Geneva

We left for Geneva the weekend of the 18th in July. We had a looong train ride Saturday through the mountains, we were going through a looong tunnel and when we came out, we were along Lac Leman! which is also called Lake Geneva. In France it is Lake Geneva, and in Switzerland it is Lac Leman. It is a really big lake! I think it might be the biggest lake I have ever seen. We were in the train for an hour along the side of the lake. We arrived in Geneva ready for a good time but not expecting all that was really going to happen. But we will get into that later. We wandered around and saw the English garden and the famous water jet (jet d'eau) in the lake. To get there we had to walk on a stone path going through part of the lake of the skinny side that was only about 4 feet wide. The stone path was getting very slippery the closer we got to the jet of water. When we got to the water jet we decided to continue along the stone path going through the lake to a small light house that would help the boats get into the Geneva area of the lake. Ryan made it past the water jet to the light house, then it was my turn. Instead of the stone path being 4 feet wide, it turned into about 3 feet wide. Good thing there was less people to get around. I started walking along the stone path and the wind changed. With the wind change came the water. I got pelted! It felt like water bullets were raining down on me! When we arrived at the light house we were trapped! one side was the light house, other side, water bullets. When the wind changed in our favor, Ryan went across and I followed. But for some reason right when I was going across the wind changed again and I got soaked all over again! We spent the rest of the day wandering around Geneva. We didn't see the big UN offices but wandered the normal city and saw the daily life. There was a festival going on in the English Garden, it was some kind of French Swiss and Latin festival. There was French and Swiss food with latin music and dancing. We had some good Moules et Frites (mussels and french fries) for dinner and topped dinner off with some brats. It was a great night and a we had a fun time in Geneva. That wasn't our whole trip, just what we did in Geneva. I will have to finish our trip another time.

Neuchatel

We visited this awesome small lake town called Neuchatel the following Thursday. Ryan was really 'sick' so he took the day off of work and headed north west to Neuchatel. We rented bikes and biked around part of this awesomely huge lake. Then we wandered through the French-Swiss town. We found a really neat prison, turned the corner and BAM! There was a neat castle! Ryan and I decided that if we ever had to move back to Switzerland, we would want to move to either Lucerne, Neuchatel, or back to Bern. I can totally understand why tons of Frenchies retire here.

Basel

Saturday July 13th we headed north to a town called Basel (just like the herb!). Basel is interesting because part of the town is in Switzerland, Germany and France. All the countries touch each other in the middle of the river, so we walked along the bridge closest to the borders. We went to an awesome Cathedral and a boring museum. We went into another cool museum with neat old medieval Swiss artifacts and old money which was in the basement of a cool cathedral. We ate some good kebabs and walked into France. Basel is a neat little town, not too much to do tourist wise, but still neat. Its been such a long time I can't remember all the things that we did. Oh how I wish we could go back.

Lucerne

Saturday, July 5th, we headed off to Lake Lucern for a jolly time at the mountain lake. We wandered around the gorgeous city and walked along the famous bridge, we even found some interesting things in the water, a nice camera, a shopping cart, and 3 bikes. I loved Lucerne, its a small town nestled on the side of a huge gorgeous lake, enormous mountains, lovely swans everywhere, and its not overcrowded with tourists. We loved Lucerne enough, that if we have to move back to Switzerland anytime soon, that we would move here, or Neuchatel, or Bern again. We found the famous Lion monument and found a public restroom! ahhh, free toilets. We made our way to the transportation museum. We were so happy to get in for free since it costs 25 Swiss franks a person, yikes! But it was a fun museum, I got to go inside of a helicopter, we wandered around old style planes, planes that failed, blimps, helicopters, rockets, trains, cars, boats, yadda yadda yadda. We then took a 2 hour long boat ride around the lake and found some mountains that looked pretty familiar, and we saw a small town that seemed to bring back some memories. Christy, look close at the mountains that Ryan is looking at in the last picture, seem familiar? like the same mountains that we took pictures of before? yes! those are the same ones! We found the same mountain that we hiked up, the same town with the awesome bed and breakfast with killer food and awesome dessert and the owls everywhere! I was so psyched! We tried to make it to the mountain to do some hiking and possibly rent bikes to go down it, but it was getting too late and we wouldn't have a way back home. But we are excited to go back! We ended the day with some awesome duram kebabs that put the fries inside. yum yummy yum! Probably the best duram kebab that we had so far, well, the one in Manheim was awesome and fresh and spicy. hmm, thats a close one. Oh, I almost forgot the coolest part, well the somewhat cool part. Last time I was here some 3 or 4 years ago, I went shopping into a little beauty shop and I found some awesome makeup. I loved that makeup, we were good friends, but it ran out eventually and I was sad. I looked around for it and never found it, trying the website didn't help anything, so when Ryan told me about going to Switzerland for the internship, I thought, yes! I can finally get some more of that makeup! The first thing we did when we got to Lucerne, we wandered around the town, found the same store with the makeup, and it was in the same spot that it was before, I was so happy! Now I have a nice stash of it that will last a long time. But we will have to come back to Switzerland when I need more, muah ah ah ah ah!

