Another Day in Switzerland

I don’t have a lot of new things to report, but I do have a few old things that I have not yet reported – so I can at least update once more before the weekend!

First, the bad news. The morning after my fall, I went back to the in-house nurse and had her check out my foot again. She decided that it looked bad enough that they should take me to the doctor to get it xrayed. The doctor we went to was five minutes away and was like a one-stop-shop, it was fantastic! I got in, got xrayed and got my results in under an hour!

Swiss Xray

The bad news was that I had torn a ligament and it was recommended that I wear a boot (provided to me right then and there) for 4-6 weeks, and to stay off it as much as possible to let it heal. This definitely puts a damper on my weekend traveling plans. The doctor didn’t speak English very well so it was a bit difficult to get what he was saying at first. He actually said I had a “broken ligament” which I assume is just the Swiss way of saying torn ligament?

Besides the boot, he gave me ibuprofen, an ice pack, and this interesting anti-inflammatory gel that I looked up on the web and it is apparently not available in the US. It seems to be quite popular for topical pain relief here though, everyone has asked me if I was given the gel or if I needed some.

Fastum Gel

Anyway, do you want to see how terrible my foot looks? If so, click the below link. I won’t put it directly on the post just in case one of my three readers are squeamish. It should open up in a new tab so you can come right back and continue reading!

My Poor Foot

So, I’ve been wearing the little boot and hobbling along without too much trouble. By the end of the day the foot hurts a lot more than it did in the beginning, but I guess that is pretty normal. My other leg has started hurting as well because I am depending on it a lot more now.

But on to more interesting topics! I wanted to show you what myself and the two other girls staying at my hotel have found hilarious on our walk to work. One of the houses we walk by has this outside on their balcony:

Strange Fake Man

It’s on the second floor so it took us a few looks to realize that it wasn’t really a guy standing on the balcony staring at us. This picture was taken yesterday, but this morning he was doing laundry (there were blankets drying on the railing on both sides of him).

Last night was our official team dinner. One of the girls who live in Switzerland was nice enough to offer me a ride to the restaurant so I wouldn’t have to walk to the train station and back. We went to “Restaurant Brunnentor” which is famous for their schnitzel. It was delicious!

Restaurant Brunnentor Schnitzel

If you don’t know what schnitzel is (I didn’t!) it is a popular dish that consists of meat pounded very very thin, then breaded and fried. Mine was pork. It looks like a lot of food, but it is pounded so thin that it really isn’t as much as it seems. I cleaned my plate and had some apple strudel afterwards. The apple strudel was DIVINE.

Let’s see… since I’m on the subject of food, I’ll tell you a funny little story about my second morning at breakfast in the hotel. I was sitting down and enjoying my croissant and orange juice when one of the owners of the hotel came and put this little bucket next to me and smiled then walked away.

Caotina bucket

I had no idea what it was supposed to be used for. Was it meant for tips? Do you give tips for continental breakfast in Switzerland? I looked around and saw a similar bucket on all the other tables. I decided I would watch for what the other people did with their bucket before I did anything crazy like wear it as a hat. One couple was just finishing their breakfast and stood up to leave. I could see from shadows that something was in the bucket, but BLAST I couldn’t see what it was! I stretched my neck as far as it would go but it was no use. It would have looked strange for me to get up and walk over there to sneak a peek because their table was nowhere near where the food was.

I did finally find out what it was for when the owner came in to clean up that table. She took way too long to deal with that bucket, but she finally looked into it and dumped the contents on a plate. It was trash. The bucket was for trash. Silly American thinking she should put money in the trash bin.

Well, I don’t really have much else to say. I’m feeling a bit sad because a few of the others went into Zurich today to hike up a small mountain/large hill to get a beautiful view of the city from above. Even if I wanted to risk my foot hurting, the sneakers I brought still don’t fit over my swollen foot so I can only wear my dress work shoes (not hiking material). This could be my only chance to visit Switzerland and I’m not able to experience it to the fullest because of rotten luck!

Instead, I decided to experience my first piece of Swiss chocolate while icing my injury. This would be my adventure for today!

Yesterday, we were each given a piece of popular Swiss chocolate by one of the trainers. She said it was a lucky chocolate (too bad I didn’t have it before the accident!) Isn’t it adorable?

Swiss Chocolate

Almost too cute to eat! Almost, but not quite. And now the adventure begins! I unwrap it:

Unwrapped swiss chocolate

It looks delicious! And now for the first taste:

Bitten Swiss chocolate

IT ABSOLUTELY IS DELICIOUS! I ate the rest and that brings my Swiss chocolate adventure to an end. Wow, my heart is racing! Who needs to go hiking up the mountains of Switzerland when I have this!

But really, it was quite good. The best chocolate I have tasted in some time. Or possibly even ever!

That now brings today’s post to an end. I hope you enjoyed it! I’m really going to try to get out and do some interesting things over the weekend. I’ll rest my foot the next couple of days and hope for the best. I think it will all work out somehow.

3 Comments

  1. Phil

    Awesome post, Karen! Is it me (or my iPad) or is the trash bucket picture upside down?

    • Karen

      I noticed that too! It’s upside down on my iPhone but not on the computer. So weird!

  2. Stacy B

    Yeah, why was the bucket upside down? And why did you say you only have three readers? And are you bringing chocolate home? And where is your next entry??
    Love reading these.

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