Davos, Switzerland

After taking a 4 pm train to Paris, getting on a plane to Zurich, and then getting on a train again Tim and I were in the middle of our second transfer on that train and had about an hour to kill in Landquart, Switzerland. It was 10 at night, we hadn't eaten since noon and of course all that was open was the Burger King. Now I'm not positive this was a poor life decision, because we were both very hungry, but I wouldn't generally approve of what we did next. We both ordered what was essentially a whopper meal. The problem was this was that it was 14 swiss francs. The part of me that was hungry tuned out my business major brain and just paid with my monopoly money (it's very colorful). Welcome to Switzerland, the only place where I can pay $15.50 usd for a whopper meal and not get any cheese on it.

Now that we weren't hungry anymore we took the 11pm train from Landquart and got into Davos-Wolfgang, a small town just down the road from Davos, at midnight with only an address for our apartment. We assumed we could find a hotel or bar that would tell us where to go, or at least call a cab for us. We assumed wrong, literally nothing was open. Not the bars, not the hotel. After 20 minutes of stumbling around in the dark a local bus passed, which we got on and the driver (who spoke no english, french, or spanish) took us on our way speaking swiss German to us. (Much different than normal german). After 5 minutes on the bus we pulled over and he pointed out to us where our house was. Perfect, but then he hesitated. He asked if we had the phone number for our landlord. Unfortunately we did, and after talking with the landlord and laughing in german for 10 minutes he pointed us in the other direction... So off we went down dark snowy roads until at 2 in the morning we were giving up. The garage we found earlier where apparently no one was currently staying looked really nice. And just when all hope had been lost and we ran into the street sign where our house was located. It was a miracle and neither Tim nor I are still quite sure how we ended up getting there...

The rest of our trip went something like Snowboarding, taking pictures of the Alps, more snowboarding, and snowboarding. We each spent like 25 swiss francs at the grocery store and ate like kings for the rest of the weekend (so about 2 whopper meals), doing all the cooking ourselves.

An oddity of Davos ski resort is that we never found a lodge. We found lots of restaurants and places to eat, but everywhere would kick us out if we had our own food. And you wanted your own food, the prices at the ski resort make Whistler seem like a Goodwill. Meals cost anywhere from 25 swiss francs to about 60. And this was at the place that had chicken fingers and burgers...

The skiing was awesome. Friday was sunny with lots of fresh new snow, Saturday was nice and got pretty warm and melted a little bit of the snow meaning that Sunday was nice and icy. The area of Davos was 5 different mountains of which we only went on 2.

Disclaimer: Other than the Burger King and the food on the mountain everything else was pretty comparable to the U.S. The grocery store had normal prices and lift tickets and rental gear was really comparable to any resort mountain on the west coast. Our apartment was also really cheap for 4 nights, which might just be cause we booked last minute.

Our last adventure was on Monday morning when we work up at 4 and walked over a mile to get on a train at 5 to get back to Brussels in time for class. Good for us.

Tim

Better than Wonderland (Cologne Carnival)

It took about 5 minutes in Cologne for me to wonder, "Maybe the guy who wrote Alice in Wonderland wasn't on drugs. Maybe he hung out at Carnival in Cologne." Never before have I seen a city so joyous, lively, and dressed in such vibrant colors. The best parades were the ones where you just walked down the street to people (some more than slightly intoxicated) were dancing, kissing, drinking (German national pastime), and living. Of course there is a parade every day as well from Thursday until the beginning of Lent on Tuesday. Parades with massive amounts of candy, where the louder you yelled the better chances are of getting some; where people in the parade gave you flowers if you yelled certain things at them. We never quite figured out what we were saying in German, but we got lots of flowers so I think we did something right. Carnival brought embarrassment to the word Halloween; it's now more of an insulting word. The costumes were unmatched by any I've ever seen. There was a beer and bratwurst stand every 5 meters which only added to the joyous behavior of everyone. We also did take a tour of the History of Cologne museum and were able to enter the most awe-inspiring church there is (most likely true). The Cologne Cathedral has its own grand history which include being one of the few buildings in the entire city still standing after the bombings in WWII. Seeing as it was Carnival many of the cities museums (30+) were closed and is definitely a city worth traveling to at any time of the year. But we traveled to it at the best time of the year. When people celebrate living and are happy to be your friend whether or not they can speak your language.

First day costume: 

Cologne is full of surprises. This is the padlock bridge (yes, I'm sure it has a real name too). The tradition goes that couples write their names on a padlock, lock the padlock to the bridge, and throw the key in the river. This brings them everlasting love. There is a lot of padlocks too. The bridge is a good 100 yards with padlocks locked to the chain-link fence. 

Looks like a cool front entrance to the Cathedral. It's not. This is the side entrance.

Many stores boarded up their shops, but only during the parades. Now I never saw anything that would have broken the glass storefronts had the plywood not been there, but I imagine they learned from experience. 

Windows inside the Cathedral. 

Cologne is located on the Rhine. 

More parades. These outfits were worn at all times by everyone though. Also I have no idea what an actual German police officer looks like. I saw probably 100 different versions. 

This is the front. 

 Picture taken at the end of WWII. 

                                             

The most overused costume: Maverick from Top Gun. Though none were very good.