St. Gallen Solo

I just returned this afternoon from an awesome, while cold and wet, trip to St. Gallen! Above is a photo of me on the train and my little hotel room.

Number one priority when I first arrived on Thursday after about 5 hours on trains, was to find my hotel, which was just off of the main market area. It took me no time with the help of my handy St. Gallen map; I stayed in a single room with a sink, but the restroom and shower were in the hall, so it was pretty much a youth hostel. The accommodations were nice though, and breakfast was included (always a plus... even McDonalds, which I refuse to eat at while here, is between $10 and $13 for a combo meal).

After I found the hotel and settled in, I went exploring the city a little bit and found some of the places I wanted to visit the next day. By the time I did all of this traveling and wandering it was about time for dinner. I had saved the apple from my bagged lunch I got from the Villa before leaving for the train ride and a mini nuttella from breakfast and bought a bread twist pretzel thing at a bakery for my meal; my French only comes a little in handy when looking at Italian, the German in this region of Switzerland doesn't resemble anything I know. I went back to my room to eat and sketched while watching American television shows in German, including Home Improvement, Married with Children, the Simpsons, and the movie What Women Want.

The next day I got up early to get a good breakfast and go see all I wanted to see. It was a little cool that day and got a bit wet later in the day. (At least the day I arrived it was nice!) I went to re-find the Textile Museum and wait for it to open by meandering and sketching in the outdoor living room created by two artists. It looked like red carpeting covering parts of the street and becoming a permanent car and seating areas.
At 10 am I went into the Textile Museum, which currently had an exhibit called "Secrets" which is actually about women's lingerie throughout history; it was really fun and interesting. Some of the displays were photographs or postcards behind large wooden key holes so you would have to get close and peer in to see them! I was tempted to buy the book on the exhibition, but it was 50 francs and I was able to take a lot of photos.
After this I went over to the main Cathedral and Abbey where I visited the Cathedral itself and the accompanying library. Both were beautiful, but I thought the library was the most interesting of the two. It was from the medieval period and entirely wood; we had to put on felted slippers over our shoes to protect the wood inlay floor. I was unable to take photographs in the library, but I did sketch, purchase a few postcards, and there are lots of pictures online as it is a UNESCO world heritage site.
I grabbed lunch at a little take-away bakery/cafe (amazing chicken curry sandwich, who knew curry would be a thing around here?) then went to find the two works by Santiago Calatrava. I was excited to see them, though I kept hoping I would see them in motion and purposely walked past them many times to check!
I later used the St. Gallen guide book I purchased at the library to check out a few other places and an art piece by Max Bill (who I spoke about earlier). It was a busy day!!! My guide book told me the bratwurst in St. Gallen was the best of any place, so that if I had the opportunity to try it I should; I did and it was very good. They serve it with a bread roll so you take a bite of the sausage then of the bread; I don't know that I could eat that very often though.
Yesterday was very cold and rainy unfortunately. I spent the day really just exploring and trying to take it easy.

Now its time to get back into the studio project and be productive until we leave again for our group tour of Switzerland on the 24th of the month!


Photos show piece by Santiago Calatrava, the Outdoor Living Room, and one of the displays at the Textile Museum. I took lots of pictures, but unfortunately can't put them all up!