Allergies in Switzerland

We spent the whole day today in Lucerne, and it was refreshing to sleep in a little and leave my luggage in the room for a change.  After a cruise on the lake in the crisp morning air, I spent most of the afternoon walking around the city, exploring in general and looking for a apotheke in particular.

The pharmacies in Switzerland, at least the ones I managed to find here in Lucerne,  seem amazingly restrictive.  In both cases, very little other than beauty products and vitamins were available for customers to browse.  Everyone was helpful, more than willing to discuss my needs(allergy symptoms, in this case), and hand me something from behind the counter, but options were clearly limited.  I really wanted diphenhydramine to take for allergies and sleep at night, and I have yet to find a package anywhere on this side of the Atlantic(maybe I should have checked in Amsterdam🤔).  While brand names change from country to country the generic names for drugs are universal.    Allegra, Zyrtec, and Claritin were all called by their generic names and were offered to me as alternatives, but asking about diphenhydramine induced a blank stare, even when referred to as a sleep aid as well.  I can't help wondering about the rationale for restricting such a benign drug, especially in a country where I can go down the street and buy artificially colored blue ice cream(which was delicious, by the way).  I also picked up some chocolate, a practically obligatory souvenir.   They tried to get us all to buy fancy watches, but the last thing I need right now is to be keeping track of a timepiece worth more than everything else in my luggage combined.   

After repeated urging from our tour guide, I caved this evening and went to the Swiss folklore dinner that's put on for tourists at a local restaurant called Stadtkeller.    I went in expecting that it was going to be cheesy, and not just because of the the fondue, but I was pleasantly surprised.  There were a few corny things, of course, but for the most part it was an impressive performance.  They featured a lady yodeler whose range made me madly jealous; a gentleman who played bass, trombone, alpenhorn, wooden spoons, broom, and saw(but not at the same time), and multiple forms of audience participation resulting various levels of embarrassment.  The traditional music had very obvious German and French influences, and also it had a good beat and was easy to dance to.  While I doubted the authenticity of the Swiss conga line and their covers of "que sera sera" and "the chicken dance," it was a good time overall, and we were well fed in the process, too.

I could go on about what I saw today, but I've already made it clear how much I like old things, and it's time for bed now. 

The test of time

The remainder of our time in Germany today did not disappoint.  A cruise along the Rhein river was the first order of business, and, as a resident of the US, I was blown away by the medieval castles, built in the 12th century and still standing.  There's hardly anything that old in my world, and nothing that well preserved for so long.  I've learned a little German, but I'm still embarrassed to try to speak it to any actual citizens who know what they're doing.  Luckily they're better educated than a rube such as I, and are able to speak English well.  Perhaps here in Lucerne I'll still have a chance to practice if I can be brave.

We'll be staying put in Switzerland for a couple of days, which should allow some much needed rest and reorganization.  I'll have more time free tomorrow, but they started our sightseeing as soon as we came to town with the lion monument.  It is an imposing carving in a cliff face, created in the early 1820's by Bertel Thorvaldsen and Lukas Ahorn, in memory of Swiss guards who fell during the  French Revolution.   The subject is a dying lion, and the artists captured this so perfectly that it is absolutely heartbreaking, especially in context.  I had difficulty holding back tears, but managed not to interrupt the selfie taking and general levity around me.  Not everyone gets so choked up over a piece of rock that was never really a lion anyway.  I'm not sure that my photo really did him justice, and I might have to try again tomorrow.  It's a rare gift, even more so in our own time, to create a work of art that brings any raw material to life in such a poignant way.