Swiss money is officially the coolest looking money in the world. I'm completely convinced that this is why people bank there (never mind anonymity -- yay pretty colors!!).
The hostel staff was very nice. They told us about Lucerne's Carnival (which we had happened to stumble upon), and what we should do in town. The hostel had internet access, which was nice, but the computers in Switzerland mix up the y and z on the keyboard! Very confusing... I'm pretty sure I signed an email or two "Hilarz," haha.
In the morning, we all had breakfast in their huge dining room. I discovered strawberry yogurt and granola, which became my staple breakfast for the duration of my time there... yum! That morning, we went back to the train station and found a walking tour of the city to join. It was a great experience -- we saw a bunch of famous parts of the city and the tour guide gave us even more good advice for the festivities of the Carnival (called Fasnacht).
This is Chapel Bridge, one of the most famous landmarks of Lucerne.
In front of Lake Lucerne. You can see the Hof Church (with the twin spires) in the background.
Inside the Jesuit Church. The interior is a mix of Baroque and Rococo (the design itself is Baroque and the coloring is Rococo), according to our tour guide (and Cogsworth?).
After our tour, we stopped by a small restaurant for lunch and (most importantly) hot chocolate. lunch was amazing - I tried barley soup for the first time and it was amazing! Hot chocolate in Switzerland is the best I've ever had. Later, I found the brand they used online (Coatina), so I'm really tempted to buy some as a treat for when I get home.
Once we had finished lunch, we all wandered around the town, spending a lot of time by Lake Lucerne admiring the view making friends with the swans. =) Afterwards, we headed to the Lion Monument, which was really moving.
It was created to commemorate the Swiss Guards who died in the French Revolution.
While we were admiring the statue and trying to translate a carving in the mountain in French, a guy holding a huge mask opened a gate off to the side of the monument. Naturally, we were intrigued, and Haider made conversation with him. It turns out he was on his way to drop off the mask at a secret bunker in the side of the mountain. He happened to be a trombone player in one of the bands performing at the Carnival and invited us to see his group's practice room inside the bunker! Of course we all agreed and went inside. It was really exciting! They had it done up with different halloween decorations and pictures of the group from previous years in the festival. The group was called "Noteheurer," which he told us translated roughly to "Bum Note... because we're not very good," haha.
We thanked the man for letting us wander around the bunker and promised to try to find him in the Carnival the next day. After that fun detour, we went back to a place the tourguide had pointed out during our tour and saw a really interesting 360 degree painting called "Dancing with Death." It was supposed to be comforting to people because it depicted that everyone had to face death, no matter your social status.
After that, we all dropped off Emily at the train station (she had to go back to London to take a midterm - what poor luck), grabbed dinner, and went back to the hostel. The next day was going to be very long, so we decided we needed the most sleep as we could get.
Back at the train station, we were less weirded out by the paper mache pigs and even more excited for the Carnival starting the next morning. We even found the pig that Noteheurer submitted -- it's the one in the middle that looks like a zebra.
The next morning was the beginning of Fasnacht -- "Dirty Thursday." The festivities officially begin at 5am at Fritschi Fountain, where a cannon is shot and the mayor throws oranges to the thousands of people packed in the square, but we didn't get up that early. Instead, we got into the city at around 8am and walked around looking at all the fun costumes and listening to bands.
There were a lot of impromptu parades going on. This band was walking down the main road right by Chapel Bridge. Traditionally, Fasnacht is held to "scare away the winter demons," which explains the scary masks (well, some were scarier than others... most were just absurd).
This monkey got really friendly... this was taken right after he pretended to pick stuff out of my hair, hahaha.
Vanessa and I in front of one of the street bands. We all danced to a bunch of the songs the bands were playing. On another note, notice that the director has a battleaxe. I'm glad Bartner doesn't have one, haha.
How very Swiss! =)
Here's another street band. They were everywhere! We'd be wandering around the streets and all of a sudden we'd hear another band playing, so we'd head to another square to check it out. It was so much fun!
Some other random and exciting things that happened at the Carnival: meeting a man dressed like an Indian who offered us "coffee" (a very strong hot alcoholic beverage of some sort) from his teepee (turned bar), attending a Fidel Castro rally (complete with Cuba flags and a piped speech mimed by a guy in a Castro paper mache mask), random bars set up along the streets playing music (my personal favorite, "Live is Life," which we thought said "Life is Great" -- it became our theme song for the rest of the trip), seeing men dressed as Snow White on 3 separate occasions, bunnies pushing airplanes giving carrots to Vanessa, and feeling out of place because we were the only ones not in costume.
At about 10, we left the city to take a train up to Engelberg to go skiing. Yes, that's right -- I skied the Alps (!!!). It was absolutely breathtaking.
Action shot! Vanessa and I were the only ones who had skied before, so we helped teach the others. It was a lot of fun!
On my way up the run. We were able to ski for a good 4 hours or so before we all got tired and took a gondola to the top of the mountain to see the view and get some hot chocolate.
Isn't that an incredible view? It looks like we're photoshopped in, but I promise we're not. ;)
Kevin and I by the lodge where we got DELICIOUS hot chocolate!
This is the current background on my computer... how pretty!
I was a little excited, what can I say? But I definitely love this "I'm king of the world!" picture.
When we returned our ski gear, we asked the woman helping us for advice on where to eat dinner. She told us that there was a great little restaurant in Engelberg called "chuchchsleishchcheugh..." or at least that's what it sounded like (imagine someone clearing their throat and then expecting you to recognize that sound as an actual word). The real name was Chuchichäschtli. Not much better, right? Anyway, the food was fantastic -- Kevin and I shared barley soup and a delicious stew while some of our friends ordered Rösti (great traditional Swiss food). I guess the cheese on that was especially delicious because Kevin asked the waitress what kind of cheese it was after trying a bite. Her response -- an incredulous look and "um... from the Alps?" as if that were the most obvious thing in the world, hahaha.
When we got back to town after dinner, we stopped by the Carnival again to see what was going on. We managed to find "Batman's" group, Noteheurer (they were just as terrible as he had promised, haha). We wandered around again listening to bands and going back to the teepee to get more "coffee" before heading back to the hostel to crash.
The coolest part about Switzerland is its great public services. The next morning at 7am when we went into town to take our train to Geneva, all of the streets which had had an inch of confetti covering the ground were completely clean! I officially love Switzerland. We all had an AMAZING time in Lucerne and wish we could have extended our stay!
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