Driving into Switzerland it was snowing. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life. I loved the snow and it is impossible to describe and because we were driving through it it was impossible to photograph properly so I'll just have to show you the best I can.
I felt like I was in a dream, it was all so soft and beautiful and just looked like a fairy tale. If you are lucky enough to live somewhere were you get to see snow often then you probably don't think about it in this way. But for people like me...who come from the bottom of Africa snow is something very rare and beautiful. This was the first time in my life that I had seen snow falling like this and I was completely mesmerized.
Switzerland is weird. We were only there for a day and we didn't really see much because it was raining when we got to the town where we were staying but what we did see and learn from our tour manager was all pretty mixed up. Everybody knows that Switzerland is neutral right? Well they ARE...but they are so ready for war it's not even funny. Switzerland can call something like two-thirds of their population to arms at any point in time. They have tank traps all over the roads, secret plane bunkers and lots of massive tunnels that go through the Alps (we drove through a 17km long one) equipped with hospitals, food, rooms and even jails for the people of Switzerland to live in should anything disastrous happen to the world. I would say that if you had to choose to be anywhere for the end of the world Switzerland probably isn't a bad place to choose.
We stayed in Lucerne for the night, 31 December 2011. New Years Eve. Party. That's pretty much what happened in Lucerne. We didn't sight-see, we didn't do any art museums or famous landmarks. We just got there, got ready for the night and went out to party. Wait we did see one thing (which is also the ONLY photo I have of Lucerne), the Lion of Lucerne. It was actually a pretty amazing sculpture with a very sad story behind it.
The money in Switzerland...SO COOL. I didn't actually draw any Swiss Franc because we where only there for one night and we had already paid for that nights party in Euros but some other people did and it is so awesome. It is the most designer money I have ever seen. It's so colourful and beautiful I swopped money with one of the Australians at the end of the tour so that I could have one of these awesome notes to take home with me. It's in my wallet every day.
We stayed in a very cool hotel - the Jail Hotel. It was a functioning jail until 1993 and has since been converted into a hotel...but by hotel I don't mean room service and 600 thread-count sheets. I mean they put some pre-fab wall up around the toilet and put a handle on the inside of the cell door so that you can get out. It was awesome though.
That night - New Years Eve. Tequila. Nuff said.
The next morning we made our way on a thankfully VERY long bus trip (which meant I could just sleep the whole day) to Paris, the last city on our Contiki trip.
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