Switzerland

Switzerland

Greetings from the Alps!

Will and I have spent a very pleasant 4 days here in the Alps. The first thing we did when we arrived was to go to the local grocery store and buy food and chocolate for the week. It is kinda cool that we know where everything is in the grocery store since this is our 3rd year back! This year, we learned how to use the grocery carts, you have to put a coin in to unlock the cart and then lock it back up to get your coin back. We bought tons of chocolate too! Last year we planned on bringing chocolate back to the States, but we had problems with that and never made it. This year, if it survives the desert, we will be doing good. I also bought 3 bags of my favorite kind of chocolate cereal! It is sooooo good. You can also buy cheese samples, so our diet while in Switzerland has been made up of chocolate and cheese!


Day 1
Last year we started a hike and had to quit midway because of bad weather and we would not make it to the end in time to catch the train down. That was a miserable hike downhill. This year we were determined to finish it and we did! We woke up at 5am, caught all the trains and lifts to the hike and started around 9. Last year the trail was packed with snow and it took us forever. This year the weather was perfect and we finished in about 7 hours. It was a pretty hike along the ridge of the lakes and fairly level. The only thing that slowed us down was Will got a really bad "charlie horse" in his calf muscle that never worked it's way out, so he was in pain the last 2 hrs of our hike. At least we were towards the end if the hike.

Day 2
We relaxed most of the day while waiting for Will's leg to feel better. We slept in and hiked up to Murren which is an easy hr hike away. In Murren, we had our favorite Swiss meal, Rosti. Rosti is made of hash browns, ham, and you guessed it....Swiss cheese! (not the Swiss cheese with holes in it...cheese from Switzerland)

Day 3
Will's leg was feeling better, so we hiked up to Wengen. (about 1.5 hours) and then he hiked up to the Mannlichen while I rode the cable car. Those are my kind of hikes. I officially don't like my new hiking boots because they give me blisters, so I wore my tennis shoes most of the time. The top of the Mannlichen has amazing views and you can see both sides of the valley, the 3 huge mountains (Jungfrau, Monch, and Eiger) and all the little towns in the region. It is an incredible view! The pictures really don't do it justice. We also switched hotels and went to our favorite in Lauterbrunnen. One of the advantages of traveling to Switzerland is that you know where everything is! You don't miss trains, you know where the stations are and what to expect. We feel like the experts and often helped other tourists figure out what hikes to take or food to try or where to stay. It was fun visiting with the hotel staff in Gimmelwald and Lauterbrunnen again and learning new things about the town and how Switzerland works...example, you cannot burn any wood you want. If it is designated to be building wood, you must use it to build...even if it is old and would make better firewood. Anything with a nail it it you can't burn. It is little stuff like that that makes learning the culture so fascinating. We also realized that we did a ton of stuff last year while in Switzerland. The weather this year was perfect too! We couldn't have asked for nicer days.

It is really hard to described how beautiful Switzerland really is....like the color of the lake water. It is a sky/aqua/green color. I have never seen anything like it and it changes when the sun shines on it. Right now we are passes fields and fields of sunflowers...how cool is that!

And let me tell you about the chocolate! We bought 40 Swiss francs worth of chocolate....tirimisu, cafe, mocha, caramel Macchiato, hazelnut, chili pepper, orange....so good!

And...are getting faster at counting money! It is pretty bad when you are at the cashier and you are flipping coins trying to figure out the denomination of each. I was finally getting use to using pounds in Scotland and then we switched to franks, at one point I told Will I had 5 Swiss Pounds on me and he just laughed. Your weight is not calculated in pounds in Scotland either...you weigh yourself in "stones."

We are on the train headed to Zurich, take a plane to Berlin, 5th layover, and then on to Dubai. We arrive at 5:30 am. Should be fun!!! We can't wait to see our friends the Furman's.

See you in Dubai!
Tami and Will

FYI...I didn't blow any fuses this time either!