Lion w/back to Switzerland; Elder & Sister Larson in Lindau; Paul Hunziker's phone.

APRIL 19, 2010 MONDAY

We did some research on the internet and found out that Lindau, one of the places we were going to visit today, was located where the boundaries of Germany, Switzerland and Austria meet. It’s an old town dating way back to the beginning of time, so to speak. We met Charlotte in Winterthur and then took the train to St. Margarethen and then on to Lindau. Because our Swiss transportation passes aren’t good in Germany, we had to buy tickets from the border to Lindau which cost $11.00 a piece. The train traveled around the southeast end of Lake Constance with Lindau being located right on the shore. In fact, the old part is build on a little peninsula that sticks out into the lake. We walked around town looking at old building and two churches, one Luthern and one Catholic. The Luthern church was big, but very simple without a lot of decoration. The Catholic church was heavily ornamented with paintings, statues, etc. etc. At the entrance to the harbor on one side is a statue of a lion with it’s back towards Switzerland, and on the other side is an old lighthouse. Charlotte said the lion’s back is toward Switzerland because after the war, the Austrians didn’t like the Swiss and didn’t want them to come into their country.
When we were through looking at Lindau we went back to the bahnhof to buy tickets back to St. Margarethen. This time they only cost about $6.00 each. The reason for the difference was that coming from Switzerland they charged us the Swiss tariff and going the other way, the Austrian tariff. Just shows the difference on how much more expensive it is to live in Switzerland. We rode the train around the lake to Rorschach and thought it would continue on to Kreuzlingen where we would have to change trains for the last leg into Konstanz. We failed to look at our itinerary closely to see that the train only went to Rorschach where everyone had to get out and change trains. We were just chatting away when all of a sudden, the train unexpectedly went backwards which was the wrong direction. It was then we noticed we were the only ones on the train. What the!!!! The train only went a few hundred yards and then stopped. The engineer came walking back through the train and saw us. He didn’t get upset, but told us to follow him to the end of the train where he got in the engine and pulled it forward towards the bahnhof as close as he could get it and then told us to get out, that we would have to walk the rest of the way along the tracks to the bahnhof. There’s always something new to learn and to be aware of when traveling in these countries.

At the bahnhof we waited for the next train (there’s always a next train) and continued on to Kreuzlingen and then to Konstanz. Diana’s main reason for wanting to go to Konstanz was to visit her favorite (only, other than McDonalds) place to eat out, the Thai take out in the Lago mall. We not only bought our lunch there, but also bought enough for the missionaries’ lunch after district meeting tomorrow. However, before we bought the food we visited the ALDI store to buy a few groceries. We didn’t need much, but then we bought more than we needed as usual. We got our food from the Thai store and made it back to the train in time. It only comes once an hour and, if we had missed it, we’d have been sitting around twiddling our thumbs. We rode back to Winterthur with Charlotte and then got off and caught our train to Schaffhausen.

When we got home, we called Paul to see if he was okay. He said he was doing much better today than yesterday and that he was able to eat both breakfast and lunch without any problem. The rest of the evening we spent in preparing our talks for our assignments in district meeting tomorrow.

Today was the day Madeliene got her new knee. We hope and pray all went well with the operation.