Arrival in Lucerne

from an imaginary visit to Lucerne, 2010.

We got here yesterday and checked into our hotel. The hotel is a little far from the centre of Lucerne, but the public transport system here is so good that you can get to the old town in about ten minutes. The man at the desk who checked us in was very friendly. Unlike in Prague, where the person at the front desk tossed the room key towards me so that I had no chance of catching it, and then when it fell to the floor and I picked it up, she didn’t say sorry or even acknowledge that she might have done something unfriendly. The people in this Swiss hotel seem really nice, by contrast. The room is basic, but clean. There are two small beds, and when we got there we just lay down and looked at the view of the mountains from the window for a while. We went out armed with a phrase-book to look for something to eat. We were so tired that we just went to a pizza place on the same street, where it turned out that they all spoke English, and so we were able to communicate even though our English is not so good.