| Saturday, February 19, 2005 |
| Switzerland |
Every town we stopped by in Switzerland we went to the local branch of Bucherer there and got souvenir spoons with the name of the town printed on it. There’re 3 of us, so in total we have 12 spoons (well, teaspoons really) already. Zermatt, Interlaken, Berne, Lucern. At first it’s interesting and the spoon is quite nice, but after a while it gets boring and then you find that they sell it for 18 francs for 6 pieces. El Cheapo. Haha. The actual cost of production must be much lower than 3 francs.
My favourite is Berne, for the Bear Pit. Live bears in there! Dad bought food to feed (from on top of course, high up) and they turned out to be mostly fruits. Haha. Well I donno what I was expecting, meat?? Me and my parents were at the smaller side of the pit (there’re doors separating the pit into two) where there was only one bear. Dad got the bear to sit up for food. Seriously, when the bear looks up expectantly I’m reminded of Angel. The look is the same! What I call “the pathetic look”. In an affectionate way of course. Our guide said sometimes the bears will even dance for you. Hmm. It’s cute and all, but somehow quite degrading. At least they’re well fed.
Jungfraujoch was one word: freezing. I quite enjoyed my time in the Ice Palace though, we took some silly photos there. I slept on the train on the way down.
Our last night one of our members missed a step going down from the bus and fell and sprained her ankle. They had dinner served to her room by the waiter. That was before they called her and told her not to be alarmed if some guy comes and unlocks her door (she couldn’t get up to open it and he had the key) and to dress properly, and a few dirty jokes. Haha. Later they took her to the hospital where they waited for very very long and paid a lot for that visit. 400+ swiss francs, which is slightly more than S$400.
Dinner that night was salmon in sweet and sour sauce and rice. One of the guys doesn’t take fish, and our guide was annoyed that he hadn’t mentioned it earlier. In the end he ordered chicken, but then the waiter came out with 2 plates of chicken for some reason. Nobody else wanted it so I think they took it back. Later our ‘homemade ice cream’ (according to the menu) turned out to be orange sorbet. Very sour orange sorbet. Someone joked that if it hadn’t for Eric (name changed to protect the guilty) our sorbet wouldn’t be so sour. Lol. The menu deserves a mention; either it was printed on paper sponsored by Bucherer (this shop that carries Rolex exclusively) or our meal was sponsored by them. By the way, it’s pronounced Bookerer not Butcherer! Haha. My dad was pronouncing it that way the first few times.
The lifts in Italy and Switzerland are all really small compared to here. I wonder why? Their people are so much bigger! We only stayed in one town/city each day, so that means we only stayed in each hotel one night. And every morning and evening would find us trying to squeeze ourselves and our luggage into the almost ridiculously small lift.
Switzerland wasn't as interesting as Italy I think. Maybe cos' I was really homesick (more like peoplesick!) then and the last couple of days I was really sick - cough, sore throat, runny nose, constipation, cramps. I was quite the cranky monster really. On the flight home I acquired 2 ulcers on my tongue, so now it hurts to eat and swallow. Though when the plane touched down at Bangkok I immediately felt a lot better. Home was near. I'd survived 10+ hours on a plane feeling absolutely miserable for the most part. The temperature outside was 35 degrees Celsius outside - unforgiveably tropical. I took some secret satisfaction at how the angmohs would just fry outside. Lol. Well we freeze in your country, you fry in mine (well close enough!). We're even. |
posted by esther @ 6:58 PM  |
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