Spontaneous in Switzerland
- Jenny Belsan
- May 2, 2018
- 7 min read
Ever since studying abroad, I have become a more spontaneous person. You kind of have to though because you are constantly adapting to plans changing, new activities popping up, and things not going right the first time. My trip to Switzerland is a prime example of this and I think the fact that it was so impromptu is part of what made it so great. It felt amazing for just everything to fall into place naturally.
It all began when I was sitting next to Cara on the train back to Olomouc from our Prague class trip. I was telling her how I didn’t know what I was going to do for my birthday weekend because a lot of my friends were going to a wine tasting event in the Czech Republic, but since I’m not a big wine person, I didn’t really want to spend my birthday doing that. She told me if I wanted to, she would travel anywhere with me, so we started looking up flights. We browsed around the web and looked at about 10 European cities. All the prices were looking ridiculous since the flight would only be 5 days away. Cara then brought up that she had a friend from high school who lived in Switzerland and maybe we could visit him. We looked at 2 airports in Switzerland and it weren’t looking great. There was one last airport to check though before we would have to completely give up our dream to travel for the weekend. There happened to be a flight into Basel that completely matched up to schedule and was affordable! So, we turned to each other and asked if we were doing it, excitedly said yes, and impulsively booked last minute tickets.
Fast forward a few days, we are in an Uber in Prague headed to the airport. Our driver is playing great tunes and Cara and I are jamming. At this point, Cara and I turn to each other and say we can already tell this is going to be a great trip. Our flight goes off without a hitch and we arrive in Basel Airport around 10 pm. We get on a bus for an hour that takes us to Zurich, Switzerland where we are supposed to meet up with Cara’s friend’s identical twin brother. I have never seen a photo of either of them so it was up to Cara to spot him out. We wait for like 15 minutes until Cara is like “OMG that guy looks like Thomas.” (This group of guys has literally been standing next to us to whole time). It did end up being Thomas’s brother, Adrian, and some of his friends. They gave us a quick tour of the city of Zurich at night. They took us to an overlook where you could see the entire city lit up and it was so beautiful.
After walking around for a while, they took us to a college bar for some drinks for my birthday. The bar closed around 1, but Thomas and some more of his friends showed up right before it closed and asked if we wanted to go to a club. Cara and I had been up since 8 a.m. traveling all day, but we looked at each other and said why not. I mean, I don’t turn 20 years old every day. So, we went to one of the smaller clubs of the town, according to the guys, and man was it jam-packed with people. Imagine Cara and I trying to shove past people in a crammed club with our huge back bags full of all our stuff for the weekend- it was rough. But, we made it to the coat check where we could drop off our stuff and enjoy the night. Let’s just say, one second it was the middle of the night and the next it was early enough in the day to see the sunrise. So, Adrian took us to one of the city’s overlooks and we watched the sky slowly light up over the entire city of Zurich. It was an amazing experience and I could already tell this was going to be a one in a kind birthday.
Since we had literally been up all night, we were all desperately needed to sleep and we started to make our way to Rapperswil where Thomas and Adrian’s family lived. They graciously opened their house to us for the whole weekend. We took a 20-minute train and got to their house around 9:00 a.m. We planned to go to Lucerne that day, so we set our alarms for 1:00 p.m. and accepted we were going to get 4 hours of sleep. You can sleep when you’re dead right?
The boys surprised us with a big traditional European breakfast (soft-boiled eggs, fresh bakery bread, ham, cheese, etc.) when we woke up and then I received an even bigger surprise. Thomas’s mom came out with a birthday surprise for me. She had bought brownies, macaroons, and a desert like raspberry cheesecake for me with birthday candles in it. They all sang happy birthday to me in different languages. It was so incredibly sweet they did all that for me even though I had never met them before. They really made my birthday special. They also came up with a great idea that I need to come back to Switzerland every 20 years to celebrate my birthday.
