Sales Rack

The last time I blogged to you I was in the legendary Cinque Terre region of Italy. Much sun and hiking left us hungry for some cooler weather with a bit of R&R. My parents and I said goodbye to our family friends in Milan and went our separate ways. They went to the seductress city of Venice, we headed north to the wealthy city of Lugano, Switzerland. I had raved about Switzerland so much that they penciled it into their busy schedule. I had never actually heard of any of the places we were going besides Zurich, but I am down for new experiences any time.

Last time I was in Switzerland I remembered that things were a bit expensive, but this time around I really was able to understand the price of luxury. My parents were staying at a 5 star hotel overlooking a beautiful lake. To pull up a cot into their room would have cost 117 US dollars! I thought this was a bit unnecessary to spend such an extravagant amount on me. I would rather sleep on a bench then spend that kind of money. Though the benches were rather comfortable to sit on, to sleep on them would have played mean jokes on my spine. With luck and persistence I found a nice little hostel that overlooked the city for 30 francs a night. Steep, but doable.

The next day my father was considering buying a watch. Where else in the world would you buy a watch besides Switzerland? Swiss cheese, Swiss chocolate, Swiss army knives, and Swiss watches. There is a street called Via Nassa that was dedicated to expensive jewelry and watches. Once in a while we would walk into a place and ask for a watch to be shown to us. Now if you know my parents, my mom is dressed in fancy colors and some nice jewels. My father is dresses equally fancy in basketball shorts and a t-shirt. It wasn’t a surprise when we walked in and they gave us a lil bit of a “what are you doing in here?” look. I felt like we were Pretty Womaning the people with wanting to buy something and them not wanting to serve us. There was a watch that looked especially classy that we asked about. Before we heard their whole spiel about the making of the time piece we asked “How much?” A whopping 31,000 Francs it would cost to be able to tell time. Before he had a chance to say another word we were out the door and on to the next store. I told my dad that it is a watch that if you have to ask how much it costs, you probably can't/don't want to buy it. End of the story, we found a real nice, classy watch that tells the time and everything. Mission successful.