EXPO Adventures!

When my friend John from England left Switzerland I thought; since there was an Italian invasion in Switzerland why shouldn't there be a Swiss one down there too?
So I spontaneously decided to take the train to Milano and visit my friend Ari :) We also said that since the Expo is there right now why don't we give it a visit too? So just the day after I arrived we took the tube there and I was really excited! Never have I been to a world exhibition before and I did not really know what to expect...
A lot of countries have separate pavilions and present their country and one part of an overall topic. This expo was about food: production, waste, orcanic food, etc...
We went into a couple very interesting pavillons like Brazil or Estonia. And for lunch we ate a nice pizza in the organic food pavillon :)

Ari also said that if I come over, she will come fo Switzerland for a couple days too. So we took a train together but we were a bit stranded in Chiasso, just at the border of Italy and Switzerland: the ticket counter was closed so I could not get the ticket I wanted for her. So we took a simple ticket to Lugano and thought "why don't we stay there for a bit since its nice weather and in Zürich it rains... So we got some swimming trousers for me and jumped into the lake! Such a nice refreshment after these hot days spent in Italy!
Later in the day we took the train back home..
But it was not only extremely hot in Italy, the heat wave was here too.. So we thought why not staying at home one day and enjoying the cold of the house.
On Monday we took a train to Zürich with only one thing in mind: swimming in the cold lake! Luckily it does not take that long to get from Baden to Zürich.
The next day we just went to Baden another time. We got some sandwiches for lunch and ate in the Boveri park. Feeling a bit lazy we then walked up the old castle in Baden to just relax and enjoy the view which is always stunning! Since last year there is an Open air cinema on a garage roof in Baden. With a free view to the stars and chocolate as a snack we saw the film "The long goodbye". Its a 1973 noir film and just hilarious actions and jokes all over the place! Wednesday we went to Baden again to buy some things for dinner. We also used a voucher I had to get 2 for 1 crêpe in a crêperie in Baden :) In the evening we made Pizza for us and my parents with whole grain flour which was a bit of an experiment but in the end it turned out very nicely!

Thursday was a very interesting day. In the morning Ari, me and my mum went to Basel and then over the border to Germany together to visit a museum called Vitra. It was also the first time Ari went to Germany too!
What a visit! You know, we all really like design, architecture and furniture and that is one of the best museums that exists on that topic. We also got a guided tour around their production site with all the houses that were all desgned by famous architects too! I especially liked the firestation of the whole site because of its strange angles but cool look!

1. Pavilion zero with an art installation about how we make food from animals

2. A lovely Italian! pizza we ate in the organic food pavilion

3/4. The Brazilian pavilion with a huge net you could climb on and an interesting indoors exhebition

1. A short visit to Lugano: A lovely city in Ticino

2. The lakeside of Lugano where we took a bath :)

1. The city of Baden from the view up on the castle (only for people with legs!)

2. A chalk drawing Ari made in a nice furniture shop on a table (with permission!)

Our visit to the Vitra museum in Weil am Rhein; a furniture museum with a lot of floors. All nicely designed and the pretty buildings made by famous architects.

Our guided tour around the production site of Vitra. Even the firestation (last pictures) was made by the famous architect Zaha Hadid and shows funny forms and figures.

Totally British

On the Friday just a week ago my friend John from England arrived here to visit me in Switzerland. Me and my mum went to the airport to pick him up and then I showed him around my school and Baden.

On Saturday morning we woke up early to go on our nicely planned trip. With the bus and train we went to Thun, just John me and my mum because my dad was still working. Thun is a lovely place and we were very lucky because on that day there was a festival with barrel organs, ferris wheel and a lot of people. We just walked around and up the castle where we had a nice overview on the mountains and the lake below us. Since most boats in Switzerland are included in our pass we took one that went from Thun straight to Interlaken. Inter laken means "between the lakes", the Thuner and Brienzer lake. It was a lovely trip where we ate some nice soup on the boat and just enjoyed the view which was outstanding (by the way did I mention that there was not even one single cloud in the sky..) In Interlaken we planned to go on a little swim in the lake but in the end we were just relaxing in the shadow of a tree. Next on our tour we took the train to Grindelwald where we got a room in the youth hostel and got company by my dad.

Since John is living in a very flat part of England and has never actually been in the high mountains we thought it would be great to show him our alps. About a week ago we pre-booked a very steep cog-rail train up the Jungfraujoch. It is one of the highest mountains we have in Switzerland with a lovely view on the Aletsch glacier which is the largest glacier in the Alps! You also see an interesting but very touristic exhibition indoors that shows the making of the crazy train going up the mountain and as I said it attracts a huge amount of asian tourists. After a nice lunch a bit further down the mountainside we walked to the middle station and took a train back down to Brienz where we took a swim in the icy cold lake. Brrr! It is so cold because the water comes streaming straight from the glaciers. Another night in a youth hostel but this time next to the lake :)

Change of plans! The weather on Monday was not as sunny as we expected it to be so we canceled our train up the Brienzer Rothorn which is the home mountain of Brienz and took the train to Luzern after a nice lunch at the Giessbach hotel and a second walk (for me) up the waterfalls that are behind that lovely hotel. I think that we follow the asians because Luzern is actually populated by asians too (secret fact!) But it was nice doing a walk, eating ice cream and showing John around. We went back home a bit earlier since we were all very exhausted by the walking and the spicy hot weather :P

On Tuesday we showed John Zürich. Even I was in places I didn't know existed because my mum showed us around. A while ago she studied Architecture and got her diploma in Zürich so she had some lessons too about the city, its history and the interesting places. After some walking around we took the boat (again) and went swimming at the Mythenquai where we ate dinner and soon took the train back. Johns visit was already over and I was planning to go to Italy for a couple days to visit my friend Ari. You will be able to see all about Milano in the next post on Saturday ;)