Things we'll miss and others not so much

The Turkish burrito. One of the cheapest things we can find to eat here in Switzerland. We got some pictures of us having one of our last if not our last, kebap. We decided we are going to open a Turkish kebap shop in Arizona and a Mexican taco shop in Switzerland. We will be rich! Maybe not. But we will miss these little burritos wrap things and the mystery meat that goes in them. Even though they are cheap here, we do miss the wonderful prices of home cooked burritos... free. We are not going to miss the over priced food and everything for that matter.

One thing that I am going to miss dearly are the best ice cream bars I have ever experienced: Magnum! They have several flavors but we get the chocolate covered with almond pieces in it. Mmm! The ice cream is so creamy, the chocolate is so creamy, the almonds are so creamy.. wait not really. The almonds are the perfect crunch to it though. It's bigger and thicker than any other ice cream bar I have had on a stick. I will miss them dearly. If I ever find out they are in America, I will be in Magnum heaven! The wrappers they are in are lined with gold. I always sing, "I have a golden ticket!" when we eat them. Yummy! Brett's face describes all that needs to be said about them.

Something that will not be missed is something that I still find interesting every time I do the laundry. This is one of the wealthiest countries. It is full of millionaires, some of the top amounts of millionaires in the world even! The thing is though that they still do their laundry by hang drying! Yup, no dryers here. I must say it has been a lot better than Africa's hang drying though. There I would get my clothes back dirtier than before they were washed. Here, the problem is that it rains, a lot. So how do you dry clothes when it's raining all the time! I really don't understand why they don't have dryers, they just don't. It's been an interesting process. The first time we did laundry Ruth actually took it for us and did it while we were at work. It was garments. Somehow they came back that evening dried and folded. I was embarrassed and amazed at the same time. She had to be hiding a dryer somewhere or she just hung out our underwear outside for the day. Awesome! It's been fun though, but something that I won't miss very much.

We will miss the yummy cheese though. Yum! I do love the cheese here, specifically Gruyere cheese. Brett has had bread and cheese every day here for lunch. It's the fastest thing to grab on the way out the door. Brett is not going to miss having this every day though. Something else is that we won't miss the stinky cheese smell either. Brett had some nasty moldy old cheese in his back pack the other day and we just found it. He's been complaining for some time about how his back pack stank. Well we found it. Nastiest smell!! And every time we get a new piece of cheese out of the package to cut for lunch or something else, it puts meaning to the phrase "cutting the cheese". It doesn't smell too good when you literally cut cheese here. In a weird way I will miss that cheese smell though.
All together though, there will be many things missed and appreciated from this country when we return home.

Kühen = Cows

Oh the Swiss Cows! We have gotten our pictures with them, now we can return home fulfilled. We actually were both licked by them as well so even better. Actually it was pretty disgusting, their tongues are huge. The cows here are everywhere. You look at a beautiful hill, there will be cows on it. You look at a beautiful mountain, there will be cows on it. You look at a beautiful field, there will be cows on it. Not only can you see and smell them like at home, but you can hear them! They truly know the meaning of the "More Cowbell!" line. You can hear cowbells everywhere you go. Brett says there is a tradition here that each year, on the cows' birthdays they get a bigger cowbell to wear. They actually celebrate the cows' birthdays here! No wonder the milk chocolate is so delicious here. The cows are really happy here. I have been saying the whole time we've been here that we need a picture with cows, and we got it finally! Just happened to grab the camera to capture some of these beauties in action. We are just glad that we could be in the presence of such royalty here in Switzerland! A new meaning for HOLY COW!

