July 7 – Hello or Guten Tag,

 

Arrived Zurich today in late afternoon.  First of all, as this is our first foreign trip in four years, I was more nervous than usual beforehand, certain I must have forgotten something important.  I had also read all the horror stories about crowded airports and tourist spots, as others, like us, start to travel again after a Covid hiatus.  So imagine our surprise and delight when we arrived at Tom Bradley Terminal at LAX to find it nearly empty.  

 

No lines to speak of.   When it was time to board everyone just flowed on through to the airplane.  No showing of boarding passes or passports.  A camera took a picture of us as we went through.  Apparently, that is all they need to know who you are.  A little spooky when you think of it.

 

We actually arrived in Zurich close to 4 years to the day from the last time we were here.  There was a city-wide street music festival then and there is one now.  I had forgotten about this.  We heard wonderful bands and singers as we walked around the city center.  The music included an ethereal group of haunting melodies, sort of slow yodeling by beautiful voices.  There was also a country American style group who did My Achy Breaky Heart, a 29-piece accordion band playing German folk tunes, and a marching drum corps, among other performances.  

 

Dinner was icy cold beer, bratwurst, and Swiss chocolates!  I forgot to say it is about 90 degrees.

July 10 – Switzerland as Model Railroad

 

Because of Switzerland’s extensive rail system, we planned to do this trip by train. And so Irl downloaded a wonderful app that showed all the trains, their schedules, all the stops along the way, and even which track to board the train on.  We therefore showed up. at the train station in Zurich to take the train to our next destination, which was Lucerne.  The train came in on time (of course) and we got on.

 

When they made the announcement of all the stops, I did not hear ours.  I told Irl that we were on the wrong train and had to get off quickly.   We grabbed our carry-ons, descended from the second level, grabbed our suitcases, and threw everything and ourselves off the train.

Irl asked a station agent where our train was and was told that the track had been changed. When we got to the new track, we saw our train just leaving the station.  Irl re-checked the app and saw that the app had updated the track information, but we had not re-checked it.  Lesson learned.  This being Switzerland, there was another train to Lucerne in 30 minutes, and we took that one.

 

Lake Lucerne is a large, multi-part lake.  It takes three hours for the steam, paddle-wheel boats to wend their way across the water and through the passages between the mountains which connect the various parts of the lake.  We love this ride, which we have taken before, and find it very relaxing.  

 

When we got off at the end yesterday, there was a train station at water’s edge, (are you surprised?) with a train which we took back to the city. That ride took an hour.  One of the stops was Kussnacht, which is where Tina Turner lived until her recent death.  Since the land slopes up steeply, I am guessing she probably had a beautiful lake view.

 

 Switzerland, its trains, and its scenery are as beautiful as we remember pre-Pandemic.  It is so nice to know that some things stay the same.

July 16 – Switzerland and the Swiss

In my next life I want to come back as a Swiss.  We have now been in three different cantons, each with a different language and culture, and in each one everyone has been unfailingly polite and kind. If you step off the curb, even in the middle of the block, cars always stop to let you cross.    When we went to a pharmacy to ask directions, the pharmacist left the store, took us across the street and escorted us to the tourist office.

Everything is clean, no trash anywhere, and lots of public bathrooms!!  Those are also immaculate.  The scenery in each place is gorgeous, multiple mountains all around, and numerous huge lakes, criss-crossed by many and different kinds of boats.  All of this is linked together by a clean, reliable and frequently-scheduled train system.

In this future life of mine, I would live in the French part of Switzerland, so that I could also easily get to France, which has the same language and culture but where the people aren’t as nice (being French in this life, I can say that.)  I would study German and Italian - easily available here - so I could talk to my fellow countrymen.  

Funny encounter: we had an Italian driver, who had been in the Italian part of Switzerland for 3 months, and we asked him how Italian Switzerland differed from Italy.  Oh, he said, it is much the same, except here everything works.