Fribourg, Murten, and the 4th of July

On Friday, Fourth of July, Ryan had the day off and we decided it would be fun to do a little exploring. So we went off to a small town out side of Bern called Fribourg, which is on the hills and part of it is on the side of the this steep canyon made by a small river. We had a lot of fun wandering around, eating bad kebabs and being followed around by a couple of bees. We then decided to head to a lake town called Murten. This lake was pretty neat and famous for finding tons of really old Celtic artifacts at the bottom of the lake. We ended the day by going to the ambassadors house who was having a huge party for 4th of July. The food was pretty good, but I felt so out of place. It was casual dress, but people had just come from work (The Swiss people don't get 4th of July off unless they work at the US Embassy) and were all dressed up really nice anyway. It was really nice! no fireworks though.
This concludes our story.

River

This is the River that runs through Bern. I have never seen a river so blue. Ryan is jumping off the bridge into the 18 degree water! It moves so fast that I was running as fast as I could along the river and I just couldn't keep up with how fast Ryan and our friends were going down the river. Its sooo cold, but so refreshing!

Fussen Germany and Bregenz Austria

June 28th and 29th

We enjoyed our trip to Fussen Germany so much! As we arrived in Fussen, we first wandered around the town and the woods. While exploring the woods we caught a crawdad! I didn't think they existed in Europe, but I guess they do! We went to this great medieval style restaurant that cooked our food on a spit. Some of the best German food I have ever had! plus the atmosphere was great! There was some kind of festival while we were there and saw a medieval style parade with drum music and costumes while we were eating. Twas nice. Plus Ryan ended up being put in the stocks. We had a rough night because the hotel gave our beds to other people right before we arrived at the hotel, we ended up sleeping on a cot set up in the kitchen at the hotel! In the morning, we were very tired since we had less than 5 hours of sleep and had to be out of the kitchen by 6 am, we made our way over to where the castles were. We had fun with the fountains at the first castle and took a horse ride up to the fairy tale Neuschwanstein castle! It was gorgeous! We took our guided tour and even snuck a couple pictures of the inside, they are going for about 6 million on ebay. ha ha. It was so cool! We saw the awesome views of Swan lake and enjoyed the castle. We played around in the park for a while and pretended that we were spiders and tried balancing on beams and what not. Then our train came and whisked us away to Bregenz and Lindau. The lake Bodensee is a very interesting and gorgeous lake. It touches 3 countries, Germany, Austira, and Switzerland. So we went around the lake and we hung out in Germany for the morning, had lunch in Austria, and in the evening we went to see the soccer game in Switzerland. We enjoyed our stay in Bregenz so much! We enjoyed swimming in the lake and eating ice cream!!! Ice cream is so expensive in Switzerland that we don't get any. So it is a delicacy to us. I think we had like 3 ice cream cones while we were there, yum! Later in the evening we headed back to Switzerland and watched the last and final game of the Euro 08. Germany vs. Spain. I was a little sad, we were rooting for Germany, but they were playing so bad! The rumor floating around is that they were so happy to be in the finals that they celebrated too hard and were playing with hang overs. sad. oh well, it was such a great trip! even though we spent the night sleeping on the same cot in a kitchen, it was definetly worth it!

Sometime ago

So Sometime ago, we went on a fun little journey to find the Bern Temple. And here it is! All the pictures we took with us didn't turn out so great. but thats ok. I just wanted to give you a little update since it has been ages! We have a lot to catch up on, so look for our trip to Fussen Germany and the Neuschwanstein Castle. Our fun adventure in Bregenz Austria. Our lovely evening in Fribourg Switzerland, our Journey through Basel, Switzerland. Sneaking through the border past the guards into St Louis France, and our excursion to Neuchatel Switzerland, and this weekend we are off to Geneva!