La Pizzeria

We went to a pizza place this weekend! It was so fun! We had our first night at a restaurant! While we were waiting for the food to come out we researched about the tip that we needed to give. We found out that too much is an insult here as well. They already include your tip in the bill here and extra tips aren't really as common as America. Good thing we had my phone to check that out before we paid anyone a nice tip. Funny how things can have different meanings in different cultures. We had two pizzas, they were rather small. A Hawaiian pizza and a regular pepperoni. It was yummy. We had a great time eating outside enjoying our really fancy cups with water in them. It was fancy water too though came from a glass bottle. Tasted pretty good too! It was so fun having a date night alone with my love! As much as we loved this place, we miss Little Caesar's $5 pizza I think a little more.

It was great because we were able to walk to the pizzeria and back home. The weather was perfect, a little sunny with a perfect cool breeze. Not too hot not too cold... the perfect date. On the way home we caught some great pictures of the trains, the hills, and the city. We had a great time enjoying just being together, for once without others. As soon as we got home it started raining. Switzerland shone down on us this great day!

Friends

We are heading into our final full week here! I can't believe it! I started to bring my camera absolutely everywhere and I'm taking pictures of the little things that we have missed. Like the Kempas! The great couple that we are living with currently. They are so generous and tell us all the things that we need to see and do in this country. They go bike riding together and walk every day together at almost 60 years old. They have a love for life and make sure that we know it. Ruth always makes sure the kitchen is stocked. We have dessert almost every night here. We are spoiled. Heinz serenades us every day with his guitar. He has a lot of guitars and plays a different one, seems like every night. We have loved getting to know these kind people. Right before we came here Heinz lost his job. They have still managed to help us have somewhere to stay and to give us dinner each night. We'll always have these great people as friends on the other side of the world.

We also took some pictures of Brett's walk to work. Work is at the Gappmeir's home. the Gappmeir's are very kind people as well. Markus is an Austrian who is married to a Swiss, Caroline. They lived in Utah and raised their family there for 6 years and 7 years ago moved to Switzerland. Markus is trying to get more success for his business here in Switzerland and is having a hard time. He had success in Utah and is struggling to reach out to the Swiss businesses. The first month Brett helped him with manuals of Markus' theory. Markus is in process managing and helps businesses do this. This month Brett has been trying to do more marketing work with him. It has been interesting and a new experience for both of us.

Mosquitoes

Well, haven't written very much for a while. Unfortunately Brett has been working Monday - Saturday this month. It's rather horrible. The last week and a 1/2 has been raining and doesn't permit too much sight seeing for me in the day. Two weeks left and we still haven't been to the Matterhorn. Don't worry I will go there even if I have to go alone. We have to start collecting the things we need to bring home as well! Time is going pretty fast.

Last night was a horrible sleeping night. Mosquitoes have come out. They are so annoying. A few weeks ago I had 6 bites in one night. They are a little bigger than they are at home and really loud. They are so annoying because I can hear them at night and where they are flying. For some reason they always attack me and like to fly near my ears! I was going crazy last night. I tried to just lye still and see if it would go away and it would just land right on my face. I kept trying to catch it when it came near my ears but did not work. I woke up at 4:15 this morning and didn't go back to bed until 7 when Brett left for work. I hate mosquitoes. No matter how deep I sleep, I can always be woken up by the wings of a mosquito. I hope they leave me alone tonight. Brett doesn't ever get bitten by the way just me.

Tonight we would like to go have a fire in the woods together and try to make some S'mores. We'll see how the weather is. We would really like to go to Italy our last week here. We have seen everything we need to see here in Switzerland :)

Authentic Foods

We finally had fondue here! It was so fun! Ruth and Heinz made it for us. Because the weather has been so rainy and cold they said it was fondue time. They actually made it a little different and added tomato sauce to it. It was a good flavor. It felt authentic. The fondue pot she has had little adelvice flowers printed on it. It was all rainy outside and we were warm around the fondue pot dipping bread, tomatoes, and zucchini. I really want a fondue pot! If I find one here that I love I will bring it home with me so I can have authentic fondue whenever I want! Ruth said that they used to traditionally do fondue over a candle! All else fails with the pot idea I know what I can afford... a candle for fondue.

