The rest of the week in Switzerland

View from Mount Säntis

I ended the last blog entry with Corine and I returning to her house at 7.30 in the morning after a night clubbing in Zurich. At 10am we were up again and off! I've learnt on this trip that former exchange students love seeing their old support coordinator lose any remanents of authority by drinking me under the table and then torturing me the following day by making me get up and do things when I feel like death - Corine was no exception!

Appenzell countryside

We drove through part of the Swiss countryside to go to Mount Säntis. Many people say that the countryside here is similar to NZ, but to me there are some really obvious differences. They don't built many fences in Switzerland (or the rest of Europe for that matter) unlike NZ where apart from the mountains, every scrap of land is fenced off. I can't get used to driving along roads that don't have fences bordering them, it just doesn't seem right. The buildings are also really different, even though we were in the countryside, the farmhouses are much closer together, every couple of hundred metres or so, not like NZ where you can drive kilometres between farms, and they seem scattered randomly around the hills, rather than being lined up along roads. Here, like I mentioned in my Austria posts, they keep the animals inside the barns in the winter, and then they move them up into the mountains in the summer, so they don't seem to need a lot of land around the farmhouse and barn itself like I am used too.

The gondala up mount Säntis

Mount Säntis is one of the mountains in the Appenzell Alps in Switzerland, the peak is 2502 metres tall and you can reach it by a cable car/gondala thing. From the top, you can see six countries: Switzerland, France, Germany, Austria, Lichenstein and Italy, and they have a weather station and TV/radio recievers. When we arrived, there was a lot of cloud around the base of the mountain, and all I could see was a gondala cable disapearing into this cloud - its a different experience going up a gondala when you can´t see where it ends! The ride was quite cool, even though I was absolutely dying of a hangover (what is it with Europeans and going up tall things when hungover? Just like the Fernsehturm in Berlin). Corine was quite funny, just nonchalantly talking on her phone while we went up. When we reached the top we ate in the restuarant, which actually made me feel worse and like I needed air, so we went out to look at the view. It was freezing cold and extremely windy, but the view was amazing. They also have a information centre and museum and stuff up there, but I wasn't really capable of enjoying much of that. By the time we went down, the cloud had cleared and we had an amazing view of the Swiss countryside.

Appenzell

We went through Appenzell on the way home, the main city in the region of Appenzell, where Mount Säntis is located. Appenzell has a old tradition of Langsmeinden, democratic assembablies in the open town square that all citizins must attend or recieve a big fine. Usually, people dress up formally and often the men carry swords, even the young people, and there is processions of the dignatories and performing bands before the elections. Appenzell has a lot of old buildings, so we walked around to have a look, and I brought one of those Swiss cowbell things. Corine says that people from Appenzell are shorter than most Swiss - I thought this was just one of those generalisations, but really, all the people we saw were really short! I slept for a couple of hours when we got home, and then it was time for fondue! I had to laugh when Corine's mum asked if we were planning on going out that night - I was so dead!

Friedrichshafen

Saturday we headed off on a ferry across Lake Constance to Friedrichshafen. The lake as beautiful, all misty and grey. I was a bit confused when we got to Friedrichshafen, as there were a couple of German flags flying - yes, we´d just ferried across the lake to Germany. Another example of this crazy border hopping that I am not used too! People from Corine's area go over there, or to Constance quite often, as its much cheaper to shop. They even get the tax back on the things they buy because they aren't German citizins, sweet deal.

Constance

We had an enormous coffee at a cafe she likes, and I have to say, after complaining so much about German coffee, this was one of the best lattes Ive had in Europe, and then we went to the Zeppelin Museum. This was quite cool, they have a section of a Zeppelin there that you can climb into and see the rooms and lounges and everything. Made me realise how huge the things are! They used to have smoking rooms in the Zeppelins, crazy considering a Zeppelin is just a huge balloon filled of gas! They had to have a man watching the room at all time to make sure that no one forgot and took a lighter or something outside the room. We also climbed up this tower thing on the shore, we had a sweet view over the lake, although I´d love to come back in the summer and be able to see right across the lake with the mountains behind. We ferried over to Constance and had a late lunch in an irish bar playing the Four Nations games - I always find it weird to watch rugby over here!

Me and my swiss family!

This night we had raclette for dinner, like I had at Hauke's place in Mainz, and then went out to a carnival party. Carnivals are huge in Europe, big parades, performances and street parties, and everywhere I've gone I've been told about how awesome Carnival is in that city and how I should have come a week later, or a week earlier to take part in it, but I've missed them all. This was not the actual carnival itself, that was a week later, but a party held beforehand. It was held in by a school raising money and attended by the young people that lived in the area. Corine and I were dressed up as grandmas in hilarious old-fashioned nightgowns that we picked up in Constance. I was wondering why there were so many old people dressed up as heavy metal/punk fans, when the back doors opened and they all paraded through up to the stage playing traditional music. Well, it was more like playing modern songs in a traditional way, it was really impressive. I wish I had a camera to take photos or video of them! We finished the night at a party of Corine's friends and crashed there in the early hours of the morning.

Jumbo on top of Corine

The next morning we headed back to Corine's and I went back to bed while she went off to play floorball (a kind of floor hockey). I was supposed to head of to Geneva for the night, but by the time I was up and organised I was starting to have second thoughts, as I had left it so late that I wouldn't get there until after dark, and had to be off pretty early in the morning, leaving me with little time to actually see the city. So I decided to stay another night in Egnach and leave early the next morning for Marseille instead, and went back to bed! We spent that day just mooching around really, hanging out in the house and playing with the puppy. Jumbo is a sausage dog puggy and extremely hyperactive, and amazingly, she loves me! Dogs usually don't, I don't know why but they usually pay no attention to me at all, whereas from the moment I arrived Jumbo was jumping up and down and following me around, it was really crazy but so cute. We went to bed pretty early, I had a long day the next day travelling to Marseille on the south coast of France and Corine had school.

Fondue

Switzerland photo album on Facebook is here, I might even have a good enough link this time that you don't even need facebook to look at them! Try it.

I am a bit behind on the blog, so all will be revealed later on, but I thought I should mention that I am off to live in Antwerp, Belgium, tomorrow to work as a nanny. I've enjoyed Spain, but its just too hard here, so I've taken an offer in another country. It will be a challenge, as I have never spent that much time around kids, but I am looking forward to it!