(1) "sleeping in" to 7:30am we all left as a group for the gondola to go down to Weggis (pronounced ve-gis). From Weggis, we caught the ferry service across Luzern Lake to Luzern ~30min.
(2) a lot of us were told to stay on the main floor so we all went to the very back of the ferry and were taking photos there for ~10min until a guy came and kicked us out of the "1st class" area! whoops!
(3) in Luzern we were all taken on a walking tour thru the bridges right up to the obscure Lion's Gate memorial. This is known as the saddest memorial in the world. We had learnt back in Paris that the Swiss Guard were massacared at the start of the French Revolution, allegedly ordered to lay down their arms by King Louis XVI... (read Wikipedia on the Swiss Guard to learn more!) This Lion's Memorial was built by one of the Swiss Guard who had been absent on the day of the massacre and he had the memorial built, a lot of symbolism included within. Again, wikipedia has a link...
(4) From the Harry's shop of watches/swiss knifes I left the group and explored the old town, quickly locating the MacDonalds were my aunt works! She kindly got me a complimentary coffee and when I returned after exploring the old walls and a Red Cross area, I waited on one of the tables. While waiting for my aunt to finish her work shift, a local girl joined me! As it turned out she spoke 5 languages (the norm being 2-3: English, Swiss-German, Swiss-French) and worked as a primary school teacher.
(5) lunch was at a local cafe with my aunt - a pork schnitzel on tagliatelli (yes I still remember these details - even today 12 days after!). After lunch she drove me to her apartment in Emmen. We didn't have a lot of time as I needed to reconnect with the TopDeck group at the ferry terminal at 4pm. Fortunately we met up with my cousin at the ferry terminal so I finally got to meet both aunt and cousin for the first time in my life!!!
(6) there were 7 of us returning to Mt Rigi - we all had skipped the earlier ferry to visit the Mt Rigi summit - my excuse was obviously to meet family, but the weather was overcast and apparently too foggy for a view from the summit.
(7) we caught the gondola back up (apparently the train took an hour) with the intention of starting drinks early!
(8) I had been given Toblerone chocolate - 2 big and 2 small - by my aunt & cousin; I used one small one to "tip" the female waitress who got me a nice glass of red wine during dinner! She had also gone to the effort to dress up in the traditional swiss costume! She was later seen with her boyfriend who bought a large large bottle of whisky...
(9) dinner was unremarkable - thus I don't remember the details! however I remember the bar afterwards for the dart board games and the way the girls kept hitting on this cute 19yo local waiter. Apparently he was going to Perth later that week, so one of the girls offered him her bedroom. Part of the joke was that this waiter was very shy of girls, so these interactions kept him blushing all night... in one of the funny twists, he did pick up the half eaten large Toblerone I had put under my chair, AND his girlfriend apparently spoke 5 languages... sound familiar??? Although it probably wasn't true, we connected the dots anyway and had more fun that night...
(10) i didn't sleep until after 12am, whereas my room-mate had turned in earlier... so out of decency, I took the room nextdoor so that he wouldn't suffer from my snoring (apparently I snore, but not that loud...)
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