Oh no! I skipped to the end with the title. Pretend I didn’t. Before we left, Keith used a roll of toilet paper to make tissues. Three squares folded up and in a ziploc bag. He uses up the box of tissues every day, so he needs to lay in a supply for the day.
We scheduled a Grey Line tour to Heidiland and Liechtenstein a couple weeks ago, so we Ubered to the bus station starting spot this morning. We toured around the old town of Zurich for about an hour first. We were outside the city hall when a wedding came out. I was intrigued with the tiny little reception they were putting together on the edge of the river by where we were standing. The bride came out and she had a super cute wedding dress. I was shamelessly trying to get a picture – well, as long as I stayed hidden behind other people and she didn’t notice. Our tour guide, Walter, took that moment to continue our walking – and that is when Keith said, “Did you see her shoes? Terrific shoes.” I had to bend way down to see under the table – they were indeed terrific shoes. I can’t tell on my phone on the little picture of her, but maybe you can see her shoes.
We were outside the Frauenkirke that has stained glass windows by Marc Chagall. We didn’t get to go inside, as we were only in that spot for a few moments, but they are there and now I know.
We drove around and I took terrible pictures out of the bus window. Bus pictures are never good, but you see it and you want it and you take it! OH! We were in the frontest seat on the bus! We were there early, in case we couldn’t get an Uber or in case we got lost, so we got the first seat. The bus driver wasn’t in the bus when we got on, but the engine was running (air conditioning!) and the door was open, so we got on. When Willy, the driver, got on, I said, “Hi,” and he jumped a mile. Surprise!
We drove along Lake Zurich, which was really pretty, but on the other side of the bus, so I didn’t even try to get pictures. Our next stop was Rapperswil. It’s a tiny little old town, with some really old, and not too much town. We had a very pretty walk up the hill. I was surprised that there were zero shops. Zero. We came there on a bus and they weren’t going to sell us anything. Huh. I would have bought something. Maybe.
There is a little castle up on the hill, with a bunch of deer around it. I read the sign Hirsche bitte nicht futtern – which means Please don’t feed the deer. CLEVERLY, instead of looking for deer, I wondered if futtern meant eat instead of feed and then wondered why the sign would tell the deer not to eat. I ACTUALLY thought “deer can’t read.” Yes, still did not look for deer. Eventually, our guide showed us deer and everything made sense. Except why I wondered why I thought they put up a sign for the deer to read.
Rapperswil is the city of roses, I guess. We visited two rose gardens and they smelled really good. I told Keith to take my picture, but not get the path I was standing on in the picture, so he carefully came over and took a picture of the path. I crabbied at him and he said he thought I said make sure to get the path. Why do I always crabby at him? Darn. Maybe because it was 94 again (high of 82 forecast, but no. It was 94). I just really don’t seem to do the hot and humid well at all. (The bus was pretty darned nice and air conditioned. No complaints!)
We had purchased a sandwich to share for lunch today at the grocery store last night, because it was unclear in the description what would happen for lunch. We stood in the shade outside the city hall and ate. I ate. Keith was having knives in his throat today and wasn’t hungry at all. The painting on the outside of city hall were labelled M CCCC LXI and M CCC. I assume the art was depicting events from those years – not that they painting had been painted then. Still, you just really get used to Roman numeral dates starting with MM. Walter had given us tips on where to find lunch and one of them was at the American eMbassy – I thought that was really cute and I don’t remember hearing it before – eMMMMMbassy – McDonald’s. I suggested Keith get ice cream for his throat and it soothed really well. They also let us use their bathrooms for free. How American.
I texted with friends, Mike and Mary, while we waited for it to be time to go. They were travelling from Belgium to Amsterdam today. It was quite cool – like 62. What the hell. We are in SWITZERLAND. Look up any picture of Switzerland – it’s snow, right? Look up any picture of Amsterdam – it’s tulips, right? Well, that doesn’t teach us anything, does it?
