Well I have finally reached Lugano Switzerland, one plane, 3 train, and a car later. I flew direct from SFO to Zurich, Switzerland (10.5 hours). On the plane I sat next to a woman who spoke very little English. After realizing that she spoke French, I began to try to use what little French I know to converse with her. Marline Millet-Marque was returning home to Grenoble, France from a two week vacation to San Francisco, Lake Shasta, and Montreal. At first I told her how I would be studying at Franklin College, and eventually our conversations led towards topics such as family, love, and the pursuit of passions. I could not understand precisely what Marline did for a living but she indicated that she was not happy with her job and that she worked in some realm of education. Her true love was the study of Psychology and the pictures she showed me of her in different countries around the world indicate that she loves to travel. She kept a She told me about her son (26 years old) who lived in Nantes and her daughter (22 years old) who lived in Bordeaux. She was a very generous woman and offered to show me around Grenoble if I ever made it over to France while I was in Europe.

Other than meeting Marline, my flight was fairly uneventful. Two meals, one movie, no sleep. I arrived to Zurich feeling exhausted, but quickly managed to grab my luggage and pick up a train ticket for downtown Zurich. From there, I took the train to the Goldau station and then made one last transfer there to catch my train to Lugano. The scenery was spectacular. As we exited the city, the graffiti and high rises gave way to pristine mountain waterfalls and lush meadows. On the train from Goldau to Lugano, I met Jeffrey Montgomery, an art dealer who lived in Lugano but took care of business quite often in Zurich. Jeffrey began by simply giving me a few restaurant recommendations at first and then we began discussing other topics. Jeffery had been raised in the United Kingdom and had been divided among a stern emotionless father and a busy, working mother. Jeffery spent many of his adolescent years in boarding school because of his parents separation that left his mother in Boston, and his father in the UK. I would say Jeffery was about 60 years old or so and had quite a number of stories to tell. He explained that he had no children and no wife but had been living with a woman for a few years now. Besides her, his companionship consisted of his two standard poodles that he said he owned because they made him look intelligent. After talking with Jeffery for about 2 hours on the train, I decided I would take him up on his offer to drive me to my hotel. As we drove away he decided he would give me a brief tour of town and the school so I could become better oriented. As we drove around in his large, silver Mercedez-Benz, I could see men in suits speeding away on mopeds and the sun setting behind the mountain. I reached my hotel and quickly cleaned up for dinner.

My French had served me well on the plane and my English did fine with Jeffrey, but here in Lugano, I struggled a bit more to communicate with the people at the hotel who seemed to be speaking predominantly Italian with a few people speaking German. In the cellar of the hotel, was a small pizzeria of sorts. I ordered a pizza and quickly returned upstairs to crash into my bed for a deserving good night sleep.