In München, Deutschland

Location: München, Deutschland (Munich, Germany)
Local Time: 6:45pm

Finally made it out of Switzerland and into some more sane countries, price-wise. Since my last update, I've been in Zurich, Innsbruck and a few smaller towns and cities in between.

Zurich, Switzerland
3 days, 3 nights

The Canadians are coming!
The Canadians are coming!

Prior to Zurich, I had met and talked with maybe a total of three other Canadians. Once I hit Zurich, I ran into no fewer than twenty. City Backpacker, the hostel I stayed at was Canada overrun with maple leaves. On my last night in town, there were ten Canadians and one girl from Norway crowded around a table in the common room; not exactly the worldly variety I was expecting. Didn't meet anybody from BC, but other than the expectant Torontonians, there was decent representation from across the country: Alberta, Saskatchewan, Winnipeg, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. Sorry, no Newfie love in Zurich.

Zurich was a nice place, but nothing that made my jaw drop. Fun city though regardless of night or day.

Loved the free bike rentals that let me bike along Lake Zurich, visit the Lundt chocolate factory, and visit the zoo all in the same day. Then at night there were clubs, bars, lounges, or what I did; just chilled along the lake with a bunch of random new friends, smoking cigars and drinking wine.

Cigars and wine? I'm civilised!

Innsbruck, Austria
2 days, 1 night
Nice small city, figured I'd stop by on my way to Munich... and try to catch a hockey game. But I've lost track of time and was a day too late.

Just missed the World Hockey Championships in town. Apparently there was a Canadian girl who stayed in my room at the Youth Hostel St. Nikolaus just before I got there who was following the team around. Interesting plan... Vienna, here I come! (I wish... I'll be too late by then)

At least now that I'm in a city with decently priced internet, I can find out the game times and try to hit up a bar to watch it live. Although I was able to catch a few of the Swiss games when I was in the country.

Following on the Internet... Canada! Don't blow your 4-0 lead...

WOO! GAME OVER, GOING FOR THE GOLD BABY!

GO CANADA GO!
GO CANADA GO!
GO CANADA GO!

(I have an abnormally strong urge right now to hop on a train to Vienna and try to weasel my way into the Gold medal game.)

Still in Interlaken

Location: Interlaken, Switzerland
Local time: 8:08pm

Still in Interlaken today. Filled up my camera memory card with pictures of my trip to the mountains near Grindelwald. Unfortunately the hiking paths up to the snowy areas were closed due to avalanche warnings. Going to try my hand at uploading pictures, but I'm running into technical difficulties, so I will find a shop to burn them to a disk for me.

In otherwords, expect no pictures until much later.

Damn exchange rate!

Location: Interlaken, Switzerland
Local time: 6:34pm
Current mood: Free (even more free in a couple hours)

I haven't used a pen and paper by choice for years, and now that I am, I find that I can write a lot. A LOT! Instead of transcribing my journal entries, I figure I'll just summarize everything.

Location: Basel, Switzerland
Duration: 3 nights

After I left London, I flew into Basel. Thursday was a holiday (Juses entering Heaven?) and most everything was closed; one of my dormmates, Jeorne, had a car so we decided to take a road trip. We headed for Germany and the Vitras Design Museum (Jeorne is an aspiring architect). Among the sites to see there:

• A self moving overhead cover that lowers when rain is detected,
• A firestation with no right angles, designed by some Iranian woman reknowned in architecture circles (actually, there were a couple right angles that were necessated due to the existing foundation... apparently she was quite peeved about that),
• A conference centre designed by a Japanese architect. The main building material? Concrete. Apparently architectural connoisseurs come from all over the world to see this and its award winning concrete. That's right, award winning concrete. SFU haters eat your heart out.
• A chair museum with dozens and dozens of designer chairs. My favourites? One made from a shopping cart, and a mean looking alumninum torture-device-like chair befittingly designed by a Swiss teacher.

From here we looked at a road map and randomly chose a small German town to visit, and then a French town after that. Highlight of this part of the journey? A 100+ year old church that almost felt inherently sacred with its beautiful stained glass windows, large pipe organ, and creaking wood panel decks. "Almost" because the effect was diluted somewhat by the incandecsent lights, construction/renovation signs, and tourist information panels scattered throughout.

A couple of my other doormmates were Japanese. They didnät speak much English, but I just love listening to Japanese women speak Japanese. It's right up there with British women speaking English. It just sounds right (and hot!)

Location: Interlaken, Switzerland
Duration: 2 days and counting

Next stop was Interlaken. A town gorgeously situated between two lakes and surrounded by mountains. My internal compass is frazzled a little by all the mountains (north is that way... no that way.. or is it over there?) but the scenery cannot be matched.

Met a Hong Kong/Australian girl at the train station (add slight Austrailian accents to my favourites' list) and we took a day trip on the train to a couple nearby towns of Spiez and Thun. Found a few cows and tried to say "hello", but they ran off into the barn by the time I got close enough. Sorry Jules, I'll try to find another opportunity to say "hi" to the cows for you.

Sharing my dorm with a couple of cool guys from a small town near Boston. Jelous was I when they talked of going skydiving in Interlaken... but what's a poor Canadian boy to do? Going to party with them later tonight. Should be a blast. Swiss partying as good as BC partying? I'll soon find out.

So that's a quick rundown of what I've been up to. Sorry I didn't make this entry even shorter and more concise, but I just don't have the time. I just now found a place that offers internet access for 6 Francs an hour (about $6.20 CAD), all the other Swiss places have been charging the equivalent of about $21 CAD per hour.

I'll say it again, what's a poor Canadian boy to do?

(Answer: party and meet foreign chicks with hot accents!)