Swiss National Day

On Saturday, I awoke at 6:15AM in order to pick Dave up from the airport. Fortunately, I've gotten into a habit of checking my email as soon as I get up and his Mom had sent me a message warning his flight was delayed by two hours. Needless to say I went the hell back to bed!

Eventually did go and pick him up and we had a good time catching up on the train back to Baden. I happened to mention that it was the Swiss National Holiday and that lots of people were doing certain things. I told him of Rachel and Olivia's plan to go to Luzern and he was far more enthusiastic towards doing the same than I would have expected anyone who'd just spent 18 hours travelling to be.

So, Dave being a trooper and all, we rushed our asses home, dropped off his stuff and immediately booked it back to the train station. I think between Dave emerging from the arrivals gate and us getting on a train to Luzern was about 1.5hrs. And it takes half an hour from the airport to Baden. Nuts.

Anyway, got to Luzern only to find that fireworks hadn't been officially put on there in years and were, in fact, put on in a town called Brunnen on the far (far) side of Lake Luzern. Actually, this is where we ended up after our last hike in the area. Not wanting to pony up any more cash, we elected to wait until our Gleis 7s came into effect before heading there. In the meantime, we wandered the old town of Luzern, taking pictures and seeking (outrageously expensive) ice cream.

We ended up in a very nice lakeside park filled with lots of lush green grass and statues of censored naked men and their horses. And one of a topless dude(tte) named Carl. Here we rested, waded in the shallows of the edge of the lake and engaged in some good frisbee. This is also where we saw and set off our first fireworks. Granted, they were only smoke bombs but I felt it was a good start.

As the time of departure of the train to Brunnen approached, we set off back towards the train station to find some food. We came across a New York style fast food place (I think it was called New York Food or something equally obvious) and I had my first burger since being here. Not bad. Having little time to spare after this, we made a dash for the train and made it just in time.

When we got to Brunnen, the first thing we noticed was a steady stream of people heading down the main road to the lake. We followed them to find a cordoned off street within which was a stage with some alpine vocalists (yodellers I think) and lots of venders and other festive things. We also came across a fireworks shop and Chan invested in a goody bag of pyrotechnics. We continued to the lake and claimed a spot on the waters edge to watch the fireworks.

We waited a good couple of hours for the show to begin but managed to pass the time enjoying the live jazz music directly behind us, dodging other peoples rogue fireworks and scaring the crap out of old ladies with ours. Managed to snag a few good pics as well.

When the show did begin, it was absolutely spectacular. I have no hesitation in saying that it was the best firework display I've ever seen. A large barge was dragged into the center of an area cleared by the police and it was from here that the 20 minute barage was unleashed. Among the highlights were fireworks that appeared to hang in the sky as they floated down by parachute, fireworks that were fired directly into the lake only to resurface, glow green and then erupt in sparks, and fireworks that looked like brush strokes on the sky as they ascended and decended.

When the main event was over, the locals went nuts setting off their own fireworks and we joined in. Chan made a kid cry. Haha!

Made it home with time to spare. All in all a good day!