Switzerland is not expensive, you are poor :)

A red light went on in the Central Committee of Cucerje (Shithole where my parents live in Croatia). Word got out that the Dear Leader Joe is traveling to Switzerland. The family couldn’t hide their excitement. Brothers: “You don’t have the money for a new Rolex, and we have cheese in Croatia too. Podravec is the best” Parents: “Haven’t you already fucked yourself enough with the Swiss franc loan? Why are you doing shit again?” Sister: “Bring me some good chocolate. Not that garbage on sale like last time.” After warm greetings, I got on the plane (400 euros return ticket Zg-Zurich) and headed towards the neutral Switzerland. The reason for my trip?

Namely, Dear Leader Joe has his people everywhere. Recently, my colleague Kate became a marketing employee for FIFA, which is headquartered in Zurich. I landed there as excited as the crazy Vicka when she first lied about seeing the Virgin Mary in Medjugorje. Just as Mary never appeared there, Kate unfortunately did not appear in Zurich either. She had to go to New York on business, and I was hosted by her boyfriend Thomas, who lives in Bern. I got on the train with him and rode the hour-long train to Bern. The ticket price is 53 Swiss francs. Luxurious life 🙂

Thomas boasted that it was the capital of Switzerland and that it had 130,000 inhabitants, but I coldly told him not to lie. We all know about Zurich and Geneva. What kind of Bern? Never heard of it. Cucerje has more inhabitants than Bern. So what is Cucerje, if Bern is the capital? He took me to their local, traditional restaurant Bahnhof-Weissenbuhl. All meals are around 30 CHF, and the daily menu is 20 CHF. We ordered sausages and liver with potatoes. Simple, rustic, home-cooked food at reasonable prices. Thomas treated me, which made the experience even better. There’s no better meal than a free meal 🙂

It’s interesting how all the residents of Bern swim in their river. I thought all rivers were radioactive like the Sava river in Zagreb, but I was wrong. Theirs is clean. I suggested to Thomas that we dive in search of gold bars from World War II. He told me that now is neither the time nor the place for such adventures. He must know where they are, but he’s hiding it. That’s why the Swiss are rich. They pretend not to know, but they know everything.

We toured the upper town, which resembles Zagreb a bit.

We went for a bite to eat at the Altes Tramdepot pub, below which there is an enclosure with bears, which have their own little forest, a swimming pool, and I was lucky that day to catch them in amorous ecstasy. If this isn’t the Rocco Siffredi of the bear world, then I don’t know who is 🙂

I tried some of their local dishes with bacon and potatoes, but the best for me were the chicken nuggets. They with beer like our Bear Siffredi with a Lady bear. Small beers are 5 CHF, and large ones are 7. It’s not too bad. The food here costs from 20 to 40 CHF. The pretzels are excellent, but one costs almost 6 CHF. It’s worth coming for the beer, which is top-notch. The haters will say that I am broke because I don’t enjoy lobster and caviar, but I wanted to feel how ordinary people in Bern live, how the suffering people of neutral Switzerland spend their days.

The next day we set off on the road to Lausanne, which is located on the shores of Lake Geneva. Of course, again by train. Thomas works for the Swiss Railways and has a golden ticket (Read: free annual train travel). I don’t have a golden ticket, but I know Thomas who pays for the tickets when I visit 🙂 I was focused on my cards that were golden in my hands.

Unlike Croatian trains, Swiss trains are comfortable and punctual. The best option for transportation, especially if you choose a panoramic train with large glass windows. The view from the train. It reminds me of the Croatian coast.

The only downside is when the sun is scorching. You look like you’ve been picking cotton on a plantation all day after getting off the train 🙂 A photo from Lausanne, which in 1992 rejected a referendum to host the Winter Olympics, which is strange considering it’s home to the International Olympic Committee and the Olympic Museum, which we didn’t visit. We ate a 5-euro scoop of ice cream and took a boat trip to Montreux.

I asked Thomas to take a photo of me, but to make it look as spontaneous as a miscarriage. Let my white teeth be visible, with the mountains in the background. I’m going to try to print this photo and give it to some grandma to make a beautiful gobelin.

We passed through France for part of the drive. The smell of croissants was in the air. If this isn’t the French part in the photo, pretend it is.

