To the Land of Heidi We Go!

While I was back in Miami, I checked the calendar one day and saw that Fasnacht, AKA Swiss Mardi Gras, was coming up pretty soon. After a quick search online for a ticket and a quick chat with my mother, I very impulsively decided to go. For about as long as I can remember, my family in Switzerland have been urging me to come to Fasnacht but I have never been able to go due to obligations with either school or work. This time I had no excuse, I found a cheap ticket and I decided to go.

The day after I booked my ticket, I went to dinner with my friends Kiki and Rob. We had talked about going to Switzerland over the years but never really put anything together. So when they heard I was going they wanted to go too. After a bit of convincing, calender checking and coordinating, Kiki, Rob and Elisa (Kiki's cousin) booked their tickets on the same flight as me.

We bought some travel books, some train passes and pretty much mapped out the week we would spend together in Switzerland. It was a rough schedule and my cousins in Switzerland called me quite a slave driver of a tour guide; well, if you only have a week you better make the most of it as far as I'm concerned.

Anyway, so we land in Zurich at 7am Sunday morning, two of us were able to sleep on the flight and two of us were not. But hey, we are troopers and we were determined to push through. So my awesome cousin Alex, picked us up at the airport, gave us a driving tour through Lucerne (my family's hometown) and took us to my cousin Philipp's house (which is actually the home my mom grew up in). After making us coffee, Alex went back to his home and we hit the city. We walked to the old town and had a huge lunch of alpine macaroni. We do not recommend mixing jet lag with a massive pasta dish, we were lucky that nobody passed out at the table.

In classic tourist fashion we headed to Mount Pilatus for a quick look while we still could. Mount Pilatus is a notable mountain in the Lucerne area and a place I went often as a child. One of the most fascinating things is that the Swiss military actually has a small base at the top and according to the soldiers we talked to, they are there to make sure nobody comes along and steals the mountain. Ha ha.

After a long day we were welcomed back at home by my cousin and his family for a lovely dinner after which we finally made it to our beds!