Rain, rain, go away, come again another day
Trip Start
Apr 07, 2010
1
17
37
Trip End
Oct 11, 2011
St. Gallen, St. Gallen, Switzerland
Saturday, May 22, 2010
I saw something really crazy when I was waiting at the train station in Buchs (I had to take a bus to Buchs, in Switzerland to catch my train), while i was waiting for my train.You MUST check out the video of the train! it is just unbelievable, there was a train with what I counted as 436 cars being transported! The thing just went forever!! Try count it and see what you get, I only counted once on the small camera screen, I am probably wrong.
When I arrived in St. Gallen, I met my host, Markus, at the train station. He told me there were lots of stairs to get to his place - he wasn't kidding, I counted 277! He is a really cool and interesting guy, he spent 17 months riding his bike around SE Asia, North and Central America.
The first night, we cooked a traditional Swiss meal - Fondu! It was very very good, however, slightly different to the fondu i have had back home. For starters, apparently it is mainly a meal for winter or bad weather. Secondly, the pot the cheese it cooked in is rubbed with garlic beforehand, and only bread is eaten with the cheese, there is no large assortment of foods to chose from. One other big difference is that the cheese comes prepared in a packet, which you just cut open and put in the pot, nice and easy as you dont need to cut up all the cheese yourself (though I am not sure if packaged fondu has always been the traditional way)!
My second day, I decided to check out the big lake nearby, lake Bodensee, that is a bit to the north. On the other side of the lake is Germany, and Austria. Apparently it is a big holiday destination. However, I must say that on a day with grey skies and lazy clouds haning about, it doesnt seem to special. When i got there, I went to get a map at the information office. I asked the lady what was interesting to see in the town i was in, Rorschach (which sounds like "Russia" when pronounced). Amongst other things, she told me, "there is a bathing spot nearby on the lake that is nice. Here, it's on your map," and she pointed to a small icon of somebody swimming on the map I had picked up. So, i decided to go for a walk along the lake. While passing by, I figured I would check out the bathing spot. Wow! I can understand why Europeans come to Australia for the beaches! I really feel sorry for them after witnessing this crime against swimming. You can see in the pictures of this entry what I mean. No Australian would enter, or go near water on a "beach" that looked like this.
I decided to walk back to St. Gallen, about 15km away, because the trains are crazy expensive. I think it was like €8 for 20 mins on the train or something. It was a very nice walk, which took me through some really small and authentic Swiss villages.
This day had been the first day in 2 and a half weeks that it did not rain! However, I did not see the sun much either, it was just very overcast the whole day - but still - no rain, which was very nice!
The next day, the weather improved again! There were patches of sunshine, and blue sky, however, there was still a decent amount of cloud hanging around. And it is lucky we had this half decent weather today - because i went together with Markus for an authentic Swiss hike! It was absolutely amaying experience! We weren't even int he "Alps" and yeet everthing was breathtaking. We climbed up Hoher Kasten, about 1000m of elevation up to a high of 1800m, and at the top we were rewarded with gorgeous views! There was still a lot of snow around the top which make things tricky at times as well.
My first real impression of Switzerland has been a very good one now, I just hope this good weather keeps up!