Freddie Merucury je svojevremeno izjavio: “If you want peace of mind, come to Montreux”. In addition to living in Montreux, he also recorded six albums there with the band Queen, and in 1996 a bronze statue was erected in his honor by the lake, to which fans from all over the world still bring flowers to this day.

I had to take a photo with Freddie, even though I risk being deleted from my will because I could be accused of spreading gay propaganda in Cucerje.

Montreux is the Swiss Riviera on the shores of Lake Geneva. A popular tourist destination with numerous hotels, the place was also known for its international jazz festival. Now it is also known in Cucerje because the Dear Leader Joe set foot there. I didn’t believe that Bern was the capital of Switzerland, nor that Switzerland had palm trees, but the picture doesn’t lie.

We returned from sunny Montreux to Bern because we had a dinner reservation at the Lotschberger restaurant, which is famous for its fondue. In Cucerje, they heard about Fonude as well as Madagascar.

Here’s a little help from Wikipedia. Fondue – a dish of melted cheese and wine served in a communal pot (caquelon or fondue pot) above a portable stove (réchaud) heated by a candle or spirit lamp, and eaten by dipping bread and sometimes vegetables or other food into the cheese using a long-handled fork. The Swiss Cheese Union (Schweizerische Käseunion) promoted it as Switzerland’s national dish in the 1930s.  Dinner for Heart Attack 🙂

My steak was a little overcooked even though I said medium rare, but the potatoes were good 🙂

Translation: “Mom, Mom! This gentleman in the suit looks like a tycoon, and we look so poor? Why? Mom: Your dad got fired, and if you don’t want me to leave you like I left him, Shut the Fuck up!”

We went down to the floor below where the Pilatus – Kulm restaurant and hotel is located. Even though it was only 2 degrees outside, we sat on the terrace without jackets and ordered food.

Salmon with potatoes, ravioli, salad, 2 beers and Swiss cream cheese for 111.00 euros. It’s cheaper in Zagreb, but we didn’t eat beans and sausages. The food was great 🙂

At one point, a crow appeared on the fence. I told Thomas to throw the salt over his shoulder and hop on one leg with his arm outstretched forward. He said he didn’t want to act like a swastika. I tried to explain to him in vain that this is how curses are removed in Cucerje. A black crow in broad daylight is not a good sign.

It turned out that crows are much friendlier than I thought, but if we were to go back just a few years, a woman like this would have been burned at the stake for this witchcraft.

At the top of the cable car you can also buy some Swiss watches like Omega etc. They give a 5% discount plus tax refund, but Dear Leader Joe can get them cheaper so feel free to contact me 🙂 Almost halfway down, at 1350 meters to be exact, there is the longest summer slide in Switzerland. It was worth waiting in line for half an hour. The ride costs only 10 Swiss francs and is a real pleasure. I felt the wind in my hair as I descended at speed like the best Formula 1 driver.

Fast and furious Cucerje 🙂

Only the sight of Kendall Jenner can surpass this sight 🙂

We went down and said hello to the Chinese women who were with us in the cable car and who remarked that I looked like a Hollywood actor. I thought they had mistaken me for Vin Diesel or The Rock, but they said in fluent Chinese that I reminded them of the younger lead actor from the Prison Break series. I thanked them and told them to give Jackie Chan my best regards. They asked me enthusiastically how I knew him? I replied: “I’ve seen him on TV in the movies.”

We got on the train in Lucerne and went to Zurich to the airport. There I bought a couple of expensive chocolate pralines (5 Chf per bite) which I ate immediately, and I bought something cheaper as a gift for my loved ones in the store. i don’t want to spoil them.

I was surprised by how much I managed to see in just 3 days in Switzerland. If I had traveled by train in Croatia, I could have maybe gotten to Split and back in three days, and even that is questionable. As I said in the title: “Switzerland is not expensive, you are poor”. I honestly thought it would be more expensive, but considering how much prices have gone up in Croatia, it wasn’t that bad. Croatia always wanted to be Switzerland, it’s just that no one explained to us that Switzerland is not in the EU, they don’t have the Euro and they are neutral as fuck 🙂

Thank you my friend Thomas for treating me like a king 🙂

Author: Josip Novosel aka Vin Diesel for the poor aka Dear Leader Joe, a self-deprecating spell caster from Cucerje, a correspondent for the magazine “God save Croatia, I’m going to Switzerland”, a friend of the wealthy, first and foremost a human, and only then a tycoon and Gastro Snob.

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