Friday, May 06, 2005
Danke Gott, ist es Freitag!
TGIF. Thank God it's Friday! Long post ahead, but I'm just so happy today I HAVE to write about everything :)
Today was just fantastic. Probably the best day I've spent in Europe thus far. So different compared to yesterday's disappointments. :) It's pretty unbelievable, but today
I had breakfast in Switzerland, lunch in Germany, and dinner in Austria! Over here, the border towns mark rail distances equivalent to 4 or 5 MRT stops back home. Just 10 minutes, and you might be in another country.
We started the day with the intention of going to Bregenz, a town on the border of Austria. Just Weiming and I, without the whole hassle of herd behaviour, and sans the pocket-blazing pricetags we've become so accustomed to. Bregenz is just a 50 minute train ride from St Gallen, but by the time we got there, it was raining and my cheeks were completely puffy and red from the cold. It was a formidable zero-degree wind we were pitting ourselves against, and Meng's one pathetic jacket wasn't going to hold up. Met this nice man at the bus station when we were trying to figure out which bus to take to the town centre. (by the way, Austria is just across the Swiss border, but it is SO different in terms of transport punctuality. Exact schedule adherement is a Swiss brand, but in Austria the trains are so tardy that the time-boards show 2 times- Arrival Time, and
Actual Time. The paradox is impossible to miss) He told us about this town called Lindau, a 10 minute train ride away from Bregenz. He explained that Lindau was the only town this part of Europe left untouched during the second world war, and all worthwhile an experience. What he FORGOT to tell us was that Lindau was in Germany, so we ignorantly went there without knowing we crossed another border.
And the man was right. Lindau is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. I am not moonlighting for the ProLindau Bordensee Tourism Board, nor am I being an airheaded clueless tourist. This is my opinion,
mein meinung, if it counts for anything. When we arrived, we were greeted by an old town. Old town, NOT a constructed pile of crafted cobble lanes and structures deliberately scrubbed down to a sepia finish just to make it look antiquated. It was just that, an old town, left just the way it always has been. From the lighthouses to every sidestrasse and little gasse, everything was just so real. There was a Lion Quai stone statue guarding the harbour overlooking Lake Constance, and even forts left behind from the war. And we didn't even realize we were in Germany til Meng noticed that there were only German cars around. And that was three-quarters into the time we spent there.
Tummies are easily the most satiable item in Lindau. Just an hour away from the wretched Swiss pricetags, and the cost of food is so much lower. Very good news for two hungry growing kids. Ok, maybe just Meng fits into that category. Normally Asian food is really pricey in St Gallen. Even the crummy looking ones decorated with worn faux-silk chairs and garish red lanterns with funny names like Golden Dragon cost a bomb to dine at. Just a plate of stirfried tofu and vegetables costs CHF15 (SGD22) in St Gallen, an austere vegetarian monk can jolly well eat himself bankrupt anywhere in Switzerland (except in Geneva). But in Lindau, our tummies were in for a treat! A plate of steamed rice with stirfried chickenm mushrooms and REAL vegetables (yes real ones, I am not talking about canned peas and carrots) cost Meng just 4.50E (SGD10). Which is about CHF7, a steal by European standards. So we went around filling our tumtums and widening our smiles with every additional morsel of food we put into our mouths. Gelato for 0.60E per scoop (yes it was hell cold though), bratwurst sausages served with homemade tomato relish in hot crusty bread for 2.20E, Ritter Sport bars for 0.70E each, nussgipfel for 1E, bread for 0.50E... Culinary heaven, and so much more we wanted to feast on, our eyes being larger than our actual tummies- Whole grilled spring chickens for 1.90E, hamburgers with bursting patties for 1.50E, kebabs for CHF4 cheaper than in St Gallen, more gelato, chocolate bars cheaper even than in Singapore, meats grilled tender enough to slip off their accompanying bones... If there is anywhere to burst your arteries and kill your diet plans, it is Germany.