We also had raclette which is a Swiss dish as well. It is like a grill that you put on the table, get your cheese tray, load it, stick it under the grill, and wait for the cheese to melt. Meanwhile you take your potatoes, your vegetables, whatever else you want and get them ready on your plate. On the actual grill you cook some bacon. It is very interactive and a fun way to eat dinner. It was so good too! The cheese just slips out of the trays and you pour it over your potatoes, vegetables, and meat. Then you load it up again and start all over. It was really fun doing this and so scrumptious.

Murten

The other day Ruth and Heinz wanted to get Brett off of work a little early and go do something because it was a nice day. So we went and picked Brett up and headed to Murten. Murten is a little town in Switzerland, but probably the oldest town in Switzerland. It is on the French speaking part. It dates back to medieval times. There is still a wall around the town just like in the Book of Mormon, to help protect the city. We were able to walk around the wall and see where they would look out. It was a neat little town. The wall is so thick that now-a-days people live in apartments in the walls. The houses there are very close together and when you're on the wall you can see all the cute chim-chimneys. Ruth told us that this city is the grounds where Switzerland had their last battle at. I think it was in 1800's some time. But since then Switzerland has never had war or battles on their country grounds. It was a long drive but a nice town to visit. 

Caroline and Markus also invited us and the Kempas over for a barbecue the other night. It was very windy actually and not really bbq weather at all but we were somewhat obliged to the invite. Caroline and Markus by the way don't really eat meat. So first thing on the grill: a whole fish. Second was little pieces of chicken that were actually pretty good. Third were the bratwursts. I don't think I have seen bratwursts in the States like the ones over here, or I don't really want to look for them. They are white and really long and big. They have a weird flavor and texture of a cheap hot dog or something. But we ate them. When they are grilled they are so much better than when they are boiled that is for dang sure. It's funny when you bite into them you hear a click sound firs and that's when you know you broke through the outer skin. It's funny. But we ate some grilled chicken and brats. It was a nice evening, most of dinner was in German though. Markus and Caroline were very nice and I could tell it made them happy to have friends over for dinner. As fun as it was, I miss American grilling.

Blitzkrieg

So I now have a new meaning for Blitzkrieg. If you don't remember from your history classes, Blitzkrieg was used by Germans in World War II as a form of battle. Literally it means lightning war. Well last night I saw a Blitzkrieg. There was a thunderstorm last night that I didn't know if we were going to make it through the night. I actually have not experienced such loud thunder. The lightning was so bright and seemed to be right outside our window. We are on the second floor of the house so we had front row seats to the thunder roar. I actually woke up to thunder. It was seriously the loudest thunder I have heard in my life. When I woke up from it, my heart rate increased as if I had just ran up the stairs. It continued for about 30 minutes with this loud thunder.

You know how people say, when you see lightning count the seconds until the thunder and you'll know how far away it was. Well, last night I saw lightning then BOOM I heard thunder. No seconds in between. It was quite exhilarating. This was a Blitzkrieg in the sky! Rain was pouring down really hard as well. It was a crazy 30 minutes. Let's just say that I had a hard time sleeping the rest of the night. I wanted to take a picture but my camera was dead. I found one online though of a Swiss lightning storm, just for imagination purposes.

Gruyeres

Dont' ask me how to say the name of this city: Gruyere. It's supposedly French but everyone that I asked said it some way different. So I'll never know. But I went there while Brett was at work two days ago with Christina, Heinz and Ruth's daughter. It was actually a pretty stressful beginning.

Caroline cancelled that day and Heinz said that I should meet Christina and her friends because they were going to a small town and I had to take the 11:06 train. That's all I knew really. So I got ready and on my way out asked Heinz where I am actually going so I could get a ticket, he said Gruyere but you can't buy tickets to go there the normal way you have to do something special and type it in. Well there wasn't much time from there. I was supposed to meet Christina on track 2 or 3 they didn't know which one at the next train station after I bought my ticket. I went to buy a ticket and something in German kept popping up. Basically it wouldn't let me buy a ticket and my train was coming. So I just went to the next town on the train and went to the train office to talk to someone.

