$$witzerland

Switzerland - or as I think it should be more appropriately named '$witzerland' (more on this soon) is the most stereotypically correct country so far. Cheese and watches, thats what these people are about. We went down to the restaurant for breakfast in Brig and sure enough there was about 15 different kinds of cheese available, along with some crossaints, ham and cereals among other things. And, naturally, the cheese was amazing. Only in Switzerland would I consider cheese a breakfast food. Walking the streets of even the tiny town of Brig i noticed that the watch shop to normal shop ratio is absolutely ridiculous.

We headed off on the train around the north of the big lake in $witzerland (that I cant remember what its called) on what is meant to be one of the top 25 scenic train routes in Europe. Firstly ill say that the train from Austria to Venice last week was just as impressive scenery wise and secondly ill say that I dont really have any good photos from the train for two reasons; the train was going to fast, and I fell asleep. When we got to Geneve there were times when we would walk past 5 or so watch shops all next to each other with watches usually ranging from $500 to $10 000 displayed in the windows then there would be a clothes or a shoes shop before another 4 or 5 watch shops. It's really ridiculous to see how many watches are for sale in one street. What would a trip to $witzerland be without buying a watch though?? So naturally, Kelly Jamie and myself all bought a Swiss watch and spent a solid few hours looking at thousands of watches, most of which were well out of our price range, but then again, every thing in $witzerland is way out of line as far as prices go.

Before I left Dad warned me that Switzerland would be pretty expensive but I only planned on spending a day or 2 there so I wasnt too concerned on it affecting my budgeting. But still, I didnt expect it to be anywhere near as ridiculously expensive as it is. $3.80AUD for a McDonalds cheeseburger?? That's daylight robbery. In America they were 80c AUD! The first night we went out to an average Mexican restaurant for dinner, ordered 3 meals, 2 cokes and 1 water between us and spent just over $100AUD. So the second night we were more than happy to cook a microwave meal in our hotel room, just to even out the average dinner cost of $witzerland.


 But nevertheless $witzerland and in particular Geneve is a beautiful place, even if it did rain on us most of the day and I had a pretty good day strolling the city. Tomorrow it's off to France with the other two then four solo days watching 3 stages of the Tour De France, which was actually one of the main reasons I went on this trip which is sadly well into its last 2 weeks. The other 2 are heading up to Belgium and we will meet again in Paris in the 24th, my birthday! :)