This is the 17th of a
series of posts recalling my trip to Europe,
using e-mails sent at the time. Unlike
later trips, I didn’t e-mail people everyday.
Trip reports are largely as I wrote them at the time with two
exceptions: I was usually pretty rushed due to Internet fees in Europe, so I’ve cleaned up my e-mails to make them more
coherent, which wasn’t a priority at the time.
Also, in some blog posts I’ll add additional thoughts with the hindsight
of nine years later or to add further clarification. I’ll use “NOW” in such cases.
This
19h report covers Vaduz, Zurich, and the first
part of Luxemburg.
Pardon
the extra typos: this keyboard has a very different configuration.
[NOW: I corrected all the typos, but there were
indeed quite a number of them as a result of the different style keyboard. I
took a train from Innsbruck
to Buchs and grabbed a bus from there.]
Went
to Vaduz Liechtenstein; I was charmed at
first; the street map is hand lettered; at first the only disappointment was that
the stamp museum was closed.
Then
I got hungry enough to dare a pizzeria there; I noticed drinks started at SFr 4.50
(the Canadian dollar is about the same as a Swiss franc); I asked for tap water;
the waitress agreed "normal water not mineral water", then gave me
some not very good mineral water anyway and charged me the full SFr 4.50; since
she repeated my order, there was no misunderstanding; this was deliberate.
[NOW:
after exploring Vaduz
I took a bus back to Buchs and got on another train.]
Arrived
in Zurich; I was
going to stay 2 nights but it’s very expensive there: a large McDonald’s meal
was SFr 12.
[NOW:
I didn‘t actually eat at McDonald’s, but you can get a sense of how expensive a
city is from the price of a large McDonald’s meal. I did like their light rail system which
offers a 24 hour pass; the time only starts when you start using the
transportation. As part of a promotion
of the Spider-Man movie, the train station had a spider exhibit. The second day there I would have liked to
have visited an outdoor market, but you had to pay to get in and from outside
you could only see the backs of the tent.
I also recall going up a field to get an aerial view of the city.]
Decided
to take the night train today, only the night train was full so I left at 3pm
instead No loss: Zurich
scenery unspectacular and prices again are ridiculous; got to Luxembourg at
8pm. I got a real nice meal at the
hostel.
Showers
are same sex but otherwise no barriers; glad I brought short sleeve pants; I don’t
feel like “comparing notes” with other guys.
Signing
off now; probably more to tell but this keyboard is really hard to use; as you
have no doubt noticed the letter q is where the a should be.
[NOW:
Or rather you would have noticed had I not completely cleaned up this report.]
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