Our weekend began by taking a train from Metz to Basel. Little did we know how monumental Basel would become in our traveling lives. It was there that we met an overly friendly cowboy, Tatu, on his way to meet family that didn't know he existed, played frisbee to pass the time away, and made our way to apparently the only 24-hour establishment in the entire town.
After a 5 hour layover in the wonderful Basel train station, we trained our way to the base of the mountain. Weren't sure which train to take from there so Emilio had to ask around. Got on the tiny train. The scenery was breathtaking!
When we got to Chamonix, we wanted breakfast so we found a little café. Food was yummy. Timmy had those little toothbrush singles so.. we made some fun of him.
Then we walked around looking for a train to take us to the top. (it's a rainy day) We found the train but the next one didn't leave for a while so we waited inside and put on music and start dancing.
The train comes. We're on the train alone so we start belting out some tunes. We get to the top and it's freezing and raining but we start to walk down toward the glacier. Emilio and Ariel go on a forbidden path. Pranav's back hurts so Dan carries his bookbag for him.
We make it down to the start of the cable car rides but they are non operational. We don't see a clear way to the glacier and the wind is getting ridiculous so we decide to head back up.
We got to the top and got some hot chocolate and beer and then headed down the mountain on the train.
We did some souvenir shopping and the boys got some really yummy candy. Then we found an awesome coffee and sandwich shop to get lunch/dinner for the train ride to Luzerne.
We got to Luzerne that night and followed Timmy and his map to our hostel. We were trying to sneak Dan and Pranav in so that we could cut down the cost. Shashank and Timmy had a room but they were sharing with others so we snuck people into the private room. The next morning, we left to explore the town. For breakfast, we found an open aired market with the most amazing breads and pastries - olive bread, Bailey's croissant, etc.
Then we started to walk around and were talking about what we should do if we ever got separated without our phones. Alligator sky was then born. We devised a plan to, if we were searching for someone, we would yell out "alligator" and if you were to ever hear that, you would respond by yelling "sky." Alligator Sky was born. Then we found a cool old city wall.
We started exploring but we got split up. Myself, Katy and Timmy found ourselves alone so we went searching for the rest using our new found technique since we didn't have our phones. Sadly, it did not work but we did get a lot of really great looks from the locals. We continued to look around the area to no avail and then out of nowhere, we see Emilio running towards us because he'd seen us from a tower on the wall and run down to get us.
We met up with the group again and decided to get some lunch and then head to Mount Pilatus to do some climbing. There was an option to take the cable car to the top but we were feeling thrifty and adventurous so we went up by foot.
Pranav told us to go ahead of him and so on his own, he got to meet a cow and a farmer. We didn't quite make it up to the end of the tree line far before we had to turn back to make it back into town before our train left. We made it to the train station and got some gelato before we got on the train. We were then on our way to Zurich.
In Zurich, we had hotel rooms books so we thought we would be able to fit more people than the recommended number but we were mistaken. We ended up having to pay extra but it was still a fairly good price considering. It was the 29th of May so we were preparing to celebrate Katy's 21st at midnight that night. We walked from our hotel downtown to go to a kabap shop for a cheapish dinner. Needing to find an ATM, we walked around for a while and ran into some Barcelona fans. Barcelona had just won the The Champions League so they were quite excited and fairly intoxicated. Not realizing that a member of our group new German, these gentlemen commented how much they would like to do unpleasant things to the girls of the group. But luckily for us our hero Shashank did well to get us away from them as quickly as possible and the night was saved. :) We then made our way to a Latino inspired club where we danced the night away and spend ENTIRELY too much on ridiculously over priced alcohol - but all in the name of fun, so it was worth it. :) In the morning, we were trying to find a fondue place since that was a Swiss specialty but we couldn't find one and stopped at a restaurant before we realized that it was extremely overpriced so we all just ordered drinks and a few appetizers and then went to a bakery on our way into the city to explore.
We watched some volleyball in the train station.
walked along the river,
explored a cathedral,
found a "human charger,"
threw the frisbee,
and shopped for souvenirs. As we were heading back to the train station, Dan decided he wanted to swim in the river so he stripped down and then Timmy pushed him in before he could change his mind.
We all met up at the train station and made our way back to Metz.
