Today I Forgot My Phone

I just left it at home. Usually when I take my daughter dancing I read online news and catch up on blog posts. Today I couldn’t. I was there, my girl in the studio and I wanted to reach for my phone and it was not in my handbag.

I knew exactly where I’ve left it. No big deal, it was at home. But I felt totally weird. There were 45 minutes to kill. 45 minutes of waiting for my daughter to be done. 45 minutes of not knowing what to do.

 

I picked up a magazine. A magazine full of advertising for a travel agency. At least there was an article in it about a train ride through Switzerland. So I started reading it, wondering if it will, once again, cover the same three basic places to visit.

To my surprise it didn’t. It was a great round up of the country I come from, covering all areas, from the German part to the French, back to the German part and over to the Italian part of Switzerland. If you would book a trip like this you would definitely see all of Switzerland’s beautiful bits and pieces without having to risk to be in just the typical tourist places. To be honest, it totally took me by surprise.

Usually it’s all about Luzern, Zermatt, Interlaken, maybe Montreux and Zurich because that’s where the airport is most international tourist fly into. And while I was sitting there, reading this article, I was thinking of all the conversations I had with Australians about their visits to Switzerland and how often the answer to my question about where they’ve been to was Interlaken, Luzern and Zermatt. I thought about all those times when I thought: “What a shame!”

Don’t get me wrong! Those places are really amazing. But there is more! And given that Switzerland is so small it always made me wonder why people wouldn’t try to see more. Well, I guess it’s because that’s what the big travel agencies suggest.

There I was, thinking of all the great places all those people visiting Switzerland might miss and wondering what suggestion I would make to someone asking me what to go see in my home-country. Then I wondered if all the places I would suggest would really have the same “wow effect” to them, they had and have to me. Maybe it would be different if you would visit them as a tourist.

Honestly, I still don’t know. But I think nevertheless, I would suggest some different places. Just because it would give those people an entirely different experience of Switzerland than everyone else would have.

And just like this, the 45 minutes were over…