Swiss Miss

as i believe i have already said, my first week of winter travels continued in switzerland. in basel and lucerne to be specific. both are very small towns, but quite charming, especially with a little bit of snow and a lot of christmas lights.

we spent an evening wandering basel, when i located the christmas market. i. love. christmas markets. i don't care that i don't buy anything, they are just so cute! and i particularly liked this one. the little huts were all close together and decorated beautifully, each with a wintery character or symbol on the roof. i swear if i were rich and had tons of space for stuff i don't actually need, i would totally have bought a little something from the majority of the booths. or put a little christmas market with only the best booths in my mansion. but, seeing as this is not the case, i decided to just enjoy it while i was there. we also later found a church with students caroling, so we sat to listen for a bit before heading back to our hotel for the night since the next morning we would be getting up early for our day trip to lucerne. i might add that this room was supposed to be for two people.. so it was two twin beds pushed together. but seeing as we are poor college students, we decided it would be ample for four of us. which meant we each got about half of a twin bed to sleep on. comfyyyy. well at least the comfortors were really nice :) and the room was really warm... sometimes too warm once you were dressed to go outside haha.

well our trip to lucerne started out a little rough, with us missing our train due to a little bit of difficulty getting to the train station. not to worry, there was another one an hour later.. though we did have to buy new tickets unfortunately. and though in general it was a lovely day, this would not be the roughest part for me... but i'll get to that later.
we arrived in lucerne to discover it was quite cold. and that for some reason sperm was quite popular on greeting cards.. not quite sure what that was about.. but hey, maybe you understand and could explain it to me?

we found a river very quickly upon leaving the train station complete with cute bridges crossing it and cute buildings lining it. it really is a beautiful city.

we then checked out a church.. i forget what kind.. some kind of catholic though. it was quite pretty as well. but to be honest, most of the day was simply spent wandering around the city.. no complaints though.. after rome and all the tourist attractions, it was nice to be able to wander around a small town without any real plans for the day other than to simply, well, see the city. i must admit, i really do like visiting small towns. big cities have their perks, but i also find can be quite overwhelming after awhile.

there is a big wall in lucerne though, which we decided to go see.. it was soon after this that my day went slightly downhill (literally in fact). when we were visiting this wall, well first we saw some animals. i forget what they are called. llama like though. how interesting!

but the drama started after seeing the fake llamas. as i have said it was quite cold in lucerne, with some snow and ice on the ground. well we were walking down a little hill, and i decided to walk sort of on the edge because there wasn't ice there for me to potentially slip on. bad idea. turns out there was a lot of mud which of course made me slip.. just what i was trying to avoid! i ended up with mud ALL over the left side of my jeans, all over kirstin's gloves that i had still been stealing, all over my new camera, and holding back a tear or two trying to laugh off the ridiculous situation. what made the situation better? i had miraculously managed to completely avoid getting mud on my jacket.. and considering that would be a b**** to clean off, i was pretty happy about it, and my friends were pretty impressed with my skill. yes, that is what we are going to call it, thanks. never had i been so happy it was cold out so that i always have leggings on under my jeans.. because i decided i would rather be a little cold and lose the jeans, than continue to walk around town embarrassed pretending i wasn't a 20 year old covered in mud.... i was also glad i had worn two scarves.. seeing as i had kirstin use one to clean up my camera as best she could before we got to a bathroom to do a slightly better job.
(i will post a picture here once i get a copy from tania.. seeing as how my camera needed to have mud cleaned off of it, it was not possible to use it to capture this glorious moment at the time.)
alright, here is the much awaited picture:

oh, and this all happened before lunch. i knew my klutzyness would come through at some point.
well once i was mostly cleaned up, i felt a little better, and we went to eat lunch.. just at a cafe/cafeteria place.. but it was pretty good actually. mmmm warm cream of celery soup.

more wandering of the city followed, including finding the lion and the lake:

that's supposed to be water behind us.. it was completely frozen

oh yknow, just chillin with the alps behind me

the slip meant that later in the evening before dinner and leaving town we found ourselves at an h&m (i am sooo glad they exist in like every city) so i could buy another pair of leggings to feel a bit warmer.. and so nicole could get a couple clothes since she realized she hadn't quite packed enough for her eurotrip.

 we definitely found a library before we found h&m.. so went in to look it up. haha
oh and there was a church or something next to the library, and when the bells started ringing mannn were they loud. but you could actually see them swinging!

and the walk past the river again was even cooler when it was all lit up :)

 and then we went to find a cafe to get a little nourishment because we were hungry and it was still too early for dinner.. the waitress was pretty excited about my hot chocolate:

funny thing, we ended up being there for quite a while and eating dinner there anyways!
and finally, it was time to head back to the train station to go back to basel. they had a pretty classy train station too:

so back to basel we went. we woke up christmas eve day to snow fall and realized that we would be in for a white christmas... but as excited as i was i was really hoping it wouldn't stick. i already knew people were having trouble getting back to the states and other places.. and i didn't want to have trouble getting back to lyon the next day because of the snow.

we had a pretty laid back day, spending most of it in the hotel room because it was so cold, and the rest searching for chocolate for gifts. i actually bought more for other people than myself.. impressed? seriously though, swiss chocolate is so good.
kirstin and i tried to go back to the christmas market one last time, but unfortunately it had already closed. but we did wander around the city a little bit more so i could get a few pictures since i hadn't been carrying my camera the first night:

we knew we would be spending the evening in, watching christmas movies supposedly.. but seeing as we couldn't agree on which ones, we watched my big fat greek wedding and little women instead.. at least one of them had some christmas in it?! haha

it was the next morning, christmas morning, that was i was both excited for and not looking forward to at the same time. but it started a little earlier than planned. we were woken up at about 5 am i believe when carolers were walking down the street.. singing loudly to their hearts content. it interested us for about as long as they walked past our window, and then we all climbed back into bed and went back to sleep.
well my train back to lyon was at 10:06 am.. and i did not want to miss it. so after getting up a little later than i meant to and quickly packing, i had to say goodbye to kirstin (the part i wasn't looking forward to) and head to the train station. i had a little trouble getting to the bus that would take me to the station, so luckily i had just enough credit left on my phone before it ran out for tania to help me out, and then found someone who spoke english who could finally tell me i was in the right spot. i ended up getting to the train station without a ton of extra time to spare.. found a train that said it was heading to mulhouse (which is where i would be transferring), and was really glad there happened to be a train person outside the door so i could verify that it was in fact the right train even though it said it was leaving 4 minutes early. it was not in fact the right train. oh right. i forgot to mention that the basel train station has a swiss side, a german side, and a french side since it is so close to the border. turns out i was in the swiss side, and my train was leaving from the french side. freaking out because i had about 5 minutes to find my train, i started running. i found a desk and the guy told me what platform and where to go, but that i better hurry. so off i sprinted (so glad all i was carrying was a backpack... why do i feel like this has happened to me before?). i found the train, got on.. thought i might accidentally be in first class.. got off.. noticed the door starting to close. oh no. so i just pulled the door open again. jumped on. and hoped i really was on the right train and not in first class.. because with less than a minute to spare, it had better be right. thank goodness it was. so in the end i got to mulhouse just fine. but my next train was running about 40 min late.. remember i mentioned not wanting the snow to become a problem? well it did. by the time i got to lyon it was an hour late, and so i didn't get home till almost 5. but hey, at least i made it!

survived a week's worth of travel, exhausted, but ready to see my host family and how they celebrate christmas. also realizing though, that i don't think i want any of my trips to be longer than a week.. in part because i don't think i would have enough space in my backpack!