This post has been uploaded as a blog post retrospectively from the diary written at the time.
I hardly sleep a wink with a constant rattling of a door and the students’ singing Rod Stewart’s version of Sailing. When my breakfast arrives, I munch nonchalantly whilst talking to Matilda, who is a Swiss student. She says that Zurich is better than Bern and to stay put.
I am restless in Zurich. I spend 325SF of my original 605SF on a couchette for the night. I am going to wander around Zurich then catch trains around the country, making sure I get back on time!
The thought of staying in another city just bores me, I want to see mountains! I head to Lugano after walking around Zurich for a couple of hours.
I quickly grab a picnic in the local shop, which I hasten to add is cheaper than Austria, and I am off. The train to Lugano passes along Lake Zurich and on into the mountains. It saves my legs and back the pain of another day.
The midday sun is evaporating some of the lake so all you can see is eerie shadows behind a light mist. Towns are buried at the base almost like models. The sun makes the fields look lush with green. There are houses sprinkled in the strangest places and brilliant lakes and glacial towns with flat floors that suddenly shoot up.
When I reach Lugano I head to the lakeside edge. I make a few sandwiches and throw the rest of the loaf to the ducks. The sun is beautiful and I strip down to my trousers, take off my socks and shoes, and sit on the lakeside.
Mountains climb either side of me. As I sit and wonder what to do with myself, a gentleman comes alongside of me and speaks in German.
‘Ich bin ein English herren’ I reply.
‘Arh I zee, I speek english’.
From here we speak a broken Italian, French, German, English conversation, and then he offers for me to go out on his boat around Lake Lugano. Seriously tempted, but remembering what Charlie says, I say no… The guy seems fine with that, and despite his connections for a Swiss bank, I am convinced this is not the Nazi pedophiles that I was telling my friend Tony about back in work. Although he’s got gold capped teeth, one fat Sovereign ring and is called Gino.
During all that excitement the sun has wilted slightly. Checking the time I head into the town. Who says ‘mad dogs and Englishmen?’ Man, that conversation with Gino was a perfect example of how fucked up Switzerland is. I was in Zurich, the German cantons, then Lugano in the Italian cantons, Geneva is French canton and among all this is Switzerland’s very own Romansh. Their bank notes have it all. Anyway, back to Lugano.
I visit some churches and then head back. I meet Anne on the train who is an American after a visa to work in Switzerland. She is chuffed with my little philosophy of ‘fuck it, if it happens it happens.’ Later I meet two Aussies at Zurich, fellow inter-railers, then in my cabin I have Joel and Katherine, two Canadian students who are euro-passing to Rome then on to Greece. And, as if it would all be friendly and easy, we’ll have an Italian who I love because he doesn’t speak English and he laughs at my Italian.
Oh, and I had pretzel and lost my pen. Trivial and saddening.
