It's Lonely Travelling with only Rick Steves for company

Grösse from Luzern. I am awfully cranky and I am travelling alone this weekend because Laura ditched me to go to Rome at the last minute. That was not so nice, and it's raining.

I travelled to Bern on Thursday night and stayed the day there on Friday. Last night I travelled from Bern to Luzern and stayed at the worst hostel I've ever been to. It was actually a very a nice place. It was well decorated, well appointed and most importantly kind of cheap and entirely dry. It wouldn't have been so bad at all except that when I arrived at 8:30 the reception was closed and there was a long line of people waiting to check in, including a very fussy baby. I didn't get checked in and to my room until 10:00.

At least I got a bed though--after getting the last bed at the hostel in Bern on Thursday night I have a new appreciation for how important reservations can be--and I called ahead. I saw several people turned away from the Backpacker's Luzern.

I shared a room with 3 Korean girls who woke me up at 7:30. I think they were practicing curling with their suitcases, or playing shuffleboard, or something equally noisy that requires sliding a plastic covered suitcase along the entire length of the floor. It was almost as bad as being woken by the sound of a nylon sleeping bag being stuffed. Luckily, I have yet to encounter any real backpackers at the backpacking hostels I've stayed at here in Switzerland so there's no real danger of experiencing that awful type of wakeup call.

I left my backpack in a train station locker and have been walking around all day carrying my Rick Steves' guide in true touristic style. His tours are fun to follow even though it means stopping every few feet to consult the book--which would be more embarassing if there weren't ten other people doing exactly the same thing everywhere I go. Most of the time I feel like I'm on a big scavenger hunt ("...find the swiss Marilyn Monroe").

Rick Steves even guided me to the Stadtbibliotek, where I am currently blogging from. This may be the first (and perhaps last) on location blog I do, since I'm normally much too busy enjoying myself to spend time writing. Regardless, I've been having a pretty decent time with Rick, considering my gloomy mood.

I was in Bern yesterday and I have quite the post in the works that will detail items of historical and cultural relevance as well as quite a bit of complaining. Stay tuned for the complete Luzern and Bern tourist posts.

In other news: Since I'm feeling a bit cranky, today's theme is "Things I do Not like about Switzerland"

1. The z and the y are switched on the keyboard.
2. Paying 2 francs to use the bathroom at the train station is out of control. 2 francs!
3. Ridiculiously expensive coffee, that becomes more expensive when you have to pay to use the bathroom afterwards.