Once Upon a Place: Switzerland
It’s Friday, which means (amongst other things) it’s time for another travel blooper story. (And be sure to check out last week’s Parisian Ice Cream fiasco if you missed it the first time around.)
Switzerland, circa 2003: my boyfriend-at-the-time and I decided to buy a bottle of wine to celebrate the fact that I’d successfully survived a month in Europe on my own. I was at the halfway point through my first backpacking trip and he was just starting his but we met up for a three day blitz from Strasburg to Interlaken to Vienna.
My Youth Hostel glory days, age 17
Being the proper wannabe-Europeans that we were, we opened the wine on the train and spent the next half hour in a state of drunken bliss, staring out the window and marveling at the passing scenery as if we’d never seen a blade of grass before.
The Swiss trees were greener than anything we’d ever seen, the Swiss mountains, taller, the Swiss meadows, more lush… or maybe it was the wine?
But no.
Definitely not.
In our excitement at A) purchasing and B) drinking a bottle of real, authentic European wine, we didn’t realize that the vintage we’d so hopefully selected was non-alcoholic. If we were in fact drunk, it was only on account of being 17 and in Europe.
Moral of the story? Always read the fine print. And if it’s in another language, find someone to read it for you before you spend an hour on a train thinking you’ve successfully gotten hammered.
Kat Echevarría Richter 
4 Responses to “Once Upon a Place: Switzerland”
Haha! This is fantastic. Oh the innocence of youth.
Aw that’s a very cute story, and so are you in your youth hostel glory (it rhymes!).
Haha! Thanks 🙂 I’m always amazed by how tan I was… sigh.
Reblogged this on xdayschocolate.