Day in the Life

Needless to say, after the BBQ party last night, today was not as early of a start. We were out on the road with Renzo by probably 11 AM. He basically gave us a great walking tour of Luzern. We walked the famous Chapel Bridge and then through the Old Town. Here, Renzo stopped by a Swiss bakery and surprised Laura and I with delicious bread with sugar and chocolate goodness. We were so impressed how quickly he got to know what we like! P.S. I am officially fat and I highly disapprove. Everyday I tell myself I'll start eating healthy, and everyday I fail. But I blame it on being surrounded by amazing chocolate and cheese. It is not my fault. From the bakery, we walked to the famous Lion Monument, which was so cool! It's a giant sleeping lion carved into a stone wall. All in one piece - it's just embedded in the wall. Really cool. Then we continued our wandering and dragged Renzo to some tourist shops so we could look for our collectible items. Finding a sufficient plate for me and a shot glass for Laura, we went to a grocery store to buy some drinks I'd read about as being very Swiss. There is one called Rivella which is a carbonated vitamin drink I think? It was really good! The other one is called Ovamaltine, which is a chocolate drink with vitamins. It pretty much tastes like chocolate milk, but better, because everything involving any dairy products is kind of guaranteed to be better in Switzerland. After walking over another famous bridge and seeing the extendable dam and river spikes we concluded our large circular walking tour.

Renzo's rugby game was next on the agenda. He is injured but we went to go support his team. The only other rugby game I'd seen was in South Africa from a stadium, so I was excited to see another game from the sidelines. Renzo gave Laura and I each a rugby jersey of his to borrow for the game. Then, since you can drink in public places everywhere in Europe, we brought along some left over beer from last night. We got to the rugby field and practiced throwing the ball around some more. Then we watched Renzo's team get completely annihilated by a Swiss-French team :( After the game, they had the most respectful handshake ritual. The losing team formed two lines that were facing each other, and the winning team walked in the middle and got congratulated. When the winning team was on the other side of the tunnel, they formed a tunnel themselves and the referee walked through the tunnel, followed by the losing team. It was so nice! I've never seen after game handshakes like that.

Then, I guess it is typical for the home team to invite the away team out for drinks after the game because it is a "gentleman's game". So we ended up back at Gracie Kelley's Irish pub a little bit later. The rugby boys showed up in white rugby polo shirts with ties! Very classy. I thought it was really cool how they left everything on the field and then just hung out and had a beer with each other after the games.

We had to leave after having a beer to get ready for Raclette! Yes, that's right, Renzo made Raclette for us. We were so excited to have this amazing meal again! Renzo invited another CouchSurfer and his girlfriend (they met via CouchSurfing...3 years ago haha) and Dave over for dinner...and there was also some other random guy who I still don't know his name or why he was at our dinner? He just kind of appeared. Anyway, I finally got a chance to tell Dave that I had a boyfriend, so he quickly (mostly) lost interest in me and Laura took one for the team the rest of the night. Hilarious for me to watch. Laura I don't think was so thrilled about it. She was just thinking...'dude, seriously? I just watched you hit on my friend for like a day. Seriously?' Boys are so funny and dumb sometimes...

So dinner was amazing. Laura and I both sat on the other side of the table away from Dave and enjoyed delicious melted cheese with bacon poured over warm potatoes, along with the pickles, onions, and baby corns like what we had at Roman's place. Man that meal is amazing! I want a Raclette set. I think they are difficult to get in the States though. After dinner we sat around chatting and drinking for a while and finally somebody asked if we all wanted to go out somewhere. We were like, heck yes, it's Saturday night and our last night in Switzerland, time for an adventure! By now, Dave had left to go back to the pub, probably because he finally figured out nothing would happen with Laura or I...

We went to this place that seemed like a really big apartment at first - it was on the 6th or 7th floor of a building that I thought had apartments in it. But the room was huge and I think it was more of a clubhouse/company type of thing. There are "members" that pay a monthly fee, and then you can come up to this room. No clue how people find out about it...maybe just from friends and word of mouth? It had two backrooms, one with a huge TV/projector screen, one with a smoky poker game going on. The main room was the largest. It had around 8 computers with internet access, and iPod dock, some tables and chairs (that had food on them), a little kitchenette, a bathroom, and a smaller TV with Wii games going on all night. Then you just keep track of what you drink and pay for it sometime during the night. It was a little confusing, but so much fun. It also had a random typewriter in the middle of the room that you could play with and type on...what? Haha. Again, the night was filled with new people from all over Europe. I really enjoyed a girl named Hannah from Germany, a girl from Russia, and then the CouchSurfers Toby (Estonia) and his girlfriend Nikki (Texas). The night got really fun when we found this green aligator head. You open his mouth and press his teeth. A random tooth makes his mouth clamp shut. We were in circles all night playing this game with whoever would press teeth. Of course, whoever presses the tooth that makes the mouth shut has to take a drink. So we spent quite a while playing with Mr. Crocodile. Then there were the Wii games too...haha. There was a dancing game going on all night that Laura and I played a couple of times. We looked absolutely ridiculous trying to keep up with the Wii dance moves. Renzo took a completely unneccessary video of us that our friends may or may not disown us for. It's really ridiculous. It was a crazy fun night. Finally we left and got a little lost on our way home. Renzo I think was only pretend lost but Laura and I really didn't know where we were. Turns out we were super close to Renzo's flat.

Laura and I immediately laid down on the air mattress facing opposite directions and Renzo was on the couch. We were all passed out in all of our clothes within a matter of seconds. Laura and I woke up at 6 AM. Renzo was off the couch, and we changed into our PJs and went back to sleep. A little crazy, but so much fun!


Quotes:
"Girls!" - Renzo (this is how he referred to us. In stores, in public, around friends, that was our call..."Girls!". We found this very funny).

Accomplishments:
Went to a rugby game.
Danced to a Wii dance game (I think I even won once - amazing).

Travel Tip:
Try to get rid of all your cash in a country's currency so that you don't get stuck with it or have to pay to get it exchanged.
[Sorry that one is really lame, but today was probably the most "local" day we had. It was just really normal day. We followed Renzo around and had a day in the life...in Luzern, Switzerland. Being rugby fan girls, eating traditional food, and partying with all sorts of cool people.]


There has been some fun drama with the Iceland volcano explosion. It has shut down tons of airports and flights across Europe. We didn't really think this would affect us, but it does actually because many more people are taking the trains since so many planes are grounded. We thought we would actually be stuck in Luzern longer, but we went to the train station and the trains we needed to get to Munich weren't full yet. This time around, we did reserve a ticket so we will for sure have seats!

Switzerland has been incredible. Before Switzerland I was really thinking I would have my future honeymoon in Thailand...but I think Switzerland is in the running now too :)