St. Gallen and Switzerland appreciation

This weekend we decided to get out and appreciate some Switzerland. On Saturday we hopped on a train to St. Gallen, a city in the eastern part of the country. We chose St. Gallen because 1) we had never been there, 2) we had heard it was cute, and 3) it was only an hour away by train.

The reports were right – it is a very cute city, with a bustling walking district in the middle of the old town. We passed by dozens of cafes and restaurants that looked like they’d be fun to try, and lamented that Zurich didn’t have such an offering. We settled on a fashionable yet comfy tapas restaurant for lunch, where I thoroughly enjoyed my “artesian” water housed in a bottle designed by Calvin Klein. (The Swiss always overcharge for water – at least this water made an effort to appear worth the extra money.) The food was good, too.

We spent the afternoon wandering around and exploring the old town. There was an outdoor market, several small specialty shops, and even street performers. We went into the cathedral, which was easily the most beautiful church I’ve seen in Switzerland. And let’s not forget Raiffeissenplatz, a square that has been coated with red concrete in honor of a bank. Or something.

It was Three Kings Day, so all the bakeries were pushing their three king’s cakes. These consist of a bunch of sweet buns all stuck together, one of which contains a plastic figurine (I forgot to take a picture, so you’ll have to visit Jill’s blog if you want to see one). Whoever finds the piece of plastic in his or her piece gets to wear a cardboard crown and, assuming he or she hasn’t choked to death on said plastic piece, gets to reign as king for the day. We weren’t necessarily excited to eat one of the cakes (as I recall from last year, it’s not particularly tasty), but I wanted to buy one anyway for us to mush up in our hands until one of us found the figurine. Scott thought that sounded wasteful – can you imagine?

Despite the lack of crappy cake, it was a good day of appreciating Switzerland. The appreciation continued through today, when we went ice skating at the big rink at Dolder. And now, we’re attempting to watch the Swiss version of Pop Idol. It’s mostly in Swiss German, but we’re following along amazingly well. Hooray for our clean and safe host country!