28 December (Happy Birthday!)

Happy Birthday!! Instead of an alarm waking us up, it was the phone! Our parents, desperate to hear our voices and wish us a happy birthday, called around 7 a.m. our time. I was closest to the phone and it took me a while to realize it was ringing and pick it up. Hearing the sleep still heavy in my voice, my mom said she would call back in half an hour. An hour later the phone rang again and this time both Saket and Sachi got to talk to them. We talked for a while before hanging up and catching some more sleep. We finally woke up late around 10:30. To celebrate we took it real easy that day. Ate a latish brunch at Starbucks then walked around the city for a while rather aimlessly. We tried to get to the Medical History museum but that was a failed attempt since we had a hard time even reaching the place and when we got close we found out it was closed. Bummer, since Sachi really wanted to see it. Since that didn’t work out we went to the Art History museum instead which was pretty neat. They had a special exhibit on Fuselli who apparently illustrated many of Shakespeare’s works as well as passages from Milton’s Paradise Lost. I’m a fan of both writers but don’t know much of the artist and didn’t feel it worth paying the 8 Euros to see his exhibition. The rest of the museum was free which was pretty nice. We spent about an hour and half there and then we walked down to the lake. Saket was itching to buy a Swiss Army knife the whole time we were in Switzerland and seeing how this was our last day, he finally bit the bullet and bought one for 24 Euros. It’s quite a price to pay but he did get the official and original knife the Swiss government issued to its soldiers. We wandered the city some more and admired the lights at night before heading back to the hostel to warm up and get ready for an early dinner at the Indian restaurant on the first floor of the hostel. It’s name was Khan’s and it was a tiny yet swanky place. I could hear Hindi in the kitchen and knew the food was going to be good. Saket and Sachi both ordered glasses of wine, he went with a white and she a red, while I stuck with water. One sip was enough to convince me that I didn’t need one with my meal. The food was delicious and elegantly served and we all enjoyed the meal very much. It was the heaviest and best meal we’d had in a long time and we really needed it. After we finished we just headed back to our room to write postcards and pack up for tomorrow. We were catching a train to Munich in the morning and didn’t want to waste a lot of our morning packing. We wished each other a very happy birthday and then went to sleep.