My final weekend trip was one that I know will be hard to forget. I had heard a lot of great things about Switzerland, and I have to say, every good thing that people have said is all true.

Ginny and I made our way to Madrid on Thursday morning at noon and arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare in order to catch our flight. We weren't able to go to class that morning since our flight was on Thursday night, but we figured since we had only missed one other day of class that we would be okay. Our flight left at 8:00 on Thursday night and we arrived in Zurich, Switzerland around 10:00. We collected our luggage and left to go search for the train we needed to take to get into town. Although Switzerland has 4 different official languages, the majority of people speak German. This made things a little difficult at first, but Ginny and I managed to run into a very nice older gentleman who helped walk us though the train system. It's always hard at first trying to find your way around a new airport and a new transportation system, but once we got the hang of things, we were good to go. We hopped on the train into town and from there had to take a tram to our hostel. That again, was a little hard at first, but we ran into a younger girl who pointed us in the right direction. She even offered to pay for our tickets since we didn't have any coins! Around 11:00, we got settled in the Zurich Youth Hostel and decided to try and get a goods night sleep before our big day around the city.

Friday morning Ginny and I got up early to eat breakfast before we walked into town. Our hostel had a buffet from 6:30-9:30 so we enjoyed some cereal and toast and got all showered and ready before heading out around 10:00. We walked to the lake to see exactly how close we were, and then stopped by a church on the rest of our walk into town. It was a cloudy morning but nice nonetheless. We stopped to take pictures of the church and then hopped on the tram that stopped close to where we were. We learned very quickly that the tram is by far the most convenient form of transportation in Zurich. Turns out, they don't actually check your tickets on the tram, so Ginny and I used it as more of a "hop on hop off" style of transportation. We got off the tram as it got closer to the central city so we could walk along the many shops that lined the main street into town. We mindlessly walked through a handful of stores and eventually did some actual shopping at H&M and The Body Shop. I found a few things that I liked and ended up walking away with a good array of items. Although Switzerland is a fairly expensive country, the CHF works in our favor in terms of the exchange rate. It was nice to be able to shop with just Ginny, since our past trips have usually involved at least one guy and a bunch of other girls, which always makes things a little more difficult. Ginny and I had been looking forward to being able to actually shop and take our time with whatever stores we wanted to visit. After shopping, we went to the train station to pick up our tickets for our tour and then grab a bite to eat at. Since we were somewhat short on time and everything else was pretty pricey, we had to settle and get a chicken sandwich at good old burger king.

Once we finished eating, we walked over to find where our tour was meeting. We got all checked in and hopped on the bus that we would be taking around town. The tour guide, a Swiss woman, asked us which language we spoke; we told her both Spanish and English. When she began giving the tour, she did it all in Spanish in English, which was very surprising to both Ginny and I. We assumed it would be in either German or French, but there must have been some other Spanish people on the bus because both her and the bus driver we completely fluent in Spanish. As the tour began, we traveled around the city and were shown different historic buildings as well as the business and shopping district of Zurich. It was the perfect amount of history and sight seeing for me since I can only handle so many fun facts as I ride around in a bus. We stopped by the lake to take pictures, and then continued up into the hills to stop at a huge hotel over looking the city. From there, we went down to the town and were shown an old church that had famous stained glass windows as well as the giant clock towers that lined the city along the river. After the bus portion of our tour, we were taken up on a cable car to the top of one of the mountains about 15 minutes from town. It was an amazing view and both Ginny and I enjoyed that part very much. Although we were a little scared about riding a cable car full of 30 people on a tiny wire to the top of the mountain, it was well worth the nerves for the view that we had once we arrived. We stayed up there for about 20 minutes taking pictures and walking through the forest. Once we were all done, we came back down and took the bus back to the lake. We then drove right up onto a ferry boat and rode that across lake Zurich. The lake is enormous and has great views of both the Alps and the city, so it was a fun way to end the tour. We were driven back on the "golden coast" side of the lake and were dropped back off in the center of town.

