Karate Man

Our day in Lucerne was wonderful. Our bus took us to the base of Mt. Pilatus in the Alps, and we got up to the top in a tram. It was chilly up there with lots of black birds. We left the mountain on cable cars. That afternoon, we shopped. Lucerne has a lot of great boutiques. Sandra wanted to find an Omega watch. We went into a shop, where they gave us long-stemmed roses just for coming in. There was a lake nearby that had swans in it. I saw the swans eat whole apples and watched them slide down their necks. One store had beautiful blown glass. It was truly an idyllic place. As we were going back to our hotel, I stopped at the movie theatre to see what time the film was showing. Sandra and I wanted to go to the movies. It would be a nice time to get away. The film was in French, and she didn't speak it, but I did and told her that I would translate it for her. We were planning to go after supper. At dinner that night, the other three girls said they wanted to go walking around town at night. Sandra and I wanted to go to the movies. But, there was something that I was obligated to do, since we were in Israel. No matter what I wanted to do, I had to go along with the majority. So, if 3 of the girls wanted to go walking, and Sandra and I wanted to go to the movies, everyone had to go walking. Sandra looked at me very disappointed, but there was nothing I could do. And, the others didn't want to go to the movies. So, we went walking. It was pretty dark. Sandra and I stayed together walking, and the other girls went on ahead. We rounded a corner. Sandra was a couple of steps behind me, when I heard her scream out my name. I twirled around and saw her surrounded my five drunk Swiss soldiers. They had formed a circle and were passing her around to each soldier. Her long hair was draped on the shoulder of one soldier, when I grabbed his shoulder and put him down. It was a move I had learned in karate class in school. The soldier fell down, and I grabbed Sandra and ran. I could hear the other soldiers laughing and saying, "Oh big boy", but we didn't stay around to say anything. The other girls were about a half a block ahead of us and didn't see what had happened. When we told them, they got scared with us. I apologized for pulling Sandra's hair, but she said that she was just glad to get away and thanked me. We went several blocks out of the way to get back to our hotel, in case we were followed. Thankfully, we weren't. It was the first and last time I have used karate like that. We decided that we would have rather gone to the movies and had a laugh. It was a perfect day that didn't end so perfect, but at least we were safe.