liechtenstein-the teeeny country

My boss actually asked, upon my return, whether i knew there existed a country called Liechtenstein when i was at home in Canada. Apparently his moderate swiss german accent took a turn for the worse in that moment or i just wasn't paying attention so i didn't hear/understand him. my usual response at this juncture is to look mildly impressed/surprised and say "oh yea?" . This is due to the fact that the german people are often informing me of some interesting fact. unfortunately, as in this situation, this response to a question is completely unsuitable and in this particular instance makes me look downright stupid. i tried backpeddling but i'm not sure how good of a job i did. we didn't talk much for the rest of the lunch....ha

anyway liechtenstein is tiny. You probably all know this since it is a particularly good piece of trivia but the coutrny is about 30km long in the northsouth direction, ~10 km across and it lies directly to the east of switzerland.

The reason we choose this weekend was because it was the prince's birthday therefore the national holiday. there were two planning factions for this. Four other girls and i decided we were going to walk across the country lengthwise over two days and camp somewhere near Vaduz ( the capital) . Liechtenstein along with one other country which escapes me are the only two were you can camp wherever you want unless the owner of the land asks you to move.

The other group wanted to run across the country east to west. nothing like bragging to your friend on Monday that you ran across a country.... This group has started getting really into running races all over the place. Some of them are going to Budapest next weekend to run a half marathon. i really don't know what they are thinking. I can't concentrate on running and a cool new country at the same time so i am for sure going to miss out on something....or expire.

Anyway, we started in Feldkirch austria where i promptly dropped the ball by not having proper directions out of town. after we got that sorted out we started our stroll. It took a little longer than the anticipated 3 hours so we missed the meet and great with the prince but it was still a cool walk.

The apple tree pictured turned out to be surrounded by stinging nettle, on a side note.

There was a fair set up in the old town, lots of beer and music. there was one group, an older choir i think, all dressed as sailors and singing along, some more grudgingly than others, with and accordion that was particularly fascinating. I should also mention that we picked one of the hotter days...

We visited the modern art museum ( it was free entry that day because of the holiday and all the buses were free as well!) which was amazing. i think i probably curled into a little ball on the side of my favorite room and stayed for hours. it was also air conditioned. there was one whole exhibit on horse paintings which we bypassed. firstly because the lady told us no water bottle allowed and second because that room really wasn't very interesting. also we were told not to touch several times but in our defense, some of the displays looked interactive.

As evening crept up i decided i would not camp and instead head home on the train later that night. All the interns who were still planning on camping went to their site to put up tents and get organised and the rest of us had a mad, albeit small dance party in front of the stage where a fairly talented cover band played late into the evening. When the other group return from the campsite one girl described the scene in front of the stage as a "canadian dance partay complete with 10ft blast zone around the perimeter and then the rest of the audience" it was great!

We were certainly the sweatiest people headed home that night!