That's how I roll.

This weekend, I took a spin around Switzerland. The trip was a great success, but not without it's transportation and other mishaps, which tend to happen when you don't plan at all. So here's what happened on Saturday. Pictures and more notes will follow.

Monday / Tuesday: After last weekend's transportation failures, resolve to leave Zurich for the 19th/20th.

Wednesday: Met Renee, a bald dude from Amsterdam, at the Wednesday meetup. His favorite city in Germany is Munich, which also happens to be close. Bonus.

Thursday: Lengthy reading of travel books and viewing of train schedules. Florence, Berlin, Paris, and Munich are on the not-Switzerland list, Lausanne, Geneva, and small nearby towns (e.g. Zug) are on the local list. Having waited this long, chances of a TGV ticket are small, and overnight tickets would be difficult, since I have to do laundry on Friday morning, and getting those reservations relies on going to Zurich HB (Hauptbahnhof / main station), which would probably take an hour.

So, Munich? Nope -- Oktoberfest starts this weekend! This is awesome, but there are no vacancies. Also, I suspect Oktoberfest is a festival best shared. Next year. I go to bed thinking about Lake Geneva.

Friday: Up early, doing laundry and working from home. In between, I give a hostel in Lausanne a call, thinking I could stay two nights and do some day trips. "I'm sorry, all hotels in Lausanne are fully booked." Fascinating. Oh well, time to go to work.

I take off from work around 6, ready to try out my crazy new online banking card and to make some real travel plans. What about ... Bern? It's in the book. 1 hour away by train, online reservations, done. Bern on Saturday. In fact, I go so far as to scribble the following "Itinerary of awesome" on the back of an envelope:
0) Rock out in Zurich Friday Night
1) Lausanne 6:00 train (~2h)
2) Rock out in Lausanne.
3) Lausanne -> Bern train (~1h)
4) Hostel in Bern.
5) Check out Bern & Environs (a.m.)
6) Geneva for festival (1h?)
7) Check out Geneva PM.
8) Geneva -> Zurich train (3h) Late.

See? That's organized.

Now that's done, time to walk off the day. I run some errands, hoof it around town for a spell and check out a few places, and make it back early (9 ish). Then I whittle away 3 hours, and crash at around midnight. By this point, I had copied down copius train schedules between Geneva, Bern, and Lausanne in my pocket notebook, enough to ensure I wouldn't miss the last train and could also visit those cities in any order. I'd also selected my departure train, a 6:04 to Lausanne through Biel / Bienne, and observed I could get to Zurich HB on time by taking the 05:41 S2 from Wiedikon.

I think Saturday is best described as a timeline. So here we go.

