An update from Lucerne

I’m too tired to upload pictures, so apologies to family hoping to see lovely pictures from our Fall Break trip. I promise a big upload is coming when our family is back in Oxford on Sunday. I’m sitting in our hotel room in Lucerne, Switzerland. I haven’t posted since my quick shot from Paris several days ago. The hotel internet in Paris was, shall we say, spotty-to-non-existent, so I’ll try to catch everyone up on the happenings of Fall Break in this email:

Sunday, 10/2: Tara, Theo, and I made our way to the Eiffel Tower and several other spots (e.g. the Arc de Triomphe) that we visited 10 years ago as a family during our last Oxford Study Abroad semester. We opted to not go to the top this time, but took plenty of pictures. We spent the bulk of the afternoon touring the Louvre (again), a museum that you can hardly touch in a single day. We were pretty much museumed out by the end of the day, so we travelled back to our hotel and had a lovely meal of pho at the local Vietnamese restaurant nearby. Our hotel in Paris is a funky budget hotel located in one of those “pancake” buildings that you sometimes see in urban settings where a bunch of streets come together. One wall of our bathroom was literally the “point” of the pancake, if you can imagine. Perhaps I’ll share a picture when I’m better positioned to upload. We were staying near Paris’s Chinatown district, which was lively and interesting.

Monday, 10/3: Tara’s one hope for our trip to Paris was for us to go to Versailles. Alas, the Palace is closed on Mondays, as are many of the museums. Note to self: don’t plan to visit awesome sites in Paris on Monday. Not a good day to do that kind of thing. The museum I really wanted to see, the Musee de Orsay, is also closed on Mondays. Despite the disappointment, we did a really fun city tour together to major sites around the city that we didn’t visit on Sunday. We saw the Sorbonne and also did a lovely walk along the river as the sun was setting. I can’t wait to share the pictures. Tara was obsessed with finding the “lock bridge” (i.e. the bridge featured in the movie Now You See Me). It exists, be there are very few locks on the bridge now! We remember the bridge was absolutely covered back in 2012. Doing some research, we discovered that the city recently took steps to remove the locks and to keep people from adding more. Apparently having millions of padlocks attached to a pedestrian bridge adds enough weight to affect the structural integrity, so it was making the bridge unsafe.

Tuesday, 10/4: Our morning was spent taking a train from Paris to Lucerne, Switzerland. The ride was great. I love traveling by train in Europe! When we planned this trip with Theo, Switzerland was very high on our list of things to do, and Lucerne was a standout city that we chose as our base. We have not been disappointed. Our hotel is a budget hotel located a short walk from the train station. The room is small and wanky, but everything is clean, fresh, and the internet is reliable. We didn’t venture far into the city today. We were all tired. Things we learned on Tuesday: (1) Restaurant and fast food in Switzerland is EXPENSIVE. A cheap meal costs $10-12. Regular restaurants around the city serve meals that are $20-40/plate. We have other traveling we want to do later in the semester, so we are opting to eat on the cheap, buying more economically from the nearby grocery store. The food is healthier as well, a big plus in Tara’s book. (2) Switzerland does not use EU plugs! We brought EU converters with us for our US electronic equipment. I had to borrow Swiss convertors for use in our hotel room. I now have 3 swiss-EU converters, 3 EU-UK convertors, and 2 EU-US convertors. Crazy countries–can’t we all just agree to a single type of plug?!!

Wednesday, 10/5: This day was definitely the best day of our break so far. Traveling can be so stressful. There are planes and trains to catch, and it’s easy to get lost in an unfamiliar city where you don’t speak the language. Today was relaxing. We spent the entire time doing a personally guided tour of the Lucerne Old Town. The city has created an outstanding travel guide app with a navigable map and audio commentary on many of the famous sites around the town. The app recommended 2-3 hours for the walk. We spent closer to 5-6, walking leisurely and enjoying the sites. I look forward to sharing more details later. Tomorrow we are heading up Mount Pilatus! We figured if we are going to be in Switzerland we need to spend at least one day on a mountain. Breathtaking views, cool air, what more could one ask for?

Much love to family and friends. We are doing well and having a good time.