a morning in st.gallen

After yesterday's epic birthday bash cake baking post I thought I'd take a little break today and post some pretty pictures of buildings in and around St. Gallen. A friend and I zipped by train to St. Gallen this morning to visit a fellow American ex-pat who is currently living with her husband in this sweet little Swiss town in the North Eastern corner of the country. We had a great walk through town, up the nearby hill and then back down and through town again to a cute little restaurant. The Swiss really love their walking, apparently as I learned today, it is their national pastime. People walk everywhere, whether it's in the city or in the middle of a cow pasture, you will see people walking.

So far all of the Swiss cities and town I have visited have been composed of a "new" part of town that has risen up against and around an "older" part of town. The old part of town generally dates back to the 1400s, which is pretty incredible. I always enjoy walking through the old parts of town and truly admire the buildings and their decoration. More often than not buildings are ornamented with a painting, but I have yet to see a facade that was entirely painted.St. Gallen is definitely worth a visit and although we didn't see it today the lake, which is just outside of town and borders Germany and Austria and maybe even Lichtenstein, is supposed to be beautiful.

Today is a day of architecture - I'm off to dinner to meet a friend of a friend who is an architect in town! Hopefully she has some good ideas about where I can start looking for a job.