Date: Sat, 25 Nov 2006 13:58:59 -0800 (PST)
Subject: I have an annoying habit of spilling water in trains!
guten tag,
Today was a good day :-)
Not to imply that yesterday wasn't, but today was more "spur of the
moment"-ish.
My train reservation back to Zurich was at 2:40 PM, and after being woken up at
4 in the morning (grrrrrr @ the person who called me on my cellphone! NOT
FUNNY!), I started looking at "Innsbruck attractions" on the 'net. So I decided
to head out early in the morning, roam around town until my scheduled train
departure, and then come to zurich.
For reasons I won't get into right now**, things didn't turn out that way!
I left the hotel COMFORTABLY at noon and went straight to the train station,
catching the 12:40 train to Zurich (not the one I had reservation on). This
time I really did have the entire coach to myself. There was a "reserved" sign
on one of the seats and it said that seat was reserved from Bludenz-Zurich, but
the passenger never showed up! :D So I was sitting in unreserved seats, and no
one else joined either :D -- whole car to myself the whole way!
So anyway, the ride was good except at the Austria-Switzerland border crossing.
I fell asleep listening to my ipod, and was shaken awake by two guards asking
for my passport. Two heavily armed guards! I was still a bit groggy when they
woke me up, so I didn't really understand what was going on at first....
eventually I realized we're at the border (*click* light bulb on) ... so I
showed 'em my passport and they went on their way. I breathed a sigh of relief.
I think I have a phobia of heavily armed border patrol officers!
Anyway, the scenery was really amazing -- as expected. I had not seen most of
the "Austrian section" of this journey last night, and today I made up for that
-- that is until I fell asleep. After entering switzerland I moved to the seat
across from me (facing the other way -- train's "forward" direction reverses
here). Put my feet up and listened to the "roadtrip cd's" playlist on my ipod :P
Listening to those songs always puts me in the mood to go somewhere. Somewhere
nice. Somewhere unplanned. Somewhere else.
I started thinking about "somewhere".... of course didn't really know where the
"somewhere" would be.
The train pulled into Zurich 4 minutes late. (That's the Austrians for ya!) As
we were approaching the station, another "Cisalpino" express train from
somewhere in Italy was riding along in the track next to mine. There was a guy
and his little girl in the window in the other train -- she couldn't have been
more than 7 or 8 years old -- and I noticed them looking straight at me! so of
course I stared back, and she smiled... turned to her dad (I assume) and said
something, then turned back at me and waived.
:-)
I smiled and waived back.... Both of them started laughing. I started laughing.
After getting off the train, there was an announcement that the train to Luzern
is about to depart from platform 5...
"LUZERN! I remember Luzern! I remember a good italian restaurant there, right
next to the internet cafe I used to go to!!!"
I ran over to the other platform and hopped in that one -- a double-decker.
Went upstairs -- empty cabin! amazing! (why didn't I think of buying a eurail
pass before?)
The ride to Luzern was about 45 minutes or so... reached there well after dark
("dark" = 4:30pm). Went to dinner -- good "appetizer" and excellent "main
course". With a bad throat I'm going to regret that "main course" later, but I
really did not care -- this was just too good! After that, I strolled back to
the station, taking some lovely pictures of the lovely Luzern Lake at night.
It's a gorgeous city at night, but then again so is practically every city in
europe, and especially more so during christmastime! There were even a few
swans in the lake that served as good foreground for my pics!
Now I'm in Zurich again, waiting for my flight back across the world's
second-largest swimming pool tomorrow morning. My upgrade on the return trip
still hasn't been confirmed yet, but I still see 2 more seats available, so I'm
hopeful :-) Otherwise, this will be my first "coach" flight across the atlantic
in a long, looooong time.....
The "good" pictures from today number more than 150 -- yes I went a little
crazy, snapping more than 250 "total" pictures. Ok, a lot crazy. But anyway,
I'm having problems uploading them. I'll do it from home tomorrow. Today was a
great day for photographs -- I have sunrise pictures of beautiful Innsbruck
from inside my motel room window, the rugged peaks of the mighty Alps from
inside the train window, and utterly charming Luzern city lights reflecting in
the lake at night -- from out in the open cold air :)
I'm going to miss the Alps.... Already I'm having second thoughts about
destinations on the Italy trip next month!
Until next month,
auf weinerschnitzel, or something like that...
-- me.
** p.s. thanks for "the reasons"
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| November 22-24 | Contents |