Interlaken

Tom and I took a Saturday and ventured to Interlaken - about an hour away from where we live. There is an area near there called Lauterbrunnen known for its numerous waterfalls. We did the touristy thing and went to see lit-up waterfalls inside some caves. It was overpriced, but neat. It was really cold inside the caves since the waterfalls are made up of melted glacier water!

After the interior waterfalls, we found a place to go hiking. Having never hiked in big mountains before, I had no idea what I was in for! Going up was tough, but coming down was even harder. The views were spectacular, though and on the way down we even passed a group if hikers singing - almost like they were out doing Christmas carols. I'll have to get in better shape if I'm going to do much more hiking in the Alps - I was beat after just 2 hours.

For dinner we picnicked and then headed for Tell-Freilichtspiele - an open air theater production of the history of William Tell. It was all in German, but we still enjoyed it. The set was amazing and the cast included over a dozen horses that constantly galloped on and off stage.

This was our view while we climbed - notice the glacier in the center of the picture.

Here's a picture of the impressive stage. Click on it for a link to better pictures, including those of the cows, goats and horses that were up there!

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Bellinzona

Last Wednesday Tom had the day off, so we made the most of it and took a day trip to the Italian- speaking part of Switzerland. To get there we had to go through the longest tunnel in Switzerland - 17km long! I'm sure it's nice in the winter, but I preferred the view outside of the tunnel!

When we got there we looked up a few important phrases in Italian since we didn't know a single word! We had to figure out the number 7 so that we could pay for our gas. Fortunately it's close to Spanish and seems much easier to pronounce in French, so we did alright.

The main attractions in Bellinzona are 3 very well restored castles: Castelgrande, Castello di Montebello and Castello di Sasso Corbaro. We enjoyed poking around each of them. I loved the fact that they fit into my stereotypical picture of what a castle should look like. The weather was great - sunny and hot! After lots of rain and chilly weather, it was a welcome change. We didn't have time to eat dinner there, which really disappointed me, but there's always next time!

A view of Castello di Corbaro (at the top), Castello di Montebello and some of the wall from Castelgrande.

Castlegrande (left) and Montebello. Tom and I climbed up to the highest towers in both castles.

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Garden/Closets/Cooking

I've really enjoyed our little balcony garden, small as it is. We're growing some herbs (thyme, green and purple basil, rosemary and parsley), a cherry tomato plant, a pepper plant and cat grass. It's fun to use homegrown spices in our food and Maggie loves the cat grass!

One thing that is different over here is the lack of closets. So, when we moved here, we had no where to hang our clothes (or store random stuff). We looked around and finally decided to get our wardrobes at Ikea. Here's a picture of what they look like - a little different from what we're used to!

On the suggestion of a Swiss woman, I subscribed to a cooking magazine over here called Betty Bossi. I tried one of the recipes this weekend. It took awhile to translate it, but it seemed to turn out pretty well. It didn't look quite like the picture (when does it ever!) but tasted quite good! It's fun to try Swiss recipes and nice to have the ingredients given in metric quantities.

Le Premier Août

The first of August is Switzerland's fête nationale (national holiday) which dates back to 1291. We are living in an old country! They celebrate their "independence day" similar to how we celebrate ours: lots of flags, food, fireworks and bonfires. We celebrated by going to our neighbor's party on Tuesday evening and then going camping on Wednesday night. The party was fun, though it is very difficult to make small talk when everyone is speaking either French or German. Many people spoke English, though, so we managed to communicate to some extent.

The next day we went South to the mountains in the Valais area. A couple we met at church (Dan and Rosalie) invited us along, and we made a group of 12! We had a good time. We helped build a dam in a FREEZING cold stream (ok, I barely helped and just put my feet in), ate delicious food, sang praise songs and set off fireworks. I even got to light a few off - my first ever! We were in a valley, so we could see numerous bonfires all up the mountains around us and were surrounded by fireworks. That night it started to rain, but our tent kept us nice and dry. However, the next day was rainy, so instead of staying another wet night, we came home. It was a good time to get to know some other people in the church.

Both Dan and Rosalie's parents stayed in the bungalow to the left. It was nice to have somewhere dry to retreat to when it was raining as well as have a real kitchen (since we were cooking for 12)! And check out those pretty mountains.

Just a pretty view! I believe that the house is an actual place people lived many years ago.

The camping grounds - notice how close the tents are to one another! Our tent is the red 0ne - Tom noted that it matches our car. The rest of the group was staying in the the yellow tent.

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