I ♥ LUZ

Yes, I really really really do ♥ Lucerne.

It's big, it's modern, it's old, it's cute, it's BEAUTIFUL, it's all compact, it's stylish, it's friendly, it's easy, it's hot, it's healthy, it's expensive, it's quality, and its chocolate.

Are you getting this - it's big AND friendly. In Europe.

At my budget hotel there were 2 types of hot chocolate available at breakfast. They must have used the money they saved by having no phone, internet, toilet or shower in the rooms for that.

The locals look more or less like Cindy Crawford. I mean that bone structure and colouring.
There are lots of long skinny tanned and muscular legs everywhere.
There are lots of well dressed men who are groomed but not the point of looking like a pansy feminine Swedish man.
Locals smile at you on the street, sometimes.
There are countless fruit and veggie stalls and even the supermarket has a whole isle of pick-n-mix herbal tea and salads.
There is a cute Old Town that is not that old because it's got lots of modern shops and scaffolding and is brimming with mopeds and bicycles.
The whole city is perched around a lake which reminds me a bit of wellington harbour. There are a lot of bridges going across and most are covered in flowers growing off them.
The lake is full of swans!
An iced coffee and slice of torte costs nearly $20 and you have to clear your own dishes but at least it is served with a smile.
Tipping is included in the food price so you dont need to worry about that.

This might be my new favourite city.

I ♥ LUZ!

Lucerne

Salzburg hotel last night: Great hotel, disgusting awful heat wave. Sleepless. Noisy fan. Gak

Train ride today to Switzerland: Nice. Clean. Nicer than an aeroplane. These people must be tall because the train seats are massive. Late.

Zurich train station: Crowded and massive

Lucerne train station: Same

Hotel in Lucerne: cheapest hotel/hostel in Lucerne, (NZ$120 per night), single bed, no bathroom, lino floors, pay for internet.

Lucerne city: So far pretty rad. Lots of people and nice stuff. Cheapish food in the train station including Schoggi Mousse which is great even if you have to eat it with your fingers. By cheap I mean NZ$10 for a cup of mousse...

Lucerne locals: wear black singlets and styley clothes too

Me: Strangely dizzy right now

Weather: Was heat-wave hot, and now a thunderstorm has just started...

Life Ensurance

Ok, chances are I've written about 5 posts since you last checked... thats because i'm alone in Salzburg and as it's my 4th time here I don't feel the need to do anything but make the most of having that rare WiFi.

I guess what triggered this rant is that I only just discovered that, in my sweltering hot hotel room, there is a bar fridge.
Its extremely well disguised to fit in with the dark oak desk. Actually for some obscure reason I was checking to see if they had a Gideon's bible here because they seem to have them everywhere, but not here. I guess I was curious. Yeah, not much going on here..
I wish I had known about it because then my chocolate would not have melted (completely melted. After 6pm, in total shade, indoors, with the fan on full).

ANYWAY so i discovered this mysterious cupboard, fridge, that had Twix and Manner in it. Manner being a snack that is alllll over Europe and treated like... a treat. http://snaksnak.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Manner-Vienna-Wafers.jpg

I have seen these in the supermarket and on tv a lot and resisted tempation to try one. But since it was there in my secret cupboard....

Long story short, I am dissappointed, all round, in general, with all European chocolate biscuits and chocolate snacks. I'm not talking about the kind you buy from an expensive chocolatier in Belgium: I'm talking about your average everyday supermarket-shoppers-treat.

TimTams: I have never been the biggest fan because if I'm going to have chocolate, I'll have it by itself, without the unnessesary dry biscuit in the middle. But Europeans, Mein Gott, what would they give for a TimTam!
Why? Because there is nothing like it on their market. Their chocolate biscuits are like Manner: simple wafers with icing in between, dry, disappointing, with a sickly sweet aftertaste and no actual real chocolate. Served up in individually-wrapped packages that make it look like sweet irresistability.
Poor deprived Europeans!!!
They have two pieces of biscuit with some nutella-goo sandwiched in the middle, and they think all their birthdays have comes at once. I think I better post over a box of TimTams and ToffeePops and Hundred's&Thousands and Squiggles.


On that note, COFFEE.
I'm not even a coffee drinker, in the way most people are, but I know my coffees. We always assume coffee is a European invention so it must be better in Europe, right?
WRONG
I havent had one really good coffee or hot chocolate here. The best I've had have been almost-starbucks grade. And any good Wellingtonian knows that Starbucks is a last resort, because every other cafe does much more amazing coffee and service.
Hot chocolate here is chocolate-essence (or milkshake syrup) with warm milk. Sometimes they pile whipped cream on, but the looks are deceptive.

I just want to make it perfectly clear to all the NZers who complain about how small and crap New Zealand is: New Zealand has got it made!
Our cafe culture and cuisine is ABOVE world-class average, I'm sure of it. Our chocolate biscuits rock. Any barista can make 10 different types of coffee, with swirls and presentation to match. Our restaurants serve cheap food that is well-made and presented perfectly on big white plates with dots of sauce in all the right places.
AND you dont have to tip!!!

New Zealand is rad.

I think I called this Life Ensurance because in NZ you can always Ensure your life will be rad. Or something. Anyway I thought it was pretty smart.

...on a second note, I just tried Ben & Jerry's cookie dough in Salzburg - never mind that it had nearly melted before I got it to the table, it was amazing.
Tick that off my bucket list.

Blessings

I am so amazingly lucky! Or should I say 'blessed'.

At breakfast this morning I got some lovely farewells from 2 of my most favourite people: Annemarie and Siedgrid. Siegrid is completely awesome with a permanent smile and a beautiful voice that makes even Austrian-German sound lush.