After all those festivities, we headed to Lucerne in Thomas’s mom’s car and stopped at every scenic view to take pictures. It probably took us 2 hours to get there because I’m not kidding when I say we were constantly stopping to admire Switzerland’s many views. When we finally arrived in Lucerne, we viewed the Lion monument which is carved into a slab of rock, and is dedicated to the Swiss army from the French. Thomas gave us a brief tour of the city, made sure we crossed all the historical wooden bridges, and then we stopped at an outdoor restaurant right on the lake of Lucerne to enjoy a glass of wine. We admired the gorgeous lake and the city scape, until it got dark, and we headed back to Rapperswil. I have been to Lucerne before in summer of 2016 after my senior year. I went on a European trip to Switzerland, Italy, and Germany with some Scotus friends. It was so interesting to be there and reflect on my memories from the past trip and also experience it with new people.
That evening, the boys’ friends prepared a barbeque for us. They had it at a friend’s house who lives on the Golden Coast overlooking the Zurich lake. It is called the Golden Coast because the sun sets over the mountains onto it and gives the people who live on it longer sunlight and a beautiful sunset. Sadly, we arrived after sunset, but since it is on a steep hill, we were able to see the entire twinkling city of Zurich below us while enjoying some good barbeque and hot tubbing. It was the perfect final night for our Switzerland trip.
However, this didn’t end up being our final night. Cara and I woke up to find out our flights were cancelled due to a French airstrike (Basel is technically a Swiss and French airport). Now, you would think a person’s typical reaction to a cancelled flight would be upset and flustered. That wasn’t the case for me and Cara. We celebrated that we would be able to spend another whole day in Switzerland. We contacted our professor and made sure it would be okay if we flew out Monday and were possibly late to class, and after we got the okay, we booked a flight out of Zurich, Switzerland (not going to deal with the Basel airport ever again).
After figuring out how we were getting back to the Czech, we headed off for a day in Zurich. We first went to the Grossmünster church. We weren’t there to look at the inside because it isn’t super impressive, but rather to climb one of the towers. Halfway through, there were some posters which depicted how Zurich grew over the years around this church and it was very interesting to see how the city grew from a meek town to impressive city. It was quite the climb, but the guys kept telling us the top would provide us with the most impressive views of Zurich. They were not wrong. There were four openings/balconies in the tower that took your breath away and offered completely different views- the lake, river, and cityscapes. We were up there for a while taking pictures, just admiring the view, and realizing how lucky we were to be experiencing all of this.
After we made the trek down the tower, we headed into the city to have a late lunch. It was settled that we needed to eat fondue, since that is a traditional Swiss meal and all around favorite. After filling our stomachs with delicious melted cheese and bread, we headed to the Zurich lake to relax and just converse. The lake was full of majestic swans, a few people sailing, and a lot of people paddle boating. It was fun being surrounded by such a lively environment. As it started nearing evening, we headed back to their house to pack up, go to bed early, and get some decent sleep.
Cara and I were so thankful to Thomas’s family for opening their house up to us and giving us such amazing tours of some cities in Switzerland. It was very different to experience a country with locals who knew exactly what we worth seeing and what everything was, and to also see what it was like to be a local. They all have such interesting lives and have seen so much of this world (they all know 5 languages fluently because of all the places they have visited). I truly learned a lot from each of the family members and absolutely loved hearing their life experiences (especially their mom’s). She has such a different life outlook than many people I have ever talked to (for example, traveling and creating experiences are one of her top priorities). Because of all the people who have lived such different lives than me that I met that weekend, I learned a lot about not just about our wonderful world, but myself. I started to look at myself and reevaluate what the priorities in my life are. It made me realize that even though I am experiencing a ton while studying abroad, there is still so much I need to see and do and what’s so exciting is that I still have so much time in my life to accomplish whatever I desire. So, thank you Switzerland trip not only for the beautiful views and memorable birthday, but for also giving me experiences with others that helped me gain knowledge and opened my eyes to new possibilities.
Ps. Just on a fun little side note- Cara and I ended up getting the same Uber guy from the beginning of the story when we got back to Prague! We didn’t know it was him and we had forgotten what his car looked like so when our Uber pulled up we thought nothing of it. However, when the guy got out of the car and we realized it was him, we both screamed and received bewildered looks from people at the airport. He still had a killer playlist.
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