Day One

Yay! I'm here! (and, it took me forever just to type that on my sister's german keyboard!!)
My flight was good, I got to the airport in plenty of time to get checked in, eat lunch and drink a few (hair of the dog) beers before I got on the plane. They gave me a window seat on the exit door aisle and afterdinner and a movie I put my neck pillow on and my eye cover threw the blanket over my head and went to sleep.
Once in Zurich I found my bag realatively easy and walked out and there was my sister! I noticed that the airport itself was very quiet and people spoke in low voices. It was very relaxing. It was also attached to a number of stores and cafe`s and we immediately ordered latte`s and sat down and had a cigarette. (smoking is very relaxed here.) After that, we got on the train and took it to Lucerne -here`s a pic.

In the pic is a the water tower and Chapel Bridge that goes over a portion of the lake. There was a Christmas market there yesterday and we shopped and had lunch. It was very beautiful! Most of the people spoke swiss german mixed with french but were very polite. My sister managed well with broken swiss german/english. However, most of the signage is in english, too.
After walking around much of the afternoon we walked back to the train station and took the train for just a few stops to where my sister`s apartment is which is a small outskirt of Lucerne called Horw (pronounced "Horv"). We wheeled my bags up a running/walking trail from the train station and there was her apartment. It`s very contemporary inside with hardwood floors, marble bathrooms (noticed that was plural!) and very large for european standards. Yes, my sister is a clothes horse like myself and needed a third bedroom just to put clothes. She has a view of Mount Pilatus from her balcony.
After showing me around her apartment and her new little car down in the (semi-heated) garage under the building we went to the grocery store which was named "Coop" (pronounced "cope" like co-op) to get stuff for dinner. The store itself was amazing! Everything was vacum packed - the meats, cheeses, pate` and there were hundreds of yogurts to choose from. Several choices of fondues which we bought to have.
After dinner and a movie I crashed hard into the oblivion of sleep.
We take the train to Zurich tonight to catch the train to Paris. Our train trip to Paris is 8 hours and my sister up graded my swiss rail pass to a sleeper car so we get to sleep. We wake up at 8 a.m. to Paris. "Bonjour, la ville de beuatiful"