Heidelberg

Sunday, June 22, we arrived in Heidelberg where Ryan grew up. The first thing that I wanted to do was get some breakfast, so we went into a shop that Ryan used to go to all the time, and it changed from a normal supermarket to a Russian grocery store and we found pickled watermelon! it was such a strange phenomenon. We went and saw Ryans old neighborhood and old home. We kept seeing the 'ghost cat' that Ryan claimed haunted him on his paper-out as a kid. We then ate some awesome pastries and went to the downtown Heidelberg area. We climbed up to the Heidelberg castle and it was so cool! I felt like I was sucked through a time whirlwind and was sucked into the medieval ages at the castle, I felt like around any corner I would find Robin Hood or Maid Marian. It was awesome! Ryan could hardly handle the hike though, his feet were killing him from wearing bad shoes the entire trip. We then went to the pool where Ryan had his swimming lessons and swam as a kid. It was really neat hearing a lot of his childhood stories where he grew up, about beating up the Russian kids, where he crashed his bike, the ghost cat and many many others. It was such a neat town! I think I like Heidelberg better than Berlin (sorry Mike). Then we caught a train taking us back to Basel, got off on the wrong station and had to wait 40 minutes for the right train to come by, and we made it home right at midnight! all in all it was a great trip!

Berlin

We arrived in Berlin, Saturday, June 21! We had an awesome train ride experience. We decided that it would be good to take an overnight train, sleep all the way and wake up in the morning in Berlin! So we paid an extra 30 Swiss Franks to make sure that we would get some good sleeping seats, but on our way we had to make a connection in Basel, and on our way to Basel, the Train died. it didn't move for about 20 minutes and we missed our train to Berlin!!! we were like uh oh, we paid for the train ride, and the hotel, and now we wont get to Berlin. Luckily when we arrived in Basel, there was another train leaving for Berlin. so we hopped on, but we weren't able to get good sleeping arrangements, and we ended up in a cabin with 6 other people! all night for about 8 hours! yuk! Ryan slept on the floor of the compartment and I attempted to sleep against the window. we arrived in Berlin very tired and sleepy, so we went to our little hotel and slept for about 2 hours. We wandered around the Schloss Charlottenburg and walked down the river and through the Teir garten and found a cool blown up church, the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedachtniskirche, and of course, we found the Brandenburg gate. Sunday morning we headed to the Berliner Zoo and explored the animal kingdom, it was very fun! and we found a unicorn! We went to Spree island and wandered through the Berliner Dom, and we went to the Pergamon museum. In the museum was the actual Pergamon Altar where king Nebuchadnezzar once walked. it was so cool! we also found the Fernsehturm, or the toothpick, it is the second tallest structure in Europe. It was such a hot day, we ended up going to a fountain and ran through it a few times, well for about an hour, just to cool off. We went to the monument dedicated to the Jews who died during the holocaust which was actually put right where the death strip used to be. It was very interesting seeing the contrast between western Berlin and east Berlin. After 20 years of the Berlin Wall coming down, you can still feel the division. On the eastern side, the water pipes aren't under ground, but above ground just like in Russia! I wanted to see the Berlin wall, but we found out that just about all of it had been torn down and only a very small piece was left inside of a museum, I didn't really want to pay 20 euros to see a rock. We didn't see Checkpoint Charlie either, but thats ok, I wasn't in the mood to have someone convince me that I needed to buy a Visa to get to Eastern Berlin (apparently there are still a lot of tourists who think that they need a visa and will pay a lot of money to see Eastern Berlin, what a scam!) We watched the soccer match and had great food and a wonderful time in Berlin. What an adventure! but it doesn't end there, we hopped a train in the evening heading to our next destination, Heidelberg.

Euro Cup 2008 June 13th, 2008

So, this is what it's like when someone scores in a Euro tourney game....mayhem. As you can see at the end of the video me and Sarah are just as crazy! The Dutch are the funnest fans, unfortunately they lost to Russia in the quarterfinals. Awww, poor Oranjes (nickname for the fans).
HOP HOLLAND!

Cows of the Alps

We went to dinner with a nice family who lives in a small town south of Bern, afterwards we went on a nice little hike in the hills behind their house and we ran into some typical Swiss cows! Here is a cute one. The one behind it is really dirty. Its so peaceful out here, just a couple of stops outside the city and you are in hiking wonderland!
Now we have all seen the small smart cars of Europe, but have you seen this? Its not as small, but look at how short it is compared to me!!!

SOCCER!!!

Here we are on Saturday June 7th, at the first Euro 2008 game Switzerland vs. Czech Republic. It was really exciting waving our flag, wearing Swiss hats and socks and rooting for our 'Nati' team! Its so exciting going to the games. On Monday we went to the game Holland vs. Italy and we were rooting for Holland, and those Dutch people are crazy! Every time the Holland team scored it was crazy! people jumping up and down yelling and I got sprayed with beer like 4 or 5 times! Now that Switzerland is out of the tournament, they have one more game there is just no way they can continue, we are rooting for Holland!!! I think we are getting addicted to Soccer out here, we watch a lot of games and go to a bunch of parties and the games are fascinating to watch and fun to get into!!! I think I'm turning into a soccer fanatic, uh oh!!!

