of the lake, our feet dangling over swans and ducks, and a surprisingly hot sun sinking above us.

So that's Luzern in a nutshell! We only spent about 5-6 hours in the city, but I think it was definitely enough time to get a pretty good feel for the city, and to see all of the most important things. And, of course, we spent a good two hours (at least!) just staring at the alps and the lake...and everything was Swiss and nothing hurt :')

Eine Stadtfürhung durch Zürich

Don't worry, that's almost all of the German I'll be using in this post.

Today I joined a bunch of exchange students on a walking tour of the city through Free Walking Tours Zurich, which I'm going to go ahead and promote here with highest regard because they don't charge a cent and they're really good. As you'll see, we got to explore most of Zurich's old town, and it was fast-paced enough that it wasn't boring, but not so fast that we got lost in all the historical details. SO if you're ever in Zurich, "Free Walking Tours Zurich" is the way to go!

I also learned some Swiss German:

Hello - Gruezi!
Thank you - Merci
Excuse me - Scusi
Most common quantity of beer (I think? It's like 3dl or something) - Stange

That's all I remember. I'm sure there were more phrases, but I can't think of them now, so I'll have to get back to y'all on that...

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for... Pictures from the tour!

This is the largest clock face in Europe - it's
8 meters in diameter!

I don't remember which street this is, but isn't
it just so European?!

The view from Lindenhof(platz?) - one of the highest places
in the city. Those huge grey/green buildings in the back are
the universities - on the left is ETH and on the right is UZH.

Me, in front of the city, with the alps in the background WUT

One of 2,000+ fountains in the city, each of
which is open to the public as drinking water!
(You can see a boy filling his water bottle at this one)
At the top is an armored woman, as a tribute to
all the city's women who dressed up in armor
to scare away an invading army (in the 1400s?)

The house where Lenin once lived! We had to fight off a pile
of Russian tourists to be able to stand in front and take pictures...

"Here lived Lenin, the leader of the Russian Revolution, from
February 21, 1916 to April 2, 1917"

This is the building of a major guild (Zunft), and on it are the three
main flags - Zürich's on the right, Switzerland's in the middle,
and the flag of the Züricher Guilds on the left.

Plaque on the side of the Voltaire Cabaret bar where Dadaism
was (according to the Swiss!) first founded.

This is the most controversial statue in the entire city - it depicts
some ancient mayor who was brutally murdered, but was built
in the 20th century, so it's considered far too modern for him.
Apparently every year the Swiss newspapers call for it to be
taken down.

More Alps!

So, as you can see, a very productive tour. I also learned about the two churches from my last post - the one with the clock tower and green roof is called the Frauenmünster (women's monastery, loosely translated), and was created by a king in 853AD for his daughter, back when the city was just a forest and a few houses. More and more women came, and as a whole they held complete power over the city, making its decisions and helping it to grow into a real city. In the 13th century they handed over the power to the Guilds, and now the site of the old monastery is a church with gorgeous stained glass windows (no pictures allowed inside the church, or I'd have a million to show!) that has been rebuilt many times because of fires and floods. We got to go inside for a few minutes to look at the stained glass, and there was an organ playing a really familiar-sounding piece, which I couldn't quite name. It was surprisingly pretty, though! Ask anyone who went on the Austausch with me in 2010 and you'll know that I tend to despise organ music in general, but this piece sounded really joyful, and the acoustics were great - not too echo-y, but still able to maintain the chime-like quality of the top notes. Anyways, I think I'll have to revise my position on organ music, because this was actually beautiful.

The other church, with the two towers, is called the Großmünster (large monastery, loosely translated) and was commissioned by Charlemagne when - as the story goes - he was riding through and his horse stopped at that spot and refused to go any further. He got off the horse and asked some locals if there was any significance to the spot, to which they replied that there was an old story about two people who had been executed on the other side of the river, but after they had been beheaded their bodies stood up and walked across the river to this particular spot, where they fell down and died. Charlemagne instantly concluded that they must be saints, and built a church there.

We got to go inside that church too (again, no pictures) and the stained glass there was even more interesting - some of the windows were filled not with glass, but with pieces of geodes (or whatever those glassy colored rocks are called) all held together by clear glass. It's both really pretty and really unique, but the longer you stare the less they start to look like rocks, and the more each circle starts to look like an amoeba or some sort of bacteria...and then it just gets weird.

Oh! I forgot to mention that yesterday I took a different bridge than usual across the river, and found all these different locks around the side of it. I really want to hear the history behind it, because there are locks on almost all the bridges I've seen so far, but never quite this many:

A lot of them have hearts or initials on them, but some of them seem more solemn than that, and as I stopped to take pictures I started to wonder what the story was behind each of them. What makes a person (or people) decide that this is the right lock, and that it needs to be forever locked to this particular spot? I guess the more pressing question, though, was Where can I find a totally unique lock so I can add my own to this bridge?