Hotel Amaris Olten

... due to high winds. So we headed into town for the morning and decided to visit the mountain after lunch.

We cruised around Lucerne for the morning, checking out the expensive Rolex watches, a few landmark squares and churches, went across some famous bridges...cant quite remember the names of them at the moment.

We went to lunch at the Statdkellar Restaurant where we indulged in ...

... is pretty charming. For dinner, the hotel made us turkey and mashed potatoes and a "Thanksgiving Cake". not quite like home...
Every morning we have to listen to presentations for three hours, which are really interesting about half of the time, and the other half of the time we are all trying to entertain ourselves with Sudoku and hangman.


Well, that's all that's really gone in my life over the last week...

so... es nochet... no die letschte Sache schnäll erledige.. ond scho gli stoht d'Sabine do zom öis abhole! - be dene doch öppe 7 Grad ond dem Räge verosse eschs om so schöner chöne mer ed wärmi! Es sett aso am Mettwoch doch 37 grad warm wärde en darwin.... :O)

There is yet another fair in Basel right now, the Herbstmesse (Autumn Fair). It is huge! Carnival rides, food stalls, and booths selling trinkets are spread throughout the city. We went out at night to the Münsterplatz to see the action. Beforehand we visited Petersplatz to get raclette over potatoes and steaming Gluwein. Delicious! We also stopped in at the Barf ...

sooo.. nach langer zeit ists nun endlich soweit, anna und ich fliegen tatsächlich morgen nachmittag nach vancouver (unserem ersten stop des around-the-world-trips).. nach taaaaagelangem packen gehts nun auf in die grosse weite welt.. :-) und mittlerweile liegt auch etwas nervosität und spannung in der luft.. 
... mit viel vorfreude ...

... Zurich before heading south to Interlaken. I realised today that I haven't been taking many photos. I have decided to put my tourist hat on and pull my finger out. It doesn't change the fact that I can't upload them just yet but I know you all know that that is coming.. soon. I miss everyone (and Paris too???) and will do my best to make some better blogs in coming days.

... and really got the crowd involved - I even played an alphorn! Then there was yodelling, flag throwing, bell playing and all round good fun. Left to our own devices again in the afternoon, we looked more around the Old Town, I had an argument with a photo developing shop (I lost both the argument and therefore 40 francs = roughly the same in $A!), we walked to the lovely Jesuit Church and up the Old Town walls and turrets. I also downed a delicious ...

... students from prior classes had written that were funny or incorrect and we had to work to correct the sentences to standard German. This bothered me a bit - will future students see any of my written sentences on this "follies" sheet? I'm somewhat self conscious about my language abilities and I don't know how I'd feel about someone laughing at my German grammar mistakes. After class, I wandered around the city ...

... Switzerland for home, I puke. It would have been nice to keep a clean record, oh well. I guess I had to keep the tradition with the Laubschers going, as just about any time I hang out with them to go drinking, I puke. I'm not the only one, apparently my brothers also have a history of puking when partying with the Laubschers. Martin said it correctly, "Where there is a Stauffer puking, there is surely a Laubscher near by!"

... trips into Zurich centre for sight seeing and train booking. We were blown away by the newness of the city, everything is modern, clean and fresh. Stewart particularly noticed that there are very few cars over the age of 5 years. We did a lake cruise, the weather was lovely, we both burnt our noses. We were able to see the extremely flash/rich properties on the lake front. They had huge sections, traditional and well kept houses and many had little boat houses with a jetty ...