Today was not too bad

Hold the presses! If you have been following this blog and have not yet read the comment made by SJ on the potato dumplings post, you must go back and do so. Trust me, the comment is much better than the blog post itself. Thanks for the laughs, SJ!

We appreciate all of the comments made to us, but of course can not respond to each one. But please keep them coming!

Last night in Innsbruck we had no internet access. (Possibly that was not considered when the building was built 350 years ago!) Anyway, the always trustworthy McDonalds in the Old Town area helped us out in getting the information posted. Kudos to Ronald!

All in all, today was not too bad. We got up early this morning to try to catch a train to Liechtenstein, mostly so we could add another country to our "recently visited" list. We left our room before the proprietor got up, I guess. We could not find anyone to pay, so we put the money and room key in an envelope and slipped it under their door. Then we went to the door to the outside, and it was locked. We figured that possibly our room key might let us out of the building...but we had just slipped it under the owner's door! Olen took my pocket knife and fished the envelope out from under the door, removed the key, and it did, in fact, enable us to get out. While I held the outside door open, Olen re-inserted the key in the envelope and slipped it under the owner's door again. We were free at last. Like I said, not too bad.

By this time we were a little behind schedule, so there was not time to stop for breakfast. We hopped on the train...a Railjet that whisked us through the countryside at 90-100 mph at times. An attendant came by and gave each of us a box of orange juice and a Kit Kat bar. We ate with glee and called it breakfast. Not too bad.

We had to get off the train at the town of Buchs and take a bus to Vaduz, the capital of the tiny country of Liechtenstein. We showed our rail pass on the bus, because the bus ride was covered by our pass. Now, Liechtenstein is a "constitutional hereditary monarchy on a democratic and parliamentary basis"...whatever that means. The head of state is Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein. Once in Vaduz we took pictures of the castle, walked around town and even climbed part of the way up to the castle before we realized it was futile since the prince actually lives in the castle, and no one is admitted inside. The town was absolutely dead, no shops open, no restaurants open...just a few tacky souvenir shops. The lady at the information building told us that it was a religious holiday and everything was closed. (Does anyone know what religious holiday is celebrated on September 8?) Oh well, we had the town to ourselves, so that was not too bad.

About this time Olen discovered that somewhere between showing the EuRail pass to the bus driver and this point in the day, the rail pass had disappeared. We think that we failed to put it back in the proper place after showing it to the bus driver, but we will probably never know. Not to worry. Our pass is insured, and we took care of the problem when we reached Zurich later in the day. All in all...not too bad.

Anyway, we were delayed a little trying to locate the rail pass, but finally purchased a ticket to Zurich. We missed our first opportunity to get to Zurich. Olen actually had his hand on the "open" button for the train door when it began to move out of the station. These trains wait for no one. However, there was another train to Zurich in less than an hour, which gave us time to eat a snack for lunch. That was not too bad. When we arrived in Zurich we worked out the problem with the rail pass, got some Swiss Francs, and purchased a SIM card for Switzerland so we can check the internet and blog. Not too bad.

By this point it was time for everyone to get off work and most of the workers in Zurich must ride the train home from Zurich. For the first time since we have been riding trains in Europe, the train was packed. Olen had to stand up for the 20-minute ride to Thun (pronounced TOON). I got a seat by an elderly Swiss lady who was knitting a pink sweater. Not too bad...for me...Olen might disagree.

We arrived in Thun at dusk and located our hotel. It is a room near the center of old Thun in a medieval building that dates from 1361. We have a corner room on the second floor that overlooks a square and other interesting points that we will have to photograph tomorrow. It was too late to take photos today. Here is one shot of where I am sitting right now typing this post for the blog. Not too bad at all!

It was, indeed, a strange day, and full of adventures.

All in all...not too bad.

If unplanned things happen to you today we hope you will decide that with all things considered, it is "not too bad".