Concerts, Fun stuff...

Here, by our bus stop, I made Sarah pose for what I thought would look like a cool picture. We we're on our way to some free concerts downtown to celebrate the start of the Euro 2008 soccer cup. It's been overcast and raining alot in the last week. Actually, now that I think about it, there hasn't been any sunshine at all this week! Oh well.

Then, here is at the concert with a local Swiss band called...uhh...something like Hol hulotti trop or something like that. It was alot of fun, but so many people. They actually fit around 70,000 in what is called the bundesplatz (federal square). The capital building is the one lit on the right. Could you imagine there being a concert right in front of the white house? And one that is completely paid for by the government no less? The madness begins on Saturday with the first game being Switzerland against the Czech Republik. We're going to watch it with some friends in the same place because they have a monster 50 ft. screen set up. They will also have screens set up in two other places around town for everyone who wasn't able to get tickets. They actually sold out over a year ago. They had to have a ticket lottery because there were over 10 million people who wanted them and they only had 1 million to sell. People really are obsessed with soccer here. With everyone being so squished together watching the game people are going to get knocked out when Switzerland scores. You can just imagine all the fists going in the air.

WhhhooooOOOOOOAAAaaaaaa!!!!

Here's a pic of some guy mountain biking down this awesome trail on Bern Mountain. I wanted to go down it so bad, but I would probably freak Sarah out or break my hip. Here's actually a cool video of some people that went down it and it shows the tram that you have to go up and then the first part of the trail... watch. Hey Brian!! If you come to Bern we'll tear this up....if you can handle it...muah ha ha ha!

Hiking up Bern Mountain

Saturday, May 31st was a great day for us. Ryan had the day off of work and we were able to do something fun. We didn't want to leave Bern for the weekend just yet, so we decided to hike up the Bern Mountain. I don't know if thats what it is really called, but that's what the natives call it.

We went to the 'base' of the mountain and there was a tram that went up the side of the mountain that we could take. We decided to take a hike. The man and the tram station said that it would be an easy hike, 'like 100 meters'. HAH! more like 1000 meters. So we hiked along and on and on, taking a few breaks here and there, and we happened to find some hammocks!
Here is the view of Bern on our way up the mountain. What a pretty city!
So we hiked and hiked and met some cows and goats, and finally we reached the top. And we found a park!

It was cool, they had a massive jungle gym and mini bumper cars for kids, ponds, ice cream and a mini train station! I thought it was so cool that I just had to pretend to be a monster! We hiked back down the mountain, which was much easier than coming up, said hello to the goats and cows. By the time we came back, we had been hiking for five hours, yes 5! 100 meters?

I think not.

Muhlematter, and our humble abode.

Muhlematter, pronounces (moolah-mattah) is the name of our gracious host. I remember her name by thinking: mule mother. She is a proud Swiss woman who is letting us stay in her apartment. She is leaving for the United States this week to stay with her daughter in Pennsylvania for the rest of Summer and Fall. So we are house sitting for her in a sense.
You can see the view from our bedroom overlooking Ostermundigen. Muhlematter lives in Ostermundigen which is about 15 minutes away from Bern by bus. We went to a Bern club Saturday night with a couple friends. This party was put on because the Euro 2008 is happening in Bern this year. The Euro 2008 is the European soccer tournament held every 4 years! I can't believe how lucky we are to be living in the city where it will all take place. So we went to this club and they were throwing out Swiss flags and hats and teeshirts. We happened to get a couple to flags and this hat! I think we were the only ones to get a hat because I didn't see any one else with one and so many people in our group were trying to take it from me. But here it is, our little humble abode along with our Muhlematter.

Bern, the City of the Bears

Bern, Switzerland. What a beautiful town. This is the view from Rosengarten. I often come here and overlook the city while I study. The word Bern comes from the word Bear, and Bears are the cities animals. There is a bear pit in Bern and this bear learned how to sit up and he stretches out his hands for food.

So far our stay in Bern has been wonderful. We have learned the medieval city quickly and have enjoyed the food, atmosphere and the people.

