from where we left off in munich... to switzerland

When we were told Switzerland was expensive, it was not a joke. We would have loved to post from there, but seeing that it was 2 franks for 5 minutes... that fell quite out of our budget. Now we are in beautiful Barcelona, where internet is FREE and plenty... so we will have to catch you up on our adventures.

We spent the last day in Munich hiding from the rain in a Beer Hall. Literally for 5 hours we sat in Haufbrahaus jumping tables and meeting all sorts of different folks. For the first good while, we drank some of the beer brewed in the hall and tried some local flavors, such as pretzels, white veal sausages, and spicy brawts. Yes, Hall was actually eating pork! (We have become quite adventurous in our travels!) When we moved to the main room, we sat down with an older couple who ordered some more beer for us... but in the great room they only served beer in full Liters! Needless to say, by the time we left Germany we were beered out. Which was lucky, becuase the beer was so expensive in Zurich we weren't able to afford it anyway.

Zurich is a little quaint town in the center of Switzerland. It has a large river running down the middle of the small city, which collects in a lake at the edge. Here we stayed in Zic Zac Rock hotel in the ZZtop themed room. Each room was themed after a different American musical artist. Think of a run down Hard Rock Hotel. It was located in the middle of Zurich's old city, which was our favorite part of the town. It was filled with cafes and boutiques that were less touristy than the other side of the river which held all the major designer brands, chocolate shops and jewlery stores. Fun to window shop in the city! The first night we went for the local cuisine, swiss cheese fondu! Somehow the idea of pride for a large bowl of cheese just cracks us up. The next day, we spent the morning sitting by Zurich's lake. It was gorgeous, surrounded by rocky clifs and cottages on top of hills that run up the side. The lake is swarming with ducks and huge swans who would come right up next to you expecting to eat something from your hands. One night, on the way back from dinner, we were drawn into a stone corridor off the river by the sounds of a beautiful accordian player. He was playing classical songs of Mozart and the likes on his accordian, which actually gave more of a sound like an organ. It was amazing, we stayed until he finally packed up his stuff at 10:30.

From Zurich, we took a 14 hour night train to Barcelona. We passed the time easily in the dining car eating food we could afford and tasting spanish wine. We arrived early in the morning, around 9:45 and made the treck to our hostel, which is actually off the map (and the map is HUGE!). We're okay with it though, because we are 10 minutes walking distance from the beach. So it's more like being in a small spanish town with a 30 minute subway ride to the city. But we'll tell you more about that later.

Love, Hall and Liz