After our tour, Ginny and I stopped at Starbucks for a drink and then dropped by one of the many Coop department stores in town to look for some food and beauty products. We had heard that the Coop stores have a good array of cheaper/nice products so we had to look for ourselves. We walked out with a few new items and then took the tram back to our hostel. After checking our emails and getting settled in, we went and grabbed a pizza from a place next to our hostel and took it back home with us. We ate and began working on some of our homework and readings, when I got a message from a family friend that was in town. Noah Dreyer, who I knew from Cedar Falls, happened to be in Zurich for the weekend in between business trips and had just gotten into town. Since Ginny and I weren't doing anything too exciting, we came into town with him to grab a few drinks and hang out for the rest of the evening. We came home around two and went to the bed shortly after.

The next morning we had decided that we were going to venture to Lucerne, a town about 45 minutes from Zurich. Noah offered to drive, so he came and picked us up around 10 and from there we stopped by the tourist center in town to pick up any info that may help us on our trip there. We drove through the scenic highways of Switzerland and arrived in Lucerne in good time. We wanted to first go to Mt. Pilatus, which is one of the more populated viewing areas on the mountains surrounding Lucerne. There was a cable car that took you up to the mountains, and then if you wanted to go all the way to the very top, you could take the worlds steeper cogwheel car. But, since it was a cloudy day, we decided to just go up to the highest point with the cable car. The view from the top was great and we enjoyed walking around the ropes course and paths that we were right off of the stop. After taking pictures and enjoying the sights, we made our way back down the mountain and drove back into town. We knew that the wooden bridge in Lucerne is by far its most famous attraction, so we stopped there first before getting some food. The bridge is a long wooden covered bridge that stretches from one side of the river that extends from the lake, to the other side of the river connecting to the city. It's a cool bridge, but isn't exactly something that takes a lot of time to see. So, after checking that out, we stopped by some musicians that were playing on the street and listened for a while, and then played the games that they had set up. I won 3 tree-swings that they had been giving out, and ended up bringing them back to Zurich with me and gave them to one of the guys at our hostel who lives by a lot of little kids. After the games, we grabbed a bite to eat at a little side street restaurant and spent the rest of the afternoon walking around town and poking our head in the shops that lined the streets.

We all came back to Zurich and went our separate ways to take a nap. Ginny and I were getting hungry after our nap and had been talking to one of the guys that worked at our hostel about a good Swiss fondue restaurant. He knew of an authentic restaurant and we decided to take his word for it and had him make us reservations for that evening. He said that it was a good local place with some of the best fondue in town. We told Noah about our idea and met him in town around 7:30 to go and head to the restaurant. The place was a little hard to find since it was more on the out skirts of the central city, but we had Noah's GPS so we parked and got to the restaurant in time for our reservation. We enjoyed a mixed cheese fondue with both bread and potatoes. It was a lot better than what I was expecting and I thoroughly enjoyed the meal. After dinner, we got some dessert and sat around and talked for the next few hours. Noah took us home after dinner since it was getting late and Ginny and I came back to our hostel. There were lots of people around the bar at the hostel so when we grabbed a drink at the bar and hung out with some of the other people that were staying there. The British champs of American football were staying at the hostel and had just lost to Zurich, so they were there drinking their sorrows away about the game and we enjoyed hearing about all of the dirty players on the opposing team they had just played.

Sunday morning was our last day in Zurich so we got call checked out of our hostel and headed into town. We were hoping to be able to do some shopping downtown but came to find out that the shops are all closed on Sunday mornings. We only had 3 hours so we decided that we would go and check out the Zoo that we had heard about earlier. We took the tram and joined the rest of the families and kids waiting to get into the zoo. We felt a tad bit old to be there, but zoo's are always fun so we joined the crowds in looking at the bears, elephants, tigers and rhinos. It was a really fun morning and the weather was nice so it was a good end to our weekend. After the zoo, we came back into town and went to the airport to catch our flight. We got to our gate a bit earlier than we had planned so we spent some time in the food court of the airport watching a dance competition that was going on. It helped passed the time and before we knew it we were heading back to Madrid. Once in Madrid we took the metro and bus back home and finally got into Caceres at 1:00 a.m. Monday morning.

Although it was a late night and a long day of traveling, it was definitely worth it all. It was a great weekend trip to end all of my excursions that I have been on. Being able to spend the time with Ginny and Noah was great, and I feel so lucky to have been able to see all the places that I have visited, especially Switzerland.

This next week in Caceres is going to go by fast as we only have three days of class and then we go to Salamanca for our last excursion. It is very bittersweet that this coming weekend is my last here in Caceres, but I am trying my best to soak in every moment that I can.

Enjoying the next week here in Caceres!