The train ticket lady didn't say anything to me even though she said she spoke English, she gave me a ticket, told me which track to get on, and it was $55! Awesome. But the train came and Christina was supposed to get off to get me but I waited and waited and everyone else was on the train so I had to just get on. I ended up calling Heinz and he called Christina. Long story short we found each other in Bern. It was a little crazy and I wish I knew the language at this point.

But we went to this small little town where the best cheese is made and went to a little medieval town. There was  a pretty cool castle that we walked around. It was a small little town but interesting. We were there a total of maybe 45 minutes and then came back. It was an interesting trip mostly on the train. But I met Anita (Swiss) and Anna (American). Anna served her mission in Germany and was staying with Anita to visit for a month. If you ask me if it was worth $55, I would say maybe not. But it gave me something to do and I made some new friends. It definitely gave me a taste of how it would be all by myself in this place though and I didn't like that feeling so much. But I made it back alive and have some great pictures from it.


Actually in the train station on the way home I was able to see traditional Alphorns, I think that's what they're called, being played. That was pretty cool. Now we are waiting for the next big adventure.  

Canoe Time

Heinz has been wanting to take us canoeing on the Thuner See since we have arrived. Finally, he had his chance to take us out yesterday. The weather was perfect. He wanted to do something special for us on Fourth of July. Brett got off of work an hour early and we started our own little 4th celebration. Ruth and Heinz made hot dogs and hamburgers with all the regular toppings! They tried to simulate a bbq for us. They are so nice. There was so much food. Three hamburgers for everyone plus hot dogs! It was so nice for them to make if feel a little like home.

Afterward is when we went to the lake. It was really fun. We packed up the canoe and kayak for Heinz. The water was so smooth and shallow. We saw people walking out quite a ways from the shore and the water was still only to their waist. It was fun to relax while rowing a canoe. Took us a while to figure out how to actually go straight... but Brett got it. It was a great day at the lake, the smell of the grill, hot dogs and hamburgers on our Independence Day at our home away from home for now. We came home and enjoyed a big homemade pazookie. A great ending to a great day.

The Rameumptom

We climbed another tower! The last one I was pretty scared on. There were several unstable factors going on though. It was on the edge of a mountain, it was pretty open (to see all the way down), and it was a stormy day with a lot of wind. This time conditions were a lot better. We went to a tower in the woods high above the tree line because it was such a clear day. It was a beautiful hour drive through the Swiss country to the forest. All the way up the tower were history facts from around the world. America's founding in1492 and our independence day were included in these little facts. It was still scary climbing up this tower but it felt a lot more sturdy. It was all wood and had really big bolts.
At the top was a beautiful 360* view of Switzerland. We were able to see all levels of mountains including the alps this time. It was so great and very hard to catch on camera. There was a pole at the top that showed all the different countries and how far they were in which direction. It was fun to look all around as far as you can. We brought binoculars and had a great time. It was rather busy too up there. I started getting a little nervous with so many people. The tower began swaying a lot at the top. It was good Rameumptom though.

Sunday we also went to one of the oldest wooden churches in Switzerland. Heinz said that a lot of people like to get married here, but there is a long waiting list for it. It was rather small and quaint. The chapel was very humble and cute actually. It was on a beautiful hill side with grass all around it. There were actually flowers in there from a past wedding of some sort. There was a random thing though, the net that caught the last wolf is Switzerland was hung up in the church. Heinz said it's not anything to be proud of, but back when this was made it was something they prized. I keep telling Brett that there should be animals here. It's a forest, forest animals should be here. I am slowly learning why they all left, there's too many people. But it was a beautiful chapel to visit. Brett has also decided that he wants to have an apple tree. I found a really pretty one and decided, yes I'll have an apple tree as well.

