"Living the Dream" in Luzern...

Let me first start off by saying that in Up with People, if you happen to miss your departure time to your next city, or country for that matter, the bus WILL take off without you...after this last week, I speak from experience. On Monday morning, departing Milan, Italy, my roommate Sayuri and I went to the wrong departure location, missed the bus, and had to find our way by train to Switzerland. As horrible as that may sound, we enjoyed our train ride through Northern Italy into Switzerland...passing beautiful countryside such as Lake Como. We also passed through a great deal of tunnels entering the Swiss Alps, including one measuring 18 km…the longest in Europe. By the end of the day, we were together again with our cast in the city of Luzern, Switzerland.
Luzern is an amazing city surrounded by mountains and beside a large alpine lake. Our host family codes, upon arrival Monday afternoon, were different types of Swiss chocolate. This meant that all the host families had a certain Swiss chocolate with them and we had to match it with the chocolate written on our allocation sheet. I found my host dad Enzo with the pistachio chocolate I was searching for. He lived in a flat just a 10-minute walk from the main downtown in Luzern. To my luck, after having the ability to speak no English in Italy, Enzo could speak great English. His parents were originally from Italy, but he has lived in Switzerland his entire life. To go back to my missing the bus story, another problem was that I had put my bags on the UWP equipment truck before leaving and because of problems with border papers, it never made it to Switzerland until Thursday night…Tough to wear the clothes on your back for 4 straight days...Thanks to Enzo for the extra clothing.
On Tuesday we had a regional learning day. We loaded a boat from Luzern for a 2-hour ride to the base of Mt. Pilatus. It was a cold morning, but a beautiful ride with the fog coming off the lake and the green countryside all around the water. At Mt. Pilatus we loaded what I learned to be the steepest cog railway in the world. It reaches a slope of 49 degrees at one point. At the top of the mountain, we would have enjoyed an amazing view, but the fog was so thick that I didn’t give us much. There was a man playing an alpine horn, so I got to check that Swiss stereotype off my list. We rode down on the other side of the mountain inside a large gondola and stopped at another point to ride the alpine slide.
So…my next 2 days in Luzern may have been the best of the entire tour. I decided to sign up for a special CI (Community Impact) project with room for just 10 students. We were going up to a farm high in the Alps to work and stay the night for 2 days with a Swiss family. It was a 30-minute drive outside Luzern, and the only access to their home was by a 4-person gondola that seemed to climb a mile up the mountain. When we got to the top, we were told that our work site was another 40-minute hike, higher up onto the mountainside. It was cold and foggy, but the most beautiful hike I have ever made. You can see in the pictures the green mountainside, waterfalls, amazing vistas, and autumn leaves. I stopped nearly every step to try and take the whole experience in. The work, as expected, was difficult! Our job would be twofold…clear one of the large fields on the mountainside of all small pine trees, and dig a massive trench to lay a water pipe for the barn near where we were working. Those cutting trees had to be careful because of the steep slope in which they were working on. After sawing a tree, they would tumble down the side of the mountain…extremely exciting to watch. As for the ditch, it was the rockiest, muddiest, most ridiculous soil I have ever attempted to dig in. Our stats for the day: 4 broken pick axes, 2 broken shovels! The food we were served was amazing. My favorite was the “Alpine Macaroni” as it is translated. Massive amounts of Swiss cheese, potatoes, and onions cooked in. Most everything we ate was from the farm. Salad grown on the farm, homemade dressing, milk straight from the cow, fresh churned butter…it was heavenly. I even had the opportunity to milk my first cow. It was so hard! You need to grip the utter in the perfect way to get milk out. I sprayed all over myself! It’s really warm and kind of awkward! If you have good form and aim, it’s easy to squirt the people watching. The milk was separated from the cream, and then we literally just boiled it and drank it warm. Tastes nothing like the normal milk anyone is used to. I prefer mine with coco mix!
The family we were staying with had 2 children. The fathers name was Zep and only spoke Swiss-German. He was probably the most legitimate mountain man I have ever met. The farm has been in their family for four generations. They literally own an entire mountainside; I think it was about 40,000 acres. Everything they do at their farm is for them…nothing is sold. They are basically fully self-sustained. I was so tired after 2 days of work, but so completely satisfied by the entire experience.
Saturday was show day in Luzern. Earlier in the afternoon we had a German culture presentation by our German cast member to prepare us for the next 2 cities. The only difference in our show for the week was that the MC’s were done entirely in German, and we added a short Swiss song that everyone in the audience knew. We had a great time with a large crowd including over 80 Swiss UWP alumni in attendance. More amazing was to see Zep and his entire family at the show…it was so cool that they decided to come.
On Sunday, my host dad Enzo and I took a trip to Zurich. It’s one of the largest cities in Switzerland, and famous for being home to the bulk of the major Swiss banks. We first visited one of the famous chocolate shops and ate some of the best, and most expensive, chocolate I have ever had. We then went to Enzo’s favorite Bratwurst stand to eat and have a beer. They eat their Bratwurst by itself with a bread roll on the side…delicious. I also tried Maroni, which is a type of chestnut, cooked over coals. It’s a winter snack that warms up your entire body. That night we ate dinner at Enzo’s girlfriend Claudia’s house. We had a famous Swiss dish Raclette, which is melted cheese with potatoes. There is a hot tray in the middle of the table with slots to melt you cheese, and then you drizzle the cheese over potatoes. Enzo and Claudio also presented me with an awesome Swiss army knife before I left. The perfect gift from their country! Shout out to Enzo and Claudia!

Swiss Tips:
1. Don’t try to make small purchases with your debit or credit card…I tried to purchase stamps and postcards with mine and both my host dad as well as the person behind the counter literally laughed at me.
2. Don’t visit Switzerland unless your planning on gaining some weight…the Swiss food is great and you are likely to eat a pound of chocolate.
3. Beware of stinky Swiss cheese. Almost every cheese is amazing, but there are exceptions…be careful!
4. Spongebob Squarepants is way funnier to watch in German!

Off the Zell am Harmersbach, Germany…If you made it through this blog, Congrats! Hope to hear from everyone…make a comment or send an email.

If your interested in some more pictures from Switzerland...visit http://flagler.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2019182&l=95a7e&id=29800101