Switzerland - Zurich

After a week or so in Budapest, Wafaa, Mazen, Bobo and I hopped on a train together and headed to Zurich. The scenery along the way was quite beautiful.. Snowcapped mountains.. houses nestled here and there.. greenery everywhere..

On the train, Mazen and Bobo managed to take over a large sized cabin.. It was actually a little play ground cabin for kids.. They had toys.. cushions.. and a small tv. We were only able to enjoy it for a few minutes.. An old lady joined us.. Shortly after, a large rowdy crowd of Austrian boys tried to come inside, but the Austrian lady shooed them away.. I believe she told them they were too old to enter (ha!)..

Let me tell you a little more about this lady.. We started talking to her.. and it turns out she was a little nutty. She educated us on various subjects.. notably that the www. in URLs stands for 666 in Hebrew, so the internet is Satanic.. (of course!).. , along with the barcode thing.. (that they all start with 666).. She was quite nice though, and crossed the barcode on Bobo's luggage tag, thus countering the forces of evil. She also gave us lots of little tips about where we were heading.. After a few hours the Austrian boys came back and asked for a "percentage".. and then corrected themselves by asking for a "donation" to their hat.. hehe I think they wanted beer money.. b/c thats what I saw them buying at the next stop.

Anyways.. enough blabbering..

The view.. It was hard to take pictures without getting a reflection..



It took us a while to find our hostel.. I've noticed that most hostels are hidden away in easily missed corners. Ours was somewhere around here..



Mazen and I devoured nice meaty Gyros!





Heads ready to be chopped off!!



I thought this was a nice phone booth.



A good place to clean your pipes






Zurich by day..



One of Bobo's pics







Me with my chicken sandwich..







We walked along the Lake towards a big park area where we could see the Alps.. it was quite nice.. and the weather was perfect.



There are swans everywhere..



The nature nut in action..





A little taste of China in .. Zurich??




Bobo and I must have played on this see-saw for a good half hour.. I think Wafaa was lying on the grass somewhere.. and Mazen went to investigate some broken slide.. eventually they joined us and we had more see-saw fun.







The parks are full of cool statues.



We starting talking to an arab ice cream vendor.. We told him of our plans to head to Bern. He managed to convince us to go to Lucern instead.. "Lucern ahsan!" he said.. We were sold! So there and then we changed our plans..



The water was really shimmering that day..