Pacing Ourselves

A Europe trek is like a marathon, if you start out sprinting as fast as you can, you're never going to make it through all 26.2 miles without collapsing. With that being said, we started out way too fast in Barcelona. We were walking very far, very quickly when we should have been taking the subway. Now, almost two weeks in and we want to see just as many things, but we're only able to walk about a quarter the distance :P Andy also has some "overuse tendinitis" in his foot (diagnosed via Dr. Mom over facebook) so we have to take it easy. My advice? Don't do too much, too fast. Use the subways whenever possible (if walk is longer than 15 minutes or so) and don't speed walk everywhere. The Eifel Tower will still be there when you get to it and Europeans all stay out late, so that cafe you want to get to won't shuffle you out early.

After roaming around Lucerne some more this morning, we're back now, to take a break, and the internet is fast enough here to actually add some pictures to the blog! So here are some teasers before I put up the entire facebook album!

Rainy day in Luzern and that dang hood won't stay put! Good thing it has a pull string, I am styling!

This bridge (without me in it) has been my laptop wallpaper for a full year - I was so happy to finally get to see it!

I almost didn't post this picture because it's just SO unflattering... lol. But I had to, to capture the moment. Here we are with our slabs of Luzern-made chocolate ($22 of it!) and enjoying every bit of it. Andy's was gone in about 10 min flat. I still have some of mine :)

So it is some sort of Catholic holiday today... being the confirmed Catholic that I am, I have no clue what holiday it is :P Unfortunately, the local shops are all closed and only the big restaurants, chain cafes and tourist stops remain open. Bad timing for us. We did find a place to eat and everything in the train station is open, including the grocery store.

Let's talk about my sticker shock for a bit... coffee (no free refills) sitting in a cafe is CHF 4.50 (remember, 1:1 with USD), fresh squeezed orange juice CHF 6.50. Two pizza-slice-sized pieces of quiche, two green salads and two small chocolate truffles, CHF 25.50. Andy says I'm just in shock because the conversion to dollars is so close, when in reality, we were paying the same amount in dollars in France because a single euro is worth about 1.4 US dollars. So my 3€ coffee at the cafe in Amsterdam was still CHF 4.50 or $4.50.   Next, groceries. Today we paid CHF 4 for like 7 strawberries, CHF 3.50 for cold cut ham, 3.50 for bread, and 6.90 for French wine. Sound like reasonable to only slightly pricey groceries? Moral of the story: when in Europe for extended periods and on a budget, go to the grocery store and get some picnic items for the majority of your meals. Andy and I have not eaten at an actual restaurant in Switzerland - the average price of an entree with meat is CHF 30... and all you readers know I'll want a drink too... it's just not worth it for us.

Andy made a good point, stuff that flies over my head and the heads of many sticker shocked Americans in Europe - the American government subsidizes a lot of our food to keep the prices low and we make up for it in taxes. The tax rate in Switzerland is virtually zero and the business owners get to keep a lot more profit. We also produce a lot of our own food in the US, keeping our prices down as well. Some things should be kept in perspective: there is no tax on food here and we don't tip the servers or bar tenders. If we stopped and thought about how much we paid in taxes in addition to how much we tip, the cost margin seems a lot less dramatic. Food for thought. (No pun intended.)