Spring Break, Day 1

So everyone, it's been a while since I've posted but I'm sure most of your know that it's because I've been on an escapade through Europe for the past 10 days! After my torturous mid term exams I was more than happy to get away from Florence for a few days.  Lucky for you, I brought a journal with me to document the trip as it was happening and now all I have to do is type it up!

Our trip, (Anna, Jen, and Myself) began on Friday March 18th bright and early by taking the 7am train from Santa Maria Novella to Milan.  The ride itself was uneventful but Milan's train station is about double the size of Florence's and is about triple as crowded!  Luckily as soon as we stepped off the train we were able to find the departures board and found our platform so with some time to kill we went in search of some breakfast.  I settled on a chocolate criossant but when I got onto the train it was really a nutella criosssant (no complaints).  We boarded the 9:10am train to Zurich with an ETA of 12:54pm.  So far we only made stop in a beautiful water front city called Lugano.  We arrived on time in Zurich and began looking for the tourist center so we could get some maps of the city and figure out how to get to our hostel.  Next, we walked along the river to Lake Zurich.  After taking pictures and sight seeing, we walked through the city center looking for somewhere to eat lunch.  There was Thai, Chinese, and Kebab places everywhere.  Every other place we looked at was insanely expensive; one place's menu listed a chicken sandwich on the lunch menu for 30 Franks!  We finally were so hungry that we settled on a little cafe since we saw people outside eating pizza.  We looked at the menu and couldn't find the pizza section so we asked out waiter, who explained that what we had seen wasn't pizza but was actually a swiss type of flat bread.  They still looked good but cost almost 30 Franks so Anna and I decided to split one that had a cheese spread, bacon, potatos, onions, and another type of cheese on top.  I was really nervous when it came out since the cheese spread resembled cream cheese which did not seem appetizing but I sucked it up and tried it and I loved it!  Anna didn't really like it since the bacon in Europe is just plain different then bacon in the States and she doesn't like onions. 

After lunch we continued to walk around but this time we went north of the river instead of south toward the lake.  We were about to cross the river when we saw the bridge was being blocked off by a police van.  There were about 10 police officers and one man being frisked so of course we continued to stop and stare at the spectical.  We stood on the bridge watching the scene and pretending to take pictures of each other as the man was handcuffed!  The police noticed us watching and gave us a stern look so we left to explore the park and the river.  It was so pretty since everything was green and all the flowers were blossoming.  The park bordered The Swiss National Museum which had a unique and beautiful facade.  We made our way back to the train station and took the S-Bahn train to our hostel (public transportation!)  The train was a doubledecker so of course we ran like children to sit up top!  The ride took about 30 minutes and ran along Lake Zurich so it was a pretty view.  We walked to our hostel and checked in easily.  The three of us were in a 4 person room with 2 sets of bunk beds.  At the end of the hall was the girls shower and a co-ed bathroom.  The hostel was new and clean and offered free wi-fi which was great.  We unpacked then walked around the little town of Ritcherswil.  There wasn't much to see but it was a cute little town.  We went into a bar for dinner but the bartender told us to go across the street for some cheap good eats and then to come back to the bar later for a drink.  We walked next door but it led to a dumpster so we walked the opposite direction and went into a restaurant.  It was really nice inside and filled with families so we sat down.  We ordered beers, I got a calzone with some foreign ingredients and the girls ordered pizzas.  The calzone was  delicious even though I had to pick out most of the ham and when I was almost done I found a raw egg.  Well a portion of a raw egg but an egg nonetheless.  We finished up and headed back to the bar to order a round of beers. 

The bar was pretty empty and had a strange set up of all little rooms with velour couches.  The music was pretty hard core but we enjoyed ourselves anyway.  Most of the other people in the bar were taking shots of baby bottles of Jager and then lining them up on a ledge surrounding the bar.  We were getting ready to leave when an old, bald man came over and offered to buy us another round. Of course we accepted and he began talking to us in broken English.  Jen spoke to him the most but didn't understand most of what he was saying.  He babbled about being from Berlin and how we sucked since we are from America and we shouldn't be going to Munich since Berlin is SO MUCH better.  He loved rocking out to the Offspring playing throughout the bar so he would stop mid sentence to have a jam session then jump back into his conversation.  After he finished his beer he left and the bartender was talking to another person about how the guy was crazy and that even when he spoke German to them, they had no idea what he was talking about.  The boy sitting next to us asked us why we were in Ritcherswill and then told us that we were currently "In the asshole of Europe".  Lovely.  We finished our beers and went back to the hostel.  Of course I managed to loose my key in the 10 minutes we were in the hostel but luckily after tearing the room apart we found the key.  We all went to bed for an early night but I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like I was going to die.  Gory details aside, I had food poisoning and was in bed the rest of the night and the whole next day.