Vienna, May 25th, 2008

On Saturday we awoke early to take a train to Vienna, Austria. I just can’t believe how beautiful the country of Germany is. We arrived in Vienna and we immediately saw a tall blond man that we recognized as Spencer. I know he felt like he was in a dream to be back with family. Spencer then showed us around and took us to a Kebab shop. Ryan and I then found our way to the down town of Vienna. It was absolutely stunning. Everywhere I looked was a grand building. The streets were made of cobblestone. The statues were carved out of white stone and gold. Every way I turned there was beautiful art all around me. And what made it even more stunning, was all the plant life. In the heart of the city, there were trees lining the streets, big tall green leaved and black barked trees. I was absolutely amazed with Vienna. The art was bewildering. We walked around and looked into a few beautiful churches. We noticed a few monks taking pictures of me, I would smile and keep walking and their cameras would follow me! It happened about three times that I saw and Ryan said he saw a few monks take pictures of my butt! We went to a really large church in a large piazza, it was the main church in Vienna. We found some street performers and I was surprised by what I saw. Mexicans came to Vienna, dressed as Native Americans and we dancing native American ritual dances! I was shocked! Mexicans? In Europe? I was very glad when we were in Frankfurt that we didn’t have to see the second class citizens, but in Vienna? Sunday morning arrived and we went to church with Spencer. He was very homesick, but we're sure he'll get over it. We decided to get some food and we remembered a store that Spencer pointed out to us. We went to where we thought it was and couldn’t find it. We decided to check on a different street. So we hunted out the middle street. We found the sign for the store but not the store itself. We began hunting up and down the street until we finally found someone to ask where the store was. They guided us to a side street that we didn’t even notice. We walked down the street for a long time until we found the store. What we didn’t realize, is that the store would be closed on a Sunday. Out of luck, we went to a nearby gas station and found some snacks for the train ride. We were so tired and didn’t want to walk all the way back, we decided to take a bus back. We found the bus that we thought we needed and hopped on. We soon realized that it was going in the wrong direction. We hopped off near the train station and hopped on a subway thing and hopped off and hopped on another bus. We rode on that bus until we recognized the bus stop that we were to take. It was a long and tiring evening, but we made it back to where we were staying. The next morning we took off to the train station, and on the train we found a nice cabin with great big windows. The country of Austria is even more beautiful than I imagined it could be, even more than Germany. It is no wonder that tales of Faeries and wood nymphs came out of Europe. The hills really are alive with the sound of music.

p.s. to explain: the picture with Ryan pointing is at Vienna's outdoor drinking water called "Weiner wasser" literally translated as "Vienna water".

Frankfurt, May 22nd, 2008

We arrived in Frankfurt yesterday in the early morning. Both Ryan and I were very tired, neither of us had more than 3 hours of sleep on the plane. Our two days of travel felt meshed into one. The train ride from the airport was relaxing. I gazed out the window looking through the forest of green trying to see the city Frankfurt. The trees were too thick and the plants too green, I couldn’t see a thing. Eventually the train tracks took us up so I had a better view of the city. At first I had the impression that Frankfurt was rather a small, spread out city. It was an illusion. The trees were the cities mask to deceit the newcomer. We arrived at the train station and started walking in the direction of the red light district where our hotel was. I thought the red light district would be a lot worse, but it could have been a lot better. We went to our hotel room and to our surprise found it to be quite nice for 40 Euros. We had spent more money in the states for a worse hotel room before. We tried to stay awake to make the most of the day in the new city, but sleep overcame our exhausted bodies that lived 2 days in one. We slept to the television turned on to some old eighties movies translated into German. We slept and slept for about 6 or 7 hours. We awoke thinking it was only 2 in the afternoon. But we soon found it was quite late. We had a little biscuit and yogurt for breakfast on the plane and we slept through lunch. We were very hungry when we awoke from our long nap. We left the hotel in search of an ATM machine so that we would be able to eat food. We walked around and found some nice old buildings that were probably the center of what the city was built around. We found an ATM machine and had some schnitzel and fries for our dinner. We walked around and enjoyed a citron and strawberry shakes. In the morning for breakfast the hotel provided thick slices of cheese and pieces of sweet meat on tasty flaky bread with yoghurt , boiled eggs and juice on the side. Then later that night Ryan went to call Spencer to arrange a time to meet, and on his way to the internet cafe a black hooker chick grabbed his arm and wouldn't let go. She kept trying to force him into a strip club but did not succeed! Well, to wrap it up, we got our train tickets and headed off to Vienna Saturday morning. Oh yeah!

FUTON that is no longer ours

Well this is our first blog post. It happens to be a boring picture of a futon that we sold a couple of weeks ago. Hmmm. How boring. We are leaving to Switzerland in a week. YAAAAAYY!