We Bought a Car!

We are now the proud owners of a Nissan Micra. It's similar to the other picture posted, but is red and a slightly different model. It comes with winter wheels and tires (people really switch out their tires every winter over here) and a rack for the top in case we ever need to carry skis. We can't actually pick it up until we get the license plates, but we should have it sometime next week. I'll post a picture of it then. It's a lot smaller than my good ole Ford Taurus, but it will get us where we want to go. It's a 1.3L (I think) engine, so smaller in power as well. However, it gets excellent gas millage which is a big plus in $5-$6 a gallon gas!

I've also been practicing my manual driving and have done ok. I haven't hit anything, but I still need more practice before I go solo!

And just for fun, here's a picture of Maggie and our porch furniture. The furnitures is one of our Swiss purchases and has been very well used. Maggie probably uses it the most of anyone as the sunny porch is her favorite place.

Flowers

Switzerland has some beautiful flowers and I'm hoping that I will be able to cultivate some of my own. We have a rose bush that has extends from the ground all the way up to our balcony. This is them a little wilted, but can you find a cat in the picture?

I also have started my first attempt at flower boxes. I need a few more to fill things out, but I'm pleased with how they look. I just hope I can keep them alive! I also got some herbs and a cherry tomato plant while Tom adopted a green bell pepper plant. Hopefully they will bear fruit in the coming months.

Aiguille du Midi

Last Thursday, Tom took off of work and the 5 of us headed to Chamonix, France. It's just over the border and in the Alps, most notably Mont Blanc. We took a cable car up to the top of Aiguille du Midi which is at 3842 m (12,605 ft) elevation. From there, the summit of Mont Blanc was another 1000 m higher. The view was incredible from up there and we even got caught in a small snow storm! This is a picture from the cable car on our way up. Our final destination is the point you see slightly left of the middle.


This is Ellie and me on top of the point seen in the above picture. It was taken as the snow storm rolled in, so the view is a little obstructed.


The only bad thing about the trip was that I went up too high too fast and managed to get altitude sickness which cut our visit at the top a little short. My advice is that if you ever do this, stop at the half-way point to acclimate! It wasn't too bad, I slept for about 14 hours and felt 100% the next morning.

Stuttgart, Germany

Tom was off this past Thursday and Friday, so we all ventured to Stuttgart, where his family lived for 19 months. It was a good trip. My favorite part was picking cherries along a tree-lined walking path. We probably picked 2-3 pounds and our hands were quite red afterwards! We ate quite a few fresh and then brought the rest home to make a cherry pie - it was good! This is us picking, and it was a good thing we had some tall people with us!


On our way home we stopped in Luzern to have lunch. It was a pretty little town on a lake. Since we were a little late for a traditional lunch, we just got sandwiches and pastries at a bakery and sat by the lake. I got a tuna sandwich with the bread shaped like a fish :) The entire drive home was really pretty. We saw snow-capped mountains, beautiful valleys, blue-green glacier lakes and waterfalls. G0d certainly has made a beautiful world!
We also drove by the car Tom wants to buy - see what you think...

Espana!

Last week, I went to Spain to meet up with my sister, Lisa. She was traveling with 7 others along the coast of Spain with the final goal of dropping two girls off in Murcia for a one month study abroad program. I met up with them in Malaga. The scenery was so different than Switzerland! It was hot there desert-like in the landscape. We enjoyed walking along the beach and sticking our feet in the Mediterranean Sea. The place we stayed near Malaga was beautiful! It had avocado, fig and lime trees growing in the yard and tons of flowers. It was also an adventure to travel in a large, nine-passenger van for streets meant for much smaller vehicles!

I'm back in lush, green Switzerland now and Tom's family just flew in yesterday. We're going to Stuttgart on Thursday to see where they lived for 1.5 years. Other than that we may explore Fribourg, or visit the Nestle chocolate factory, but we're not sure.


The Spanish coast - you can tell that the mountains aren't very far away!


Me and my sister in front of the cool house where we all stayed. It slept 9, had an outdoor grill (which we used), a small pool, and even a washing machine. We ate all our meals outside on the porch you see behind us.