Next we went through a bunch of long tunnels. That was fun. I said wheee wheeee wheeee while we went through, but very quietly, just for me. Our tour was in English, but interestingly most of the people on the tour spoke English as a second language (it was the same at CERN). I didn’t know if they wanted to hear wheee in a tunnel. I took more bad bus window pictures.
We got rerouted by construction that no one had told Willy and Walter about. They did not hesitate to turn and go on. I felt like we were driving on very curvy roads, pretty straight down a mountain. I held on at one point, just in case. I also checked that Keith was wearing his seatbelt (he was) (I was, but I already knew that.) When we got to the bottom, Willy laughed and said he had never gone on that road with a bus before and Walter said he thought he wouldn’t want to do it again. PHEW! Or they said something else, because my German isn’t perfect (at all).
Next stop, Heidiland. The tour was actually called the Heidiland tour. Did you know Heidiland is a thing? I did not. I definitely saw Heidi with Shirley Temple when I was a kid (on TV – many years after it was made, in black in white, with a little girl star who is actually older than I am. Just to be clear). We saw where the author was staying when she wrote the book and we saw the original Heidi house and Grandfather’s house, which inspired Johanna Spyri to write the story. They mentioned that Heidi 2 was filmed there – and Heidi 2 is special because it is in my favorite movie, Groundhog Day.
I had a very special moment while Keith was off filling water bottles. (I think we drank 11 bottles of water, Kool-aide, and Coke today. It was hot.) I walked down a path away from the visitor’s center and I heard a sound, like wind chimes but better. I wandered a little and figured out it was cowbells on actual cows. I made several recordings because it was so beautiful. Keith walked up. He was not impressed. He said his grampa and uncle had cow bells on their cows. Huh.
Then it was time for Liechtenstein. When we first started talking about visiting Switzerland, I saw that Liechtenstein was very near, so I thought we should go there too. I was having a very hard time figuring out how to get there, because trains did not seem to go there. Keith said they did, and he would know because that is his part of traveling – getting around. I researched Liechtenstein a bit and found out that it is about 7 miles wide and 14 miles tall. I had the INCREDIBLY good idea that we could walk across Liechtenstein! Then we could say we walked across Liechtenstein and no one would know it was only 7 miles, because very few Americans actually know how big Liechtenstein is and we know very few people who are not Americans. I told Keith my great idea and he answered with one word. You are thinking that it is NO, aren’t you? But c’mon, that is not Keith’s style. He is really not a NO guy. His word was Alps. Oh, yeah. Probably not as easy to walk across Liechtenstein as I thought it might be. I abandoned the idea completely when Keith found this tour and I didn’t even have to plan anything.
Liechtenstein looks a lot like Switzerland. Walter, our guide, kept referring to the ruling family as the princely family. I liked it.
Back in Zurich, we walked around a bit in the old town and downtown area. Walter said that Globus was a department store like Harrods – well, not as big, but the prices were as big. We went in to use a bathroom. We were supposed to pay the attendent, but just ran away. I saw a cute sweatshirt right at the top of the escalator. Only $670. A SIX HUNDRED dollar sweatshirt. It wasn’t even cute on the front. We ran away again. There was a $49,000 necklace in a case I passed as I ran out the front door. It wasn’t very cute, either!
We’re back in the room. Keith was feeling almost okay for part of the day, then he starting going downhill again. His fever is back a bit and he is just resting while I type. He is not hungry so I had really good crackers for dinner. We saw a menu in Rapperswil at lunchtime and it was $34 for spaghetti and $29 for a burger. How do people afford to eat here? My crackers were like $2. Oh. Oh, that’s how they eat.
You got some pretty darned good bus pictures! Congratulations on excellent tourist choices–not walking across sky-high mountains and not buying sweatshirts with sky-high prices.💸
Thank you. Sitting in the front was a fun, new experience. You know, the von Trapp family didn’t actually walk across the Alps – they took a train…to Italy. Man, musicals can inspire, but maybe inspire the wrong ideas.