But yes, besides eating, we had a wonderful time walking around the entire town too. We went to the
Zum Cavazzen, a quaint museum which thrilled us for close to an hour and a half. The entrance fee was 2.50E, but we ended up paying for the
kinder kasse, the child ticket costing just 1E each! Looking like secondary school kids was never more of a plus point than it was today. :) Happy cheapo campers. The first level was a Marklin display room, the German version of Meccano. Marklin is even better than Lego- each set has these metal pieces with holes to insert screws into, wheels, spokes, gears, and other stuff budding engineers would play with. The structures that people actually built with these small pieces of metal and scraps are just amazing. There was the Eifel Tower, which was ven taller than me, numerous antique cars, bombers, ships, aeroplanes, fighter jets, trains, and even a multi-storey carpark.
The second storey was a music museum, which had so many pictures and paintings of Victorian-themed instruments and musical events. Which led me to conclude that Victorian men expected their women to do 3 things- 1. be fat 2. be around for them to wrap their amorous arms and legs around and 3. to play musical instruments. How very hedonistic! And the third storey showcased Victorian furniture, paintings, toys, and religious artifacts. There were antique clocks from the sixteenth century, pioneer maps of Lindau, and paintings of the cruxifiction of Christ and sculptures of Mother Mary. Among countless other things that make you go
Wowwwww when you fix your eyes on them. The playroom had a gigantic wooden bicycle, porcelain dolls with painted red lips, a huge doll house with every room lovingly furnished (to the very last rug and rocking chair), old board games from the 1930s and even poker cards yellowed with age.
In Lindau, the Protestant and Catholic churches are directly next to one another. The Protestant church of St. Stephen's is a more spartan sanctuary, with white walls and plain wooden pews. Quite different from the Catholic Minster of Our Lady convent church, which even had a life-size figure of Chirst on the Cross hanging from the ceiling. I've realized that in Europe, just like in Singapore, catholic churches are more lavishly decorated, and intricately designed. Weiming was explaining the 14 stations of Christ's cruxifiction to me, which is a permanent fixture in every cath church. Not something we have in the protestant church. All these differences reflect the diversity in each faith. The catholic church relies more on symbols and rituals handed down by traditional notions of honouring Christ and the saints, whereas for protestants, it is a more direct process.
Towards dinnertime we took a train back into Austria, and stopped at Bregenz again. Which by then by covered in a shower of pelting raindrops and grey clouds. Bregenz is slightly cheaper than Switzerland, but definitely not as much a backpacker's dream like Lindau is. Meng went through what seemed like his n-th kebab since we arrived in Europe. (doner kebabs and turkish food is the cheapest way to go here, if you've got a stomach like a guy's) So dinner was in a different country altogether. Jetsetting, the cheap way.
We went what the locals very directly call
The Old Part of Town. The architecture of the houses and streets there was definitely quaint and old. Littered with ivy-covered cottages accompanied by writings marked with dates right from the 1500s, and manicured gardens, this wasn't the same kind of feel I got from the streets of Lindau. Somehow this felt more constructed, more deliberate, more like the recipient of restorative work than a legend left behind. Plus it didn't feel really safe because there were so many punks hanging around the quiet areas. I'm talking about punks with bleached orange hair, leather jackets and silver spiked garb, and enough beer bottles to cause serious damage to the liver. We passed a garage with sounds coming out from inside, and the clanging of glass accompanying a certain unsteady laughter. Call me paranoid or pluckpluckchickeny, but when you hear a garage full of people and beer, your best bet would be to move as far away from it as possible. Not really what you see in St Gallen, or the whole of Switzerland, for that matter.
Wonderful wonderful day. Well, it was the company that made it this way, wasn't it? The place is one matter, the person who shapes the experience together with you is another.
And the one person who made Friday so unforgettable, is about the only person who does this all the time for me. Just about.
Laid bare
at 11:57 pm
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