Liechtenstenian Adventure

Let's start with Thursday night, when me and my six new friends left for Liechtenstein. They're all in the same program, which provides them with half-fare cards. With these cards you also ride Switzerland public transportation for free after 7pm! Lauren had this extra one that she wasn't going to use and let me use it. So we get on the first train and we just show our passes to the woman and we're all good. But at the first stop we all decide to move upstairs because we'd mistakenly chosen the silent car. Upstairs the same conductor comes by again and I show her my card (with Lauren's name on it, of course). She asks to see a passport! So I'm like, "ok..." and I start opening my wallet really slowly, and as I am, Seth says to her in German, "We were the ones that were just downstairs. Remember us? We just moved up here." And she was like, "Oh ok!" and moved on! HAHA, I almost had a heart attack. Anyway, the pass served me faithfully for the next five trains and saved me a TON of money.

Since the hostel we booked was in Austria (right across the border), we took the train to Shaan, Liechtenstein, waited at a sketchy bust stop with a buch of teenage hoodrats to catch two more buses to our final destination, Feldkirch, Austria, at about 11pm. The hostel was the most adorable Austrian hostel I've ever seen and the seven of us had our own room. The next morning we woke up, had breakfast and checked out. We spent some time walking around Feldkirch, an adorably quaint little medieval town, shopping and checking out the castle, and then caught the bus to Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein. Here, we got Liechtenstein stamped into our passports (for CHF 3) and then explored the little city. I went to the stamp museum-- stamps being what Liechtenstein is famous for, and we filled up on Liechtenstenian souvenirs. The city was surrounded by picturesque mountains and overlooked by the castle in which the royal family still lives! It was also perfectly clean and well-kept. In the evening we took the train to Lugano, the captial of Ticino, the Italian part of Switzerland. We got there around 11pm again (free train rides) and luckily the hostel (or should I say 'villa'?) was right next to the train station. Even though we were exhausted, we went downtown for a quick bite at Burger King and for a great view of the lit up city over the lake.

Lugano is amazing; it's dotted with palm trees and backed by snow-capped mountains. It's at least 20 degrees warmer than any city surrounding it, and it's right on a lake. In short: it's paradise. We spent the next day (today) walking along the unbelievably beautiful waterfront park, taking pictures on long, small docks of the city on the water and the mountains. It was breathtaking. After, we went to the grocery store for lunch. I got an elbow bread, a little glass of chocolate mousse, a couple clementines and a bag of mini bocconcini. We sat at the waterfront and ate. It was so peaceful and the sun was out, which was fantastic. After lunch, we'd had our heart set on going to Campione d'Italia, which is a little part of Italy that's completely surrounded by Switzerland. Unfortunately, after two hours of going up and down the stairs from the train station to the center about three times asking people where to catch the bus, as well as buying tickets, we discovered that because there was going to be a bike race the buses weren't running for a while. So on a whim we went back to the ticket booth, explained our story, asked for a refund for our unused tickets...and got it! WOOHOO! Then, because we deserved it, we got gelato and ate it sitting at the edge of a dock, our feet dangling off the edge. And by 7pm we were on a train back to Fribourg!

On the first train, there were a group of Italian guys behind us and a group of German guys in front of us, each blasting their own techno music. It was SO obnoxious and they continued even after the conductor told them "Non siamo in discoteca." (They were clearly drunk.) But we made the best of it, joking that it was like we were in a Verizon commercial. You know the one where the guy's in a hostel with two European guys dancing to loud techno in the background and he says, "Hey, this is Fred's phone. Fred won't get the message that there's another hostel open down the road. Instead, he'll just stay here and hang out with the techno twins." or something? HAHA, that was us.

PS. I may have said Venice was a photographer's dream, but I meant Lugano. Fantastico.