[🏔️ yodel ⛰️] Day 2: Lucerne
Welcome back.
And welcome to all my new subscribers!
Guete nacht from Lucerne a.ka Luzern, Switzerland.
It's 9.50pm as I start to write this, and boy am I tired. I've been up since 9am on 12 September. I barely got any rest on the plane because Swiss Airlines does not have seats condusive for sleep. I kept waking up with a god awful tailbone ache that I have never ever flight in all my years of flying on planes.
I'm honestly so tired I kind of just want to end this here and say, "Sorry this is all you're gonna get." (Well, you are going to get a couple of typos because I don't have the energy to proofread it...)
But I signed myself up for a disciplined sort of practice, so I'm going to try my best. Not exactly 'power through' but more of 'give it my all'.
I've also got a lot of things to share about about my first day abroad in three years, or at least share my photo dump. It's slightly different from what I've been sharing on Instagram, and has some commentary.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I will probably never fly Swiss Air again, unless it's dirt cheap. There was nothing horrendously wrong with the plane, or the staff, or the food but there was very little love or dare I say, pride, built into Switzerland's flagship carrier. Everything felt incredibly maximised for profit. 10 seats were crammed into each Economy row, the seats were well-kept but old and incredibly uncomfortable, and the food was merely solid forms of energy.
The staff though, were incredibly warm and friendly. We had an issue with one of our seats and the flight attendants came over, ripped the seat open and tried to fix it. They didn't suceed, but I appreciated their efforts. It was also very cool that most of the staff on our flight were old. They were at least 40 and above. Such a stark contrast to the stereotype that flight attendants need to be young and beautiful.
One of the parts I did enjoy about the flight was playing as Mousakka against 2 other random strangers on the plane. They turned out to be the girls in front of me.
I don't know if they ever found out that I was just behind them. Although I wouldn't be surprised if they knew — they kept reclining their seats excessively after that.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The light here is something else. I already knew that European sunlight was special — my trips to Berlin and Copenhagen back in 2017 definitely convinced me that the sunlight here is super-powered. But Switzerland? Man, the sunlight here is on steroids. Everything glitters and bursts and is perfectly photogenic. I can hardly take a bad shot here.
I mean come on, this is a station platform.
And these are just random shots I took from the train.
Lucerne itself is gorgeous. The way the light hits the old stone buildings and cobblestone streets? Chef's kiss.
The main city itself is surprisingly small. All the major attractions are within walking distance of each other and I shocked myself by walking to everything today, with my heavy backpack. Coupled with the perfect weather, I felt like I could just keep walking all day.
The free loo here was... an experience. I kind of felt like how the lion is feeling in this statue.
This church was mind-blowing in so many ways. Catholics, y'all are honestly filthy rich and such great patrons of the arts. I can't even. I had to offer a votive candle because I was so moved.
There was so much good or interesting graphic design and art direction around to get excited over.
By the way, get a load of these beautiful vintage cars. SD called them ugly and smelly (from the diesel they use, probably) and I felt personally attacked for squealing when I saw them turn the corner.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Alright, I really have to sign off now. I'm nodding off as I type and that is never a good sign.
I do still have lots more to talk about, including my first introduction to the many varieties of Swiss service but I need to get some rest before, fingers crossed, I head up Mount Pilatus tomorrow. It's set to rain a little and that is a small wrench in our plans but it's definitely going to storm on Thursday so...
Talk to y'all again real soon!