• 05:15: Awaken. Get dressed. Dilly-dally a bit, thinking that I needed to leave at 05:46.
• 05:41: Leave the apartment.
• 05:42: Curse, realizing that 05:46 is actually the arrival time of the S2 at Zurich HB. Start walking briskly to the nearest tram stop.
• 05:46: Arrive at tram stop. Observe an 05:50 #9 and a 05:56 #14. Lament that the #9 doesn't go to Zurich HB and the #14 won't make it in time. Ponder.
• 05:47: Start walking briskly to Bahnhof Wiedikon.
• 05:51: Arrival at Wiedikon. Lament that the next train departs at 06:16. Exit Wiedikon to see the arrival of the #9. Board.
• 05:53: Transfer to a #3 at Stauffacher. While on the #3, decide that I'll just take the next Lausanne-bound train, which leaves at 06:30-something.
• 06:00: Arrive at Zurich HB. Become sad that all the effort writing down the train numbers in the book was for naught, as the magic flippy board doesn't include them. Moreover, there are two trains leaving at 06:04 in the same direction. Choose wisely.
• 06:04: Both trains leave Zurich HB. I'm on the correct one.
• 06:4x: The smell of magic smoke fills the air. A minute later, train slows to a halt. We sit for a spell, and then go.
• 07:0x: At the following intermediate stop, we hang out for a few minutes while the train is repaired. I remove my map to see that the line through Biel is not the same as the one through Bern.
• 07:30: Arrive 17 minutes late into Biel, having missed my 07:16 connection.
• 07:35: Walk around Biel, which is pretty empty at 7:30 on a Saturday morning. Enjoy a cappuccino and a croissant.
• 08:16: Resume Lausanne-wards.
• 09:15: Arrive in Lausanne. Buy an OJ and some AAs for the GPS. Snub the metro busses and hike up the hill to old town. Pull out Switzerland Through the Back Door and start walking the One True Path of Rick.
• 10:45: Taking a break from the orientation walk, hang out in a plaza near the Cathedral.
• 11:00: City History Museum opens, and I check it out.
• 11:50: Done with the museum. Finish the orientation walk.
• 12:00: Stumble upon a street market and a bunch of people looking at a cuckoo clock built into the front of the building. Observe the cuckoo clock display. Frown in disappointment. Check out the street market, the M2 concert festival sound check ("hey hey un deux un deux yesssss yesssss"). Have some pretty good doner kebab at Traiteur Bosphore.
• 12:59: Take a Ouchy-bound Metro train after having waited 15 minutes on a pink carpet. Rejoice that I can participate in opening-weekend festivites for the Metro without having suffered through its construction.
• 13:15: Arrive Ouchy. Wander about. Head over to the Olympic Museum, which turns out to be awesome.
• 15:15: Finished with the museum. Next stop: Chateau de Chillon. Wander back to the center of town, pondering whether to fight the line to take a metro back up. Decide not to. Start climbing.
• 15:30: Arrive Lausanne bahnhof. Based on departure board, decide to take a local train. (Versus an express train to Montreux, followed by a bus.)
• 15:33: Depart Lausanne on a local train bound for Villeneuve.
• 16:00: Arrive Montreux, right on schedule. Observe Chateau de Chillon is the following stop; stay on train.
• 16:03: Pass Chateau de Chillon at high speed. Curse.
• 16:05: Arrive at Villeneuve.
• 16:06: Observe map, noting that the S3 local train skips Chillon, and the S1 does not. Observe next departure is s1 at 1624. Mill about for ten minutes to decide whether to walk or train. Spend several minutes messing with the GPS to find out how far the walk would be.
• 16:15: Realize it's faster to wait. Take some pictures and board the train.
• 16:24: Depart Villeneuve.
• 16:26: Arrive Chateau de Chillon.
• 16:30 - 17:30: Tour Chateau.
• 17:52: Board bus 1 to Montreux. Grow uncomfortable as unsympathetic locals direct me to the ticket machine at the rear of the bus. More long glances as I drop a coin.
• 18:00: Arrive downtown Montreux. Walk around for a bit.
• 18:19: Depart Montreux to Bern, transferring at Lausanne.
• 19:56: Arrive Bern.
• 20:20: Check in to Backpackers Hotel Glocke. Notice that it's awesome. Clean up.
• 20:55: Arrive at Restaurant Vatter, recommended by the Good Book. Notice it closes at 5 P.M., not 11 P.M. Rick Steves: You're on notice.
• 21:00: Dinner at a nearby Italian place, instead. The charming Hungarian waitress speaks 4 languages and makes a strong spritz. The Calzone Italia actually looks like a pizza with just the side rolled up, and curiously all the toppings (spinach, tomatoes, salami, olives, and some cheese) are kept separate. It's tasty, though.
• 22:00: Tour through town.
• 23:00: Crash.
  

Ironically, one of my favorite pieces of advice is, always have a plan, but be ready to change it at a moment's notice. Well, I'm halfway there.

By comparison, Sunday was much less surprising. I checked out Bern in the morning (more on that later), headed over to Geneva in the afternoon, and took an evening train back to Zurich. I'll have more once my camera recharges and I get some sleep.