Happy Weather

There is a beautiful river near our home in Oberburg called the Emme River. We had a chance to go to it and stick our feet in the water. I had the opportunity to see Brett's sweet rock skipping skills. He is actually pretty good, I think it's what contributes to his skills in the Easter egg toss success. He said that he grew up as an island boy... what do you expect? Well, I know for sure one of them skipped 6 times. I tried and got 2 skips max. It was fun though. The water wasn't to cold but was very clear. The rocks were big river rocks throughout. It was hard to walk anywhere.
The weather has been great. It was pretty hot at the beginning of the week then cold at the end, and starting the weekend it was perfect. Sunny skies with a nice clean cool breeze. We are loving this kind of summer weather.
Saturday we were asked to walk Markus's huge dog. Not quite sure what type it is but it's big, and very smelly. He is pretty old and his name is Connan. Brett was weary of letting him off the leash because that's how people walk their dogs around here. But we did and had a pretty nice walk with him. We thought he would run away from us and we wouldn't be able to catch up to him, but because he is so old we were actually waiting on him most of the time.

Ruth took us to a cheese factory. Our very first cheese factory in Switzerland, and ever. It was Emmentaler cheese. It didn't smell as bad as you think it would but it definitely smelt funky. It was cool seeing how cheese is made. I never really knew. They store so much for the aging process. I have never seen so much cheese. I just wanted to eat some. It was fun to see some authentic cheese making. The cheese was about two feet in diameter and 6 inches thick when they store it. That's a lot of cheese. Who cut the cheese?! We're having a lot of fun right now!

Mexican Food

This week we made some authentic tacos for our host family, the Kempas. They invited their 2 sons and 1 daughter. Brett made the salsa, Kayla made the guacamole and we both made the tacos together. The rice didn't turn out very good, but the tacos weren't bad. Matthias, one of the sons ate about 6 or 7 tacos, so we've decided to move to Switzerland and open a taco stand.

Thuner See and Trotti Bikes

Last week we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went down to Thun, where we were able to see all the great Swiss Alps. Thun has a beautiful lake called the Thuner See, so we took a nice boat ride and just enjoyed relaxing on the water. We took a few pictures, but its hard to show how awesome it looks in real life. In Thun, we also saw some guys doing some pretty cool surfing on the Aare river.

    

This week we went to a place called Wasserfallen and rented some off-road scooters to ride down the mountain. It was a lot of fun and even a little scary at times. Don't let the little bikes fool you, they can go really fast.

The weather has been really great the past few days and Kayla even went to the local swimming pool this week.

Luzern and Basel

Thursday we went to Luzern. We had a nice day just strolling around the city. We went over the old wooden bridge in the middle of town. We picked up some bread and cheese and chocolate for lunch. We had a nice picnic on the side of Luzern Lake. It was so beautiful. You could see the mountains in the distance. The water was really cold but somehow we manage to see a few people swimming in it. Not for too long though. We took a bus to the Transportation Museum and looked around that for a while. We didn't end up going in because it was a little pricey for us but we saw a few cool things.
We found a near by park there and just sat in the grass for a while. It was nice to have be at a green park with huge trees and it wasn't super hot. We enjoyed relaxing there for a while. I would love to have a park that I could go to during the summer and not be afraid that I'm going to burn my feet if I take my shoes off or sweat to death if I lay in the grass. It was very pleasant there. We took a boat back to the main part of town. It was pretty funny because there were several large ships that drove past our dock blowing their large horns as they came in. We were excited to get on one of them and go to the top of the boat. When it was close to our boarding time we hear this little chime and saw what seemed to be a little tug boat coming our way. We just laughed because that was our boat. We got on the smallest boat on the lake with a huge elementary school on board. It was comical. We loved it still.

