der Ausflug

der Ausflug is one of German’s many words for vacation related travelling. By definition, an Ausflug takes place in one day or less and is generally to a place you can reach fairly easily. For instance, if I lived in New York, LA would not qualify as an Ausflug. Newark would be an acceptable Ausflug.

Before I get much further, I have to first say that Radolfzell, which by the way, is pronounced RAHD-olf-TSELL, is very charming. My language school is right by the city garden, which my host Oma explained used to be the city cemetery. It’s sort of an eerie thought, but the garden being a former cemetery is the least of my concerns. I said earlier that my host Oma has had 200 students here. She has one spare bed. Ergo, I’m sleeping in the same bed as 199 other people. Somehow the garden looks prettier now.

But as pretty as Radolfzell may be, the grass is always greener on the other side of the Bodensee. The Language School planned a trip to Zürich for a day and anyone in the school could go. Our tour guide would be a teacher at the school who lived in Zürich for a year after high school. Good enough for me.

We left in the morning and were in Zürich before noon. We had to change our euros to francs, because the Swiss can’t stand to be the same as anyone else. Never mind that Italy, Germany, Austria, and France all use euros, the Swiss Franc will never die. In addition, the franc looks hilarious, like a colorblindness test.

There are so many things to say about Zürich. Zürich is rich, there is a main drag of stores there and its got everything from a flea market to an Armani store with a guard. A friend of mine considered fake puking outside the Louis Vitton store just for the irony, but he didn’t, and that self discipline is why we were chosen for this trip. I did get some chocolate for my host Oma from the most expensive (and ostensible best) chocolate store in the world. I don’t know if I should brag about paying more than is reasonable for chocolate, but Sprüngli is fantastic chocolate. Even though Zürich is rich, it doesn’t seem large like DC, New York, Chicago. It is very much a European city with winding streets connecting unexpected open areas. Another cool thing about Zürich is that all of the city’s fountains are filled with potable water. We didn’t believe it at first. Actually that’s a lie, when out guide told us this, we trusted him like sheep. But eventually we did see other people drinking from the fountains too. I also saw a pigeon stick its head in the fountain, so potable water or not, the water can’t be that clean.

After a few more sights we climbed back onto our train. But our trip had one last surprise in store for us. On the return trip, we passed the Rhine river, which is no different from any other river, except that it has a gorgeous waterfall on it. I had my camera (sort of) ready.

We arrived in Radolfzell just in time to grab dinner and hang out on the beach.