Spiez

The train to Spiez (near Thun / Interlaken in Switzerland) seemed to take for ages. As we got further and further delayed our connections in Zurich and Bern became later and later. While delays are not the end of the world it only made it more unfair on people to pick up at the train station. Patrick's sister and his step mother Lilliane had gone to bed understandably and we agreed to catch a cab upon arrival to Spiez. It was our second experience breaking Swiss stereotypes. The first was their puncuality and the second was the cab driver who had no idea where things were in the her city. Spiez is not very big but still she had no idea where the Maddern's place was. It was painful to see the meter tick over in super expensive Swiss Francs. We finally arrived having had to wake everyone up anyway to ask further directions...money not well spent on the cab.

I was looking forward to waking up in the morning to see where we were. Not only had there been a huge amount of snow fall, I gathered we were positioned overlooking Lake Thun. The wake up was a little more abrupt than I had hoped. Patrick had warned me about the kids in the house. Patrick's sister has a child, Oliver, who is 2 years old. Patrick's step brothers are 5yo and 7yo respectively. As all the kids were sleeping in the same room, as soon as one woke the circus began. Oliver found it necessary to shout 'Mummy' as the top of his voice for at least first few house of the morning while the other two would communicate in Swiss German at all noise levels. Patrick and I took the tactic of pretending to sleep for as long as possible using every energy to ignore the symphony of shouting! Finally it was time to get up. Our job for the day was to help Lilliane move out of her apartment in Fribourg. I had offered to help so it was good to do some physical work and also see other parts of Switzerland. We moved much of her apartment up the road by hand. After a couple of hours we had moved everything, cleaned all the windows, window sils and patch-painted the walls. A job well done! I slept back to Spiez as I was exhausted. It's very confusing in Switzerland with so many languages. I'm never sure whether to speak German or English. We got by fine in the end.

We spent a day in Bern. Again a real annoyance that I didn't have a camera. The price to pay for being an idiot and losing it. Bern is a great little city high on a spur with the River "Something" winding it's way around the city centre. We saw where Einstein did some of his best work as well as the bear park - where they house bears. Bears are the national animal of Switzerland I think so are shown much respect with a huge enclosure overlooking the river. We climbed the Muenster and got a great view of Bern. Patrick did a great job carrying Oliver up the 350 stairs! Upon returning to Spiez, we thought we'd wander down to the little harbour and the Spiez Schloss. I can imagine how amazing it is in Winter. Seeing the boats moored with the boat covers covered in snow was very nice. We were expecting some sort of activity at a bar or something but nothing. The only sign of life was some workers scuba diving! That evening, Patrick's father Guy and his other sister Georgina arrived. That brought the total performers in the circus to 9. That house is amazing but not quite setup for 9 people. With english, swiss german and baby languages flying around it was quite difficult to even hear yourself think! Fondue was the perfect dinner to slow everyone down. There's something about sitting around a pot of cheese!

Patick and I thought we'd check out Zurich before I had to fly out so rather than endure another day at the circus we took off to Zurich. Another offensively expensive train ticket got us to Zurich. Earlier we had had an argument with Lillian saying how expensive switzerland was. She would not agree at all saying it was all relative to what they earn and the things they received (free education etc). Unfortunately we were dealing in money we earnt and relative perception of money from Australia and Germany (not withstanding the student budget) so it really did feel like an incredibly expensive place!

Patrick's other step brother, Remigi, has been working at the Dolder Grande, one of the finest hotels in Zurich and probably the world. He took us on an extensive tour of the hotel showing us the most expensive suites and the inner workings of the hotel. The Dolder was refurbished and completed this year for a total of 580m Francs. Considering the current occupancy this year between 20% and 50% it's hard to see how this money will ever be recouped. People like Pink happily pay 6000Fr per night in one of the suites designed by the Rolling Stones, while Tina Turner celebrated her 80th birthday in the 16,000Fr Maestro suite (their best) and each year celebrates new years on the third floor of the same suite. It is ridiculous. There is nothing normal about spending such incredible amounts of money. Remigi told us of a US tyre salesman spending 6 weeks in the 6,000Fr per night suite. The Price of Dubai came over for a weekend. He brought with him three semi-trailers of luggage for him and his 60 servants. Oh, and he brought with him 32 ferraris because he wasn't sure which one he wanted to drive around Zurich for the weekend. It borders on uncomprehensionable - only you have to comprehend it because you're standing in the room overlooking Zurich where it all happens, weekly!

Patty and continued our visit of Zurich wandering the streets. It is a cool city but it's just hard to get your head around the money. It's just engrained in the culture. Zurich is a huge city with 4m people and spreads out as far as the eye can see meaning there are plenty of people who must live 'normally' and i've read that some of the areas outside the city are very arty and cultural. I guess every city has it's advantages and disadvantages. Maybe coming back in Summer after winning the lotto is the go!