Siegrid gave me firm warnings that "You must eat a lot this morning" so I took my usual bowl of cereal and some token bread on the side, which isn't normal. That got a lot of approval because Annemarie has just made the bread and kept nodding at me while I ate it, "Gut, geh?"
And yes it was. The closest thing to white bread I have had in europe, in a big plait with sugar sprinkled on top. Made for smearing with butter.

After that I was pressured to have more bread so I agreed to take some with me for the train. At hearing that, Siegrid started running around with a sandwich bag and came back with a packed lunch for me including a bar of Milka chocolate for dessert, woot!

There were hugs and kisses and promises of letters and emails and future visits. I said I'd like to come back with my family. OKAY?

Then the Boss met me in the hallway in her cute full-Austria dress, pastel colours complete with corset and floaty skirt, and gave me a packet of the hotel's branded chocolates (nougat filled) and a little card saying thank you, and my favourite line "You are a wonderful girl!"

Woot, that goes down on Amy's list of top-dollar words.
I said goodbye to the cleaner who wanted to come with me and also to one of the guests (night-walking lady) and even the taxi man bid me a fond farewell and safe travels. Gotta love small towns!!!

After that I caught a quite crowded train, with a very nice old man next to me, here to Salzburg for the night, before heading to Switzerland tomorrow morning.

It's so hot that the room heats up if you open the window. Seems to be a hot wind blowing over Austria these days.

I'm slowly getting used to being alone with my luggage. All fat 20 kgs of it. And learning how to deal with it on trains. I'm also getting used to Austria and I feel as if I know Salzburg like the town I never grew up in. I just hope they can understand my whack Austrian-tainted German in Switzerland!

Something about Edelweiss

Sadness. I am leaving Gastein in the morning. Not on a jet plane tho...

Tonight we had a little wee farewell in the kitchen which was icecream sundaes with myself, Annemarie, Siedgrid, Marita and the boss herself. It was all very nice and Austrian and my dishwashing skills were well praised haha...

I gave them some specialty nougat chocolates which I bought for them a while back. 'Nougat' in Europe really just means Nutella, basically. They love the stuff. Would kill for it. So even tho I'm not a mad fan, they were happy.
And a thank you note in German which caused a few giggles.

I will have pretty good memories of this place. It's fair to say it's been one of the best and most coincidental (seemingly) experiences of my entire life.

I mean, last night I got to man the strudel-buffet which was an experience in itself. Meat strudel, black-pudding strudel (surprised myself by loving it), spinach strudel, sourkraut strudel (of course), apple strudel and also Marienne-Topfen Strudel. Marienne-topfen is basically like baked custard with apricots. The bland and protein-rich kind your nana used to make. Mmm.

Today I found a new track called MarienWeg which I loved and I think I've now officially done everything you can do in Bad Gastein, except for a radon-thermal treatment in a cave.

I was going to sing So Long Farewell, from Sound of Music, at this point, but the Edelweiss song is much better and everyone secretly knows it.

Badesee

Wow I seem to have got internet on my laptop for a brief moment! I'll make the most of this and shower you with photos from Bad Gastein at the end of this post.

This morning I went to the Badesee (swimming lake) for the first time. I resisted going there before because you have to pay to get entrance, and the whole concept of that is just insane in a kiwi mind.

Anyone someone convinced me and I got the bus out there and was priveledged to be allowed to sit on the grassy edge of a shallow lake, watching people who were watching people, under umbrellas, mostly topless.

It was a stinking hot morning so I took my first dip in Europe. About time the togs got used! I was a little un-nerved by the small snakes I'd seen in the water but it was all the more intriguing because of it.

After a while I got bored of sitting in the sweltering sun with people who had clearly never seen a real beach in their life, and headed back to Gastein. The Badesee was really beautiful tho and there are not many places in the world you can swim under the hot sun, with beach umbrellas, and snowy-tipped alps.

Anyway here is a small bombardment of other Bad Gastein pictures for your viewing pleasure:

Ho Hum Gastein goes on. But not for long

Not much new has happened in BadGasTown but it's nearly time for me to sing a cheesy Sound of Music song as I gap.
Interestingly the bosses daughter said to me the other day that in summer bad Gastein is absolutely dead except for 'just old people' *bored face*. But in winter, it's actually quite the place to go and has a famous night-life and apparently is absolutely bursting with young Swedes who come here to ski in the alps. She said that all except one bar close down in Summer, which will explain why I haven't been able to see.. pretty much anything. Happening. Here.

That's not to say I don't love this place. It's entirely loveable. You can play Heidi all day long and nothing will burst your little alpine bubble.
It's rude not to smile at strangers and say hello in the street.
I can see baby deers in the woods out my window.
Everyone is on a health-kick.
All the food comes in perfect ball-formation....

... there are almost no shops... no young people... no English (virtually no German either - just a twisted dialect)...

Which is why I have decided to leave tiny little happy-ville and move on to Luzern in Switzerland and then go camping in northern Luxembourg. I figure Luxembourg will be great - it's a tiny country squished between the best of everything: chocolate from Belgium, Tuscan-vibes from Southern France, alps from Switzerland, gateau from Germany.... castles from everywhere... a whole heap of hiking, river-swimming, and hopefully rock-climbing. And young people. And English. WOOT

I'm assuming I won't have much contact with the outside world during that time.

Then off to a wedding in southern Sweden by a lake, for one of the most lovely Swedes you will never meet.

Then home for a lamb roast and some much-promised welcome-back-chocolate cake which I am secretly extreeeemely excited about.