Lugano and other random happenings

Hallo! (As they say in German...) Grützi! (As they say in Swiss-German...)

This past week has been a relatively uneventful one, other than going out to a delicious Italian restaurant for dinner with my leading lady Wednesday night after work. We did have an exciting trip last weekend, though. We went to Lugano, Switzerland...a small city about 3 hours (by train) southeast of Zurich. The city is in the Italian-speaking canton of Ticino, which borders Italy (as a side note, a canton in Switzerland is what we would consider a state in the US). Lugano is actually not even 30 minutes from Lake Como which is another well known Italian destination (think George Clooney, Ocean's 12, etc). So here's the low down on Lugano...let's start at the beginning, shall we?

Friday morning was actually an early one for us because our couch was (finally) being delivered. We got a call at 6:50am from the delivery crew that they would be there in 10 minutes. Two minutes later our doorbell rang! In comes the couch, Aggie and I do a little "construction" and voila! We had our couch and promptly retired the camping chairs.

We didn't have much time to sit around and test the couch out, though, because we left on the 2pm train from Zurich to Lugano. We got into Lugano around 5pm. It was a super easy train ride through the mountains, which were amazing and gorgeous. Everytime I ride the trains here in Europe, it just amazes me that something like this can't be implemented in the States. The thought of how much energy, gas, pollution, etc that we could save is ridiculous. Also, it's just so easy to take the trains. You can read, listen to music, you can show up two minutes before the train leaves...it's such a great way to travel. Anyway, off my soap box and back to our trip!

We walked out of the train station, hopped on a bus, and in about 5 stops we were at our hotel. We checked in, dropped our things off and headed down to the lake.

The walk to the lake (Lago Lugano) was not even 5 minutes from our hotel. Once we got to the lake, we had the option of taking a water boat/taxi, taking a bus or walking for 15 minutes to get to the main center. We opted to walk along the boardwalk and just take in the view. The area was just like a picture book. The path along the lake was shaded with trees and benches were lined along the entire path. The hills and mountains really just seemed to just "hug" the lake. The lake water was crystal clear. The sun was setting. People were out strolling around, eating gellato, etc. It was just really nice.

We were pretty hungry and decided to stop to eat. You'd think we would have opted for an Italian restaurant but no, we went for Chinese! Whatever, it was good! After that we stumbled upon this courtyard of outdoor bars/clubs and decided to sit and have a few cold ones. It was excellent, excellent people watching. Saw more dudes sending out the vibe and getting shot down than we have seen in a long time. Very entertaining!

So the rest of the night we just walked around town and got a feel for the place. Then the next morning we got up relatively early and headed back out to explore, do some shopping, etc. In true Swiss style, everything was crazy expensive and so we didn't buy too much. But oh well, it was just nice to walk around and the weather was amazing. We spent the day exploring stores, an old church, parks around the lake and gelatto stands. There were so many people out and it was a great atmosphere. One thing that was cool: you can rent a paddleboat, paddle out to the middle of the lake and then jump out and go swimming. So many people were doing this and it looked like a blast. We promised that next time we came we'd make it a point to do that.

About 2pm we went out for a boat tour on the lake. It was really nice and we got to see a lot of Swiss and Italian lakeside villages. The two things I couldn't get over was 1. how secluded the place seemed, tucked away in the middle of all of these mountains, and also 2. how clean the water seemed. You could literally see to the bottom in certain places.

When we got back from the boat tour, we went back to the hotel, got fancied up and then headed out for some dinner. We ate in the center of the town and it was a decent meal. Again, good people watching. After dinner we went to the Lugano Casino.

The Casino was right on the lakeside and looked incredible from the outside. I was expecting this to be like a "Casino Royale" or "Monte Carlo" type of place...high rollers in suits, models walking around with martinis, $1,000 chips being strewn around the craps table, etc. This image was further bolstered by the Ferraris, Bentleys, Mercedes, Mazeratis, etc sitting out front of the place in valet spots. We walked in and were greeted by pretty Italian burds and huge bodyguard looking guys checking passports, etc, further living up to my expectations.

When we walked into the actual casino, my balloon quickly deflated. You couldn't get chips at the table...you had to go to the cages and change your money there, and the line to do so was enormous. It didn't matter anyway b/c the place only had a handful of tables and they were jam packed. There were no craps tables, no martinis, and no models. Just a bunch of depressed lookin dudes chain smoking and playing with $5 chips. We gave the place a cursory tour and then bolted back out into the warm evening. So long, suckers! We grabbed some gellato and strolled around a little more before heading home.

Sunday morning we kind of slept in and then took a cog train up to the top of San Salvatore mountain. At the top we walked around and took in the view. Again, the weather was great and the views were amazing. We tooled around a little while and then headed down to the hotel pool to catch some rays before hopping the train back to Zurich.

The train ride home was uneventful. Again the mountains, waterfalls, rolling green hills and bell cows were out in full effect. Unbelievably pretty.

This weekend has been good so far. Yesterday we took a train to Sihlbrugg and hiked back. It was such a nice, although long, hike. A good mixture of woods, mountains, hills and beautiful views. It took us about 5.5 hours to get to the end of the trail, which was in Uetiliburg. Once there, we jumped a tram back into the city and headed to an Irish pub to watch some rugby and soccer and have a couple frosty brewdogs.

Last night we met a couple (Nicole and Gary) for drinks. Long story short, before we left Luxembourg, Agnes looked on this website for American expats in Zurich just to see if there were jobs, etc, posted on there. Well, this site was actually more like a social networking site, and this couple had posted a profile of themselves that we thought pretty much sounded like us. We had arranged to meet up with them last night and it went well. They seem really nice and normal and fun, so hopefully it will work out. I was teasing Agnes, calling it our blind date and wondering on our way home if she thought they might call us back! :-)

Today we are grilling out with my co-worker, Jen, and her husband Bryan. Jen is the girl who semi-recruited me to come to Zurich after Luxembourg. Well, she just found out that she made partner in our firm (the highest level you could make). So, basically, she is going to be loaded now and we're throwing her a celebration bbq.

Next weekend we are going to take a day trip to a yet to be determined location. Basically, Jen gave me a "Tageskarte" for the Swiss trains which she kind of had lying around and didn't think she'd be able to use before it expires. A tageskarte is like a day pass where you can travel first class to and from anywhere in Switzerland for free for one day. The one Jen gave me expires on June 6, so we are going to try to go somewhere within 1.5 hours next weekend (we'll go early in the morning and then come home in the evening). Interlaken and Luzern are the top contenders at the moment, but we'll see. Agnes the travel agent is going to be hot on the case this week and we'll figure out where we want to go and what we want to see.

The weekend after next, we'll be heading home (Hamilton) for a week to do some wedding stuff and attend Brent and Erika's wedding in DC. We are really looking forward to that!

Anyways, ciao for now and make sure to check out the pictures via the link above...they are some good ones!