Christmas in Switzerland

We've received quite a bit of flak for our less-than-impressive rate of posting lately. Sorry about that. Partly it's because we've just been relaxing in Europe, enjoying how easy it is to do everything. They have booths here where you can just walk up and buy a train ticket. Just like that! You don't need to fill out forms, or submit a request in triplicate to the Ministry of Transportation Control and Tourist Supervision, or anything!

The second reason we've been lax about posting is that we're now in Switzerland, and everything here is nine hundred times as expensive as anywhere else in the world. We took out 100 Swiss Francs (about $110 Canadian Dollars) from a bank machine, and it spat out a single $100 bill. We went to a teller at the bank to ask for small bills, to which he responded "That is a small bill."

Uh oh.

Internet cafes typically charge about $400 for the first hour, and after that they just start cutting off fingers.

As for Estonia, it was a pretty neat place. It's still a bit less expensive than western Europe, but it's all either really old and crumbly and cobbled and cool looking, or slick and shiny and high-tech. Fun fact: Estonians invented Skype!

Austria was fun too. We spent a few days in Vienna doing exciting things like laundry, and mailing parcels. We wound up spending a lot of time hanging out in Christmas markets, which are an amazing European invention wherein a bunch of people pick a nice looking square, put up a bunch of wooden shacks, and sell delicious food and drinks for the month of December. For some reason, there are also a lot of old hippies selling black-light candles, and foil paintings of wolves and dragons and stuff. They would be great in Canada, except most of the appeal is that you can get big mugs of hot spiced wine and cider, which would never fly in Ontario. There, they'd have to group all the alcohol vendors together and surround them with a big length of bright orange snow fence, along with people checking IDs at the entrance. It would kind of detract from the ambience. Here is a shot of Tallinn's Christmas Market (thanks Google Image Search!).


After that we went to Salzburg and visited a really cool monastery/brewery that Mal visited last time she was here (which definitely had more paintings of Jesus than any bar I'd been in before). Unfortunately, we didn't run into any Von Trappes.

We had a few days to spare between Salzburg and Zurich, so we decided to zip into Germany for 2 nights to check out Fussen, a small town most famous for being near a huge, awesome castle called the Schloss Neuschwanstein (again, props to Google for the picture).


Other than the castle, Fussen has lots of exciting things to entertain travellers. There's the visitor's information centre, which boasts a wide variety of attractive maps and pamphlets, the local bank, and many delicious restaurants and bars - conveniently open until 8pm for all you party animals! Other than the castles, the best part about Fussen is its city crest:


"Fussen: Come for the castles, stay for the weird three-legged crests."

Then, we headed over to Zurich. Our main reason for heading there was to visit a few people I'd met in Japan last spring. My former roommate/project partner Kaspar even offered us a place to stay when we got into town, which saved us enough money on hostel fees to buy a nice boat back home in Canada. He also served up a pretty mean breakfast. Thanks Kaspar!

We're now in Gryon, a tiny village in the Alps. We're booked in at the only hostel in town, the Chalet Martin, along with 58 other like-minded travelers. It's one of the best hostels we've ever stayed in, and probably the best of our trip so far. Think giant log cabin with leather couches and fireplaces everywhere, and also it's in the Alps. We went skiing today around the nearby town of Villars, which was amazing. Not only was the weather perfect, but skiing in the Alps is a very different experience than skiing anywhere in Canada. Here, the slopes run around, between and through the villages, so it's less like "going to a hill" to ski, and more just like skiing around the area. The lift system is integrated with the local transport too, so sometimes you finish a run in a town with no chair lift, only to be picked up by a cograil train and taken to the nearest lift. Very cool. Here's a reasonable approximation of the scenery, again thanks to some anonymous photographer whose picture I found online.


Alright, it's just about time for the traditional Christmas Eve dinner of frozen lasagna and Estonian liquor. Ok, we're saving the REAL traditional dinner for tomorrow. We've got a chicken monopolizing most of the hostel's freezer space that is just waiting to be delicious tomorrow afternoon. Yes.

Merry Christmas!