Saturday Markus Gappmeir gave us tickets to an art show in Basel. It was a very big deal here so we thought it would be fun to go since we had tickets. It was a really rainy day as well so we thought our time would be well spent inside. Given that neither of us are too big into art we were a little skeptic but wanted to try something new.  We were hoping it would be some cool art that will change our minds about art forever. Didn't really happen. It was a very interesting thing though. We were sent through a large warehouse maze of art. There was art everywhere. We were there for over an hour and a half and we felt like we had only seen an eighth of the art there. It was overwhelming. Unfortunately the art wasn't our style too much. A  lot of the modern weird funky art that you wonder, "I think I could have drawn that when I was 3 years old." It was a good cultural experience but a lot of weird things. Also a lot of nakedness too, and not the normal Roman Cathedral nakedness. It was funny for us we just tried to enjoy the pieces that actually were art worthy in our minds and stared blankly at the other pieces. It was fun to see Basel though. Brett always has fun memories as we enter the train stations, or Bahnhof, of each city. It's so fun being together here even at crazy art festivals.

Eating Cherries and Watching Waterfalls

This place is so beautiful! I love it here. The green is awesome for me to see. I have never seen so many hills, and green hills at that. We are having a lot of great adventures. Last week we had a chance to hang out with the Kempas, the people we are staying with. It was a pretty sunny day, but all the alps were clouded unfortunately. They took us through the countryside of the Emmental. The pictures we took of the country do not seem to do it justice. You could see hills filled with fields as far as you could see, then after that were mountains as far as you could see. I loved it! There were random waterfalls off the sides of mountains because of snow melt. Something I had never seen. It was beautiful. We were able to climb up to one and stand behind it. It was really cold water. Most of the water seemed to just blow into the air, but the rest just trickled into a small brook at the bottom. It was really cool. We could see alps in the distance there as well. It was fun being with Heinz and Ruth. They love to show us the beauties of their country and all it has to offer. We love it as well. It was funny because they insisted that we wear hats. They said you will be too hot and the sun will burn you. We told them that we were used to being hot but as you can see we lost that battle and just wore the hats. Brett actually liked wearing his hat... maybe a little too much.

We finished that day by going through a beautiful canyon. It had a tunnel along the side that you could walk through the canyon in. There was a bridge along the mountain line above the water of the canyon that people could walk on. We loved it. It was very cold in there though. The water looked as though it had a lot of minerals in it. It was like a light green color. It was very cool. They used the bridge and canyon as a hiding place in one of the World Wars. I couldn't understand everything because it was German, but it was cool. My camera died half way through the canyon so I didn't get as many great shots as I would have liked. It was funny because there was an older couple walking with their dog on through this canyon. You could tell the dog was not enjoying it one bit. His head was down and did not want to stop for anything. We were laughing a while about that. On our way home I got car sick. The roads here are anything but straight and everyone likes to see how close they can get to the other side without getting hit by the on coming cars. I was not feeling so hot. I thought that we might die literally 3 times. I kept looking at Brett like it was my last time to see him. There are crazy drivers here including the driver in our own car! It makes for a thrilling ride though. We made home safe through after a long day. It was great to see some of the natural Swiss beauties.

The Kempas have a cherry tree. A pretty tall one. The first time that I have ever seen a cherry tree actually. We got to pick them! Brett was on the ladder one night just picking cherries. It is really great! The cherries are very yummy. Fresh cherries are wonderful. Heinz loved having Brett there to help. The next day that Brett was there to pick from the top branches because he was at work, Heinz chopped off all the top branches and we all sat outside picking off the remaining cherries. It was pretty fun, not something I get to do all the time. I would love to have a cherry tree. They are just so cute. While we were out there it started raining and I was told to pick faster so they don't get too much water in them and explode. Never heard of that. We picked about 20 to 30 pounds of cherries that day. Now we have cherry jam, cherry pie, frozen cherries, and cherries any time that we go for a walk or need something sweet after dinner. It is great! I took some pictures of them because they were just too cute!
We are loving everything about this beautiful place!