The Adventures of Michelle and Her Mother (Part 3)

Mom and I spent Friday in the Southern part of Switzerland in the resort city of Lugano. This city is in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland and borders Italy. It is a beautiful city on the lake and has palm trees all over. Unfortunately, we had a very rainy day, but enjoyed it nevertheless. We spent the afternoon browsing the old downtown and the shops and toured the beautiful city park on the lakefront. We ended our day with a ride up the funicular to the top of Monte San Salvatore.

The next day, we took the train across the border to Milan, Italy. There was an immediate difference in the cleaniness between the two countries and we were suddenly a lot more uneasy. We both had all of our valuables secured in a money belt as Italy is known for its pick pockets. Immediately upon arriving in Milan, a gypsy stole 20 Euro from me. She insisted on helping me buy tickets for the subway and I couldn't get her to leave. I paid at the machine with a 20 Euro bill which the machine rejected because it was too large. The gypsy had positioned herself in front of the place where I inserted the money and when it rejected it, she took it. After a little shoving and such, I grabbed it out of her hand and mom and I left.

Naturally since we were in one of the world's fashion capitals, we spent the day shopping! We also managed to see the magnificent cathedral, Duomo di Milano, which took five centuries to complete and is the fourth-largest church in the world and a 14th century castle, Castello Sforzesco.

Another difference between Switzerland and Italy...our train home was delayed, first for 15 minutes and then for 25 minutes and then it broke down in the middle of nowhere and we had to wait for another train to take us back to Switzerland. By the time we got home, we were over an hour late. This does not happen in Switzerland. Everything runs like clock work.

Well, my mother has made it home safe and sound and now Corey has arrived. Between my visitors and school work I am extremly busy. I love hearing from you guys...comments, emails, phone calls and I'm sorry if I don't have time to respond to all of them, but please don't stop!!

The Adventures of Michelle and Her Mother (Part 2)

As mentioned in my previous blog, Monday my mother, Koryn and I went into Zurich to watch the Böögg burn. It burnt in 12 minutes and 54 seconds! That means a nice summer in Zurich and actually, the weather has been beautiful here.

Tuesday we spent the afternoon in a charming little town in northeast Switzerland called Appenzell. From there, we took a short ride to the tiny town of Stein to visit the cheese factory (Schaukäserei) there. Once we were done looking around, we enjoyed a plate of different types of cheese produced in the factory and I had a beer from the Appenzell region...delicious! Of course we had some adventures during the day, including witnessing a fist fight that was eventually broken up by the police.

Wednesday I took my mother to yoga. It was her first experience with it and not exactly what she was expecting. She thought it was an hour and a half of meditation, not standing on your head and contorting in all sorts of different positions. Needless to say, she was quite sore afterwards and spent the evening in the bath tub :)

The Adventures of Michelle and Her Mother (Part 1)

My mother arrived safe and sound last Thursday. Since then, all of the airports in Europe have been closed due to an ash cloud caused by an erupting volcano in Iceland. God help me if they aren't opened by next Monday (her scheduled departure)...just joking of course...sort of :) We've had a VERY busy weekend. Friday we met Tatjana and Koryn for lunch at a traditional Swiss restaurant (Sonne). Turns out my mother isn't a huge fan of Swiss food. After lunch we toured a medieval castle, Kyburg, that dates back to 1027. We finished mom's first day off with a trip to the Irish pub, Paddy's where she met my friend Christian.

Saturday we took a train ride to the capital city of Switzerland, Bern. We went on a self guided walking tour and took in many sites including the Parliament building, the apartment in which Einstein was living between 1903 and 1905 when he discovered the theory of relativity, the Bern cathedral and ended off the tour at the bear pits where there is a mom, dad and two new cubs...so cute!

Today, we had breakfast at Fotostiftung Schweiz, the photo art gallery across from my apartment and then took in Marianne Breslauer's collection that was created between 1927 and 1938 (http://www.fotostiftung.ch/index.php?id=25&L=3). After that, we took the train to Zurich where the spring festival, Sechseläuten was taking place. Today was the children's parade, Kinderumzug. Tomorrow afternoon is the adult parade of the 26 guilds in their historic dress costumes, each with its own band. I will be unable to attend because I will be in class, but my mother may make her way into Zurich for the afternoon to see it. The festival finishes off tomorrow evening with another Böögg burning (which we plan to attend), similar to the one at Fasnacht that I attended in Winterthur in February. We ended our day today with a boat ride on Lake Zurich!

Enlightenment

This weekend I had the unexpected pleasure of attending a public talk on Universal Responsibility and Economics by...the Dali Lama! I didn't even realize that he was going to be in Zurich. With no radio or television I have almost no idea what is going on in the world around me. Anyway, he was very down to earth, humorous and enlightening of course :) Perhaps the most interesting part of the whole event for me was the audience. I loved how they nodded and clapped in agreement at everything he said, such as peace, loving kindness, equality, etc and then went right back to scowling at the person next to them for who knows what. Have to love hypocrisy. I on the other hand didn't nod or clap...knowing my flaws all too well :)

In other news, my mother will be gracing Switzerland with her presence in less than three days! I'm sure they'll be some interesting posts to follow...

Vienna, Austria

Christian and I left Thursday evening at 22:40 on the night train to Vienna. It was a long trip (10 hours), made longer by the very uncomfortable, upright seats we unsuccessfully attempted to sleep in. We arrived in Vienna around 7:30 Friday morning, and dropped our bags off at the hostel (Elisabeth Guesthouse). It was very old, smelled a little, and was run by an odd, older couple...but it grew on me. We headed to a charming, little cafe (Konditorei Cafe) that was only a few minutes walk from our hostel. We enjoyed a really great breakfast and some conversation with the elderly regulars. We ourselves became regulars every morning except the last one. After a breakfast of two buns, a soft boiled egg, swiss cheese, ham slices, coffee, and OJ (all for 6.20 Euro), we took a ride on Wiener Riesendrad, which is a giant ferris wheel in Vienna. It was originally built in 1897 and rebuilt in 1945 after it burned down in 1944 during WWII. We spent the afternoon napping and then headed to Stephansplatz, which is a square in the center of Vienna, for a tour of St. Stephen's Cathedral and supper.

We spent the second day strolling around Hofburg Imperial Palace, which has housed some of the most powerful people in Austrian history, went to Schmetterling Haus (Butterfly Garden), and then shopping. As per usual, I couldn't find anything to buy.

Sunday we went on a horse carriage ride, went to an outdoor market (see video) that was situated where Mozart had his first public concert and did some more sight seeing. Monday morning we went to Mumok, a modern art museum and took in the most recent exhibit, Changing Channels. That was the end of Vienna for us. I found the city overall quite impressive. The buildings are all huge. I don't think they do small in Vienna.

We had a pretty fun train ride home. Our cabin had us, a crazy couple, a priest and a very shy English lad. We spent the last half of our train ride in the dining cart having a few too many beers with a couple from Lichtenstein who offered to let us join them. Christian decided to pretend that he was from Canada also and didn't speak German. Apparently it was quite funny for him because they were saying quite profane things to each other.

I hope everyone had a great Easter. I did miss the turkey and trimmings, but I filled up on plenty of delicious Viennese pastries instead :)