Day 13: Lucerne!

I woke up on a train. I am fairly good at sleeping on trains, a talent cultivated on skeezy pee-scented trains in India (and on buses, infinitely worse). My compartment-mates were mercifully quiet, if strong-perfume wearing, and I managed to get some sleep - although I must admit I had some incredibly surrealist dreams. But I always do. I will write about my night terrors someday. (If you want to know, which you do not, for they are very odd).

We arrived at Milan's Central Terminal promptly enough. I have been to Milano Termini before and find the fascist-tacky ass architecture of the place immensely amusing. I stumbled off the train with my five zillion pound bag and wandered, zombie like, in search of a bathroom. Italy's train stations incredibly require you to pay for pee, so I unhappily chipped in my euro and attempted to juggle my things above the wet floor. I put on makeup and looked slightly less serial-killeresuqe then I had before. I do not know what it is about protracted travel but it makes you look crazy like a fox.

My train was not leaving for a couple hours so I had an Italian stand up cappuccino (everyone shouting all around me) then hung out and looked mildly strung out until the train 14 to Zurich announced its platform. Then got on.

I fell asleep for an hour or so then woke up just as we passed Lake Como. This was quite scenic, so I tried to perk up. Things got higher and higher and greener and greener. I wad feeling pretty impressed and the scenery just got more so - we went from nice high California-esque mountains to giant spires of granite, tumbling waterfalls, misty peaks and eternal glaciers. And everything just kept getting *bigger*. We kept on going around corners and I kept on going OH DAMN in a touristy way. Switzerland is as scenic and more-so then I had anticipated.

We finally arrived at Arth-Goldau - right on a glittering lake, the water so blue that I initially suspected it was colorized for maximal prettiness. But it was not. The lovely Colette - a friend of my friend Judith in Sacramento - met me at the station. Kind enough to put me up at her home in Lucerne for a bit, she whisked me away into the mountains in her lovely Audi convertible. Going from an economy couchette to Milan to a convertible Audi, wind whipping in my hair - well, sucks to be me.

We made it to Lucerne, the impossibly beautiful Swiss tourist town on the side of the hill. After dropping off my stuff, we had a lunch of flamen-kuche - that buttery tart like substance covered in ham and quark and onions - and salad with mushrooms and bacon, alongside some fresh cherries. Wunderbar. Colette's house opens up to a classic Swiss meadow - apparently she gets the requisite brown cows in it. (The brown one's produce chocolate milk. This is fact and true throughout the Alps).

We then jumped back in the car for a tour of Lucerne. It's really quite staggeringly beautiful, the sort of archetypal alpine wonderland that I cannot describe without resorting to odious cliche. The town is quaint (but actually old unlike our USA ski resort towns) and is full of all manner of super-contempo Nordic fashion shops and furniture stores, schmancy watch emporiums, and modern restaurants. Tourists from all over the world head to Lucerne to soak up the atmosphere, drink some beer, and gambol and frolic over mountain passes and fields. Colette works for Mt. Pilatus, a famous and huge tourist mountain here, so she travels all over the world to recruit tourists - she does business in Shanghai, the Middle East, North America, and India, among other locals. (Indians LOVE Switzerland because it reminds them of Kashmir, which is not so great for tourism due to its political problems. Bollywood movies are often filmed here)


The incredibly famous Chapel Bridge and water tower (Kapellbrücke). All tourists must photograph it or be fined.

In any case, we parked at the Palace Hotel and walked by the water - crystal clear, plied by sail-boats and quaint Swiss paddle boats, perfect in every way. We walked through the town and encountered a celebration of National Refugee Day - people from all sorts of different countries were selling their traditional food-stuffs to benefit charitable causes.



I was very pleased to see an older gentleman actually *playing an alpine-horn*. Perfect. Colette said she has taken alpine-horn lessons but does not own one. Darn. I would have liked to terrorize the locals with one.



Also encountered some real authentic Swiss cowbells, for sale at reasonable prices! They are huge and weigh 50 pounds each so sadly will not be bringing one home. Needs more cowbell jokes can be inserted here.





We crashed a wedding at Lucerne's gorgeous renaissance church - they were Italians and the minister was going on for a really long time (though there were surprisingly few guests). It's an incredibly ornate place, a real wedding cake of a building, and I liked checking out the paintings on the ceiling.


A view of historic Lucerne from the water.


The aforementioned water tower. Has been used as a torture chamber!

We walked through the modern convention center - which integrates beautifully the waters of the lake into the immediate structure - and stopped for glasses of prosecco out front, watching the world (and people) go by. As you can tell, I am somewhat taken with the place. We finished those up and then headed to another penthouse bar Colette enjoys, where we enjoyed an extremely nice view of the area. Look at the photos. Amazing.



We then hopped back in the car to drive around to Colette's soon-to-be future apartment - with an enviable view of the mountains. The drive wound through Lucerne's posher neighborhoods, which feature an interesting combination of different architecture styles. Everyone seemed to be driving gorgeous luxury (and retro cars), sunbathing, and living pleasant lives. Switzerland appears to have things under control.


Caprese salad. This is rather food magazine-esque, no? Weep for me.


The view from Colette's veranda. She occasionally gets cows up against the fence. You can hear the bells jangling atmospherically.


Another food-magazine photo.



It is hard to beat a pork steak with mushrooms. We also had some really nice veal sausages that I had not encountered before. Trust Germanic regions for fine sausages. Excuse me, wurst, whatever.

After another drive by Lucerne's shore, we went back to the house for dinner. Colette prepared a single summer meal: some tasty marinated pork steaks, veal sausages, potatoes, and salad. Combined with the beautiful view from the veranda, it was a perfect evening.

The girls next door were having an American-themed party, and invited us over. I wore my red, tacky-ass San Antonio cowboy boots, which they all loved. They were extremely smart, spoke great English, and were a pleasure to get to know. One of the girls had been to California a bunch of times - her brother had lived in Bear Lake through the Rotary Club - and had an impressive American accent, along with a love for Western kitsch. (I do too). Another one of the girls was born in New York and had spent some of her childhood in Houston - she hopes to return to the USA soon.

One thing that irritates me about Americans abroad - or a certain kind of educated leftie sort of American abroad- is our unwillingness to acknowledge the attraction of America. i think it's really patronizing when an American, when given a compliment on their country, reacts with a giggle and "Why?". As natives, I think we forget that America represents some attractive concepts to people from other countries (Bush or no Bush) - wide open spaces, natural splendor, a we-can-do-anything mentality. America is seductive, and that's why people have been immigrating there for hundreds of years now. Let's try to be a little less down on ourselves, shall we? In any case, I think the USA would be lucky to have these Swiss girls - they were great. I hope I can go out with them sometime before I leave to experience Lucerne's night life.

After some pastis with milk (curiously good) and some more prosecco, I headed back for a delightful shower - just about the best thing ever after two days of train travel and Roman heat. Then had an excellent sleep. I like Lucerne.