Day 12 –- Lucerne, Switzerland

For two people from a wet climate, you'd think we'd have prepared a little bit better for inclement weather. But, between the two of us, we had wool coats, hoodies, and absolutely no rain protection.

So guess what happens on our first day in Switzerland? If you guessed "We chased a three-legged dog into an ice cave, and it showed us the secrets of the Ancients," you'd be incorrect, and weird. Nope. Today it rained. Pretty hard, too.

But we were tough, rugged. Hell, people who don't like rain are total pansies, and they're wrong about their opinions of "weather." I wore my hoodie with no jacket, because I'm crazy like that. And Erika decided to go the "wool coat and umbrella" route. We suited up, breakfasted up, and took off for the "old town," which was the touristed area about a 15 minute walk north from our hotel room.

Unfortunately, since I'd decided (and pushed Erika into accepting) a trip through Switzerland during our pending honeymoon, I'd spent a good deal of time building up Switzerland in my head. Almost a year, in fact. So I'd read the guidebooks...pored over the "Google Earth" images...read different web pages and reviews of various sights and locations in Lucerne. I was picturing a quaint, rustic town…with soaring mountain views…a crystal clear lake…and an easy-going, friendly vibe.

But what I got was a rainy Bavarian-like town filled with foreign tourists. It's funny…because even when you're prepared for rain, walking around in it is not always such a hoot. You end up just looking down at your feet most of the time...and there are practical problems...like, when you want to take a picture, you've got to duck under cover, ruffle through your damp pockets, and take what will (no doubt) be a mediocre, grey shot.

And to top it off, our trip to the Picasso Museum was stymied – we found the address, but the door had a cryptic pink sign in the window (apparently something about parties for children???), and there was absolutely no sign of the museum. Our one objective for the day never happened. So we soldiered on through the mire, and eventually stopped at the west end of the old town, and had a lunch of onion soup and bread. Refueled, we continued on our way.

Needless to say I was getting pretty bummed out about half-way through the day. This was not the Switzerland I wanted. Our hotel was about a good distance away from old town, and I kept seeing hotels (that I'd checked out online) much closer to the action…and they all looked great in comparison to our place. And, of course, I was the one that had pushed so hard for a trip to Switzerland (having fallen in love with the area after reading A Farewell to Arms in college, and having been accepted to a Swiss college when I was a junior in high school). It was turning out to be just Munich, minus the affordable restaurants, sites to see, and a good deal of the charm.

So I moped…and if you know anything about my wife, you know that she just loves it when I mope about. It's one of her favorite things. It was "pep talk time."

And to me, the best "pep talk" in the world is "fatty food." So we crossed the Reuse, and ate some world-famous Swiss chocolate. It was, as advertised, fabulous. Having seen at least a couple of the sights, and wanting like hellfire to get out of the rain, we adjourned to the hotel and took a well-needed nap in our palatial room.

After the nap it was "back out into the rain" for din-din. Our guidebook recommended a place called the "Restaurant Frischi," which it called "Completely unpretentious." So we went there. I wouldn't exactly call it "completely unpretentious," but "fairly unremarkable," even "a touch kitschy." The building had an interesting façade, and there was some interesting artwork in the dining area. But for the most part, it looked "remarkably" like any other run-of-the-mill restaurant in the central-Europe area. We ordered the regional specialty – fondue.

Now, I did not know this, but apparently Fondue is a Swiss invention. I'd always figured it for the French (since they love the cheese so dang much), the Americans (since they love melting the cheese so much), or some Asian country (since they love loving love so much), but no. It's Swiss.

Turns out (God how I missed you, Wikipedia) the dish arose from necessity. In the winters, folks would generally stock up on food to survive. In Switzerland, this meant that bread and cheese were stored away. However, the problem is, bread and cheese have a tendency to "harden" when stored. It's what I like to call "food hardening." That's right. I'm a food scientist. Anyhow, the Swiss solution was to add some wine to the cheese, melt 'er in a pot, then dip the rock-hard bread into the cheese. The result? Pure awesome, on a long fork.

But here we ran into something that will continue to plague us throughout our visit to Lucerne – everything is really freaking expensive. How much for the melted cheese, chunks of bread, and a dozen little potatoes? About $50 ($25 per person). Now, our "rose-tinted" budget going into Europe had us eating for $50 for the entire day. We've since amended our budget…but still…$50 seemed like a hell of a lot to pay for some melted cheese, bread, and potatoes. I'm just saying…

But we paid...because not paying is technically "stealing." Back to the hotel. On the way, we decided to start a habit of "getting desert, taking it to our hotel, and eating it in our room while we play Speed." Tonight was the inception of this idea – we got some cookies, some wine, took them to our room, and played about 9 hands of Speed (it's a 2-person card game, for those of you not in the know) as we feasted on fine Swiss desert cookies, and some markedly less-fine Swiss pinot noir.

Erika squeaked out a victory in Speed – five games to four – but the wine and cookies were soundly defeated. Tomorrow we go up to the mountains. Well…the "mountain." Mount Pilatus. It's the supposed resting place of either a dragon, or Pontius Pilate. Or both. I'm not sure, really. But we planned to scale the sumbitch. Or, at least "get as high as we could before we got too cold, then take the gondola back, down the side of the mountain." Until then…