Luzern

Well, the first week of back-to-school post-holidays break (everyone calls it "holiday" here instead of "break/vacation" because they learn British English...so now I've been saying it too) is over and the second week has begun. I've been meaning to write another blog entry for over a week, but last week was so busy and somewhat stressful that I just didn't get around to it.

In the 2nd week of the break, I had to work at the school. Dorina and I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned...and then cleaned some more. I work in the Trollstrasse building (Secondary school building) so that was where I cleaned, and for most of the days, Dorina worked with me. We cleaned everything in every single classroom--floors, tables, chalkboards, windows, etc. It was pretty exhausting, especially knowing that the students would be shortly returning and everything would be dirtied up again soon. Although, after a week, it mostly still looks pretty good...mostly ;-)

Since we worked so hard and fast, we finished all the cleaning on Thursday and then got Friday free! That was a pretty nice feeling. Dorina and I decided to go to Luzern on Saturday for the day. We took a train from Winterthur to Zürich, and then Zürich to Luzern. Luzern is in the middle-ish of Switzerland.

The pink-outlined thing is Switzerland. The purple "A" is where Luzern is (Lucerne in English).

The weather was beautiful and absolutely perfect! We didn't have much planned for the day, just walking around and exploring. I ended up finding some winter boots that I love and were on sale (bonus, especially since everything is SO expensive here!!) and there was a flea market where Dorina and I bought a few things. With the flea market, Dorina and I got to experience haggling over prices in Swiss German--and some were more difficult to understand dialects of Swiss German. We also saw some of the famous sights that Luzern is known for. We did manage to take a LOT of pictures, especially given the beautiful weather. Here are a few:

I love this with the Swiss flag in it :-)

The famous Kapellbrücke

A stunning view from the Kapellbrücke

Löwendenkmal - a memorial for some fallen soldiers from a war from a long time ago.

I LOVE how the mountains are the silhouetted backdrop for this city. Breathtaking!

Dorina and I, by the lake around sunset :-)

No matter what, I always feel like the pictures don't do it justice. Maybe I need a fancy-schmancy camera. Or maybe you should just come visit and see it for yourself.

I'm really really glad we took this day trip on this particular Saturday, because just one week later and everything is covered in snow. This past Saturday morning it started snowing, just flurries and not sticking, but snowing nonetheless. It continued all day and started to stick, and didn't stop until Sunday afternoon/evening. There is a lot of snow outside now and really, it's beautiful, but it still seems a little early--it's not even November yet!

Oh, and in Europe, we finish Daylight Savings Time a week before all of you living in the Western Hemisphere, so for this week, we're one hour closer to each other ;-)