Switzerland and Friends

As the weeks went on and we started settling in to our new Italian home, Luke began noticing a strange phenomenon occurring when he came home from work at night: the second he'd step through the door, he'd be met with a wife who not only talked to (er... at) him for thirty minutes straight without ever taking a breath, but also did so at a rapid pace, seemingly speaking at speeds exceeding that which a Ferrari would be rendered utterly incapable of matching.  After the third or fourth occurrence, the wife finally became aware of the shocked look on her husband's face and apologized, explaining, "I don't ever speak to anyone all day who understands me, and I don't even speak to anyone all day who I understand."  Needless to say, when the time finally came to meet our friends Lowell and Renee Thomas and their friend Omid in Switzerland for the weekend, everyone was excited for the sights, for the adventure, and for the conversations to be had by all.

We elected to drive to Switzerland, as Mapquest estimated our trip taking approximately three and a half hours.  In the car at 4:00 on Friday, we employed our European Garmin (named Garmino, which is to be  said with an Italian accent and hand motions) to take us there, despite his less-than-airtight past.  Our drive started out beautifully as we wound through tiny Italian towns, weaving our way through the mountains.  Every house we passed in these villages had its own little vineyard and sometimes a sheep or two.  It was picturesque, and even though the roads were barely wide enough for one compact car to make its way down (requiring a very attentive driver who often had to pull off onto the flattest surface available whenever another car approached so that we could squeeze by one another with only centimeters to spare - which, consequently resulted in a very anxious passenger at times), the drive through this area remains one of our absolute favorite thus far.  

As the towns we began to drive through grew larger and larger, so did the mountains around us.  We agreed unanimously that this was absolutely the best road-trip scenery one could ever encounter:

Despite having to try very hard to ignore the fact that guard rails often didn't exist (which is also how we knew we were still in Italy), we continued to follow the long, narrow, weaving roads up into the mountains and figured that two and a half more hours of this scenery was fine with us.

Four hours later, we were growing a little concerned.  It was true that Garmino originally showed us no estimated arrival time, and had now switched to what seemed to be a clock counting down from 23:59; it was true that even though we could see a highway and often drove right next to it, Garmino never had us get on it; and it was true that we had begun to notice how Garmino would often have us get off the main road, weave through any town we passed, and then get back on the exact same road we had started on.  Sure, we were seeing a lot, and yes, many of the little towns were beautiful, but we were tired and hungry and already driving an hour and a half longer than anticipated.  Giving in, we called our friends to ask for help.  After a lot of map shuffling, questions such as "you're WHERE?  WHY are you THERE?", we estimated we had approximately two more hours of driving ahead.  Garmino, who had already been the subject of abusive language and violent threats, was vowed to be executed once we attained a replacement (since painfully, we still needed him to get us there, even when took twice as long).  Finally, after almost seven hours of driving, we arrived in Laussane, Switzerland, and couldn't have been happier for friends, a glass of wine, dinner, and some conversation.

The next morning, we woke up and spent some time eating our breakfast pastries and croissants alongside the beautiful Lake Geneva, which looks across to France on its opposite shore.

 The plan for the day was to go hang out around the Interlaken area.  We ended up in Lauterbrunnen and met a few more of Omid's friends for some exploring.

First, we caught a train to take us up the mountain.  After finding out that rides all the way to the top cost 130 francs per person (roughly $200 - yikes), we decided to get off a ways up in a small town named Wengen and spend the day there.  

The views, both from the train and in the town, were nothing short of breathtaking.  

We were all hungry after our hike around town and, with it being in what we have dubbed the European "dead period" between lunch and dinner when everything closes down, we were unable to find an open restaurant to eat.  The ladies decided to stake out the spot below while the men ran off to find us some lunch.  Needless to say, the boys were quite pleased with the view when they returned, and the girls were quite pleased with the long-awaited food they had to offer us.  Our favorite part, however, was finishing the meal with wine and swiss chocolate in such a dazzlingly perfect setting.

 

With more adventure and the promise of waterfalls ahead, we boarded the train to return to Lauterbrunnen.

While hiking along, we noticed that there was a path leading up towards the waterfall we had seen when we first arrived in Lauterbrunnen.  Curiosity got the best of us, and we set off to see where it ended up.

Enduring the somewhat perilous trail was rewarded with an amazing view from a path carved into the rocks beside the waterfall.

 Victory achieved by the ladies (and the small little guy in Renee's belly - we're pretty sure he was raising his arms in triumph at this moment as well)

Waterfall defeated, we continued down the path past beautiful farms, countryside, and more waterfalls.  Did I mention being surrounded by the Swiss Alps?  That was pretty awesome too.

And any good day of hiking deserves a nice cold mug of Hopfenperle!

On the way home we learned a very important lesson from Omid: whenever you're driving and see a castle lit up in the night, it's always worth it to get right off and go explore.  Therefore, upon seeing this from afar, we took a detour to wander around the castle grounds for a while and see a little bit of the quaint little town it was in.  We also caught some bits and pieces of fireworks being set off across the lake, before making our way back to Lausanne.

That night, we experienced the Swiss' take on Mexican food (which left a lot to be desired - like everything) and decided to round things out by granting Lowell his wish for a "fut" of beer (note the tongue sticking out in both utter concentration and sheer anticipation).

Sunday morning, we met up with other ex-pat friends of Omid's at the Olympic Museum for brunch overlooking Lake Geneva.  The food was wonderful, and it was really amazing to walk around the grounds of the museum afterwards (which include a great deal of art work and Olympic memorabilia).

 We even got to hang out by the ever-burning official Olympic flame!

Of course we couldn't leave without taking a quick (frigid) dip in Lake Geneva, and spending some time taking in the sights around the beautiful lake... 

or seeing the beautiful Cathedrale de Lausanne.

At the end of the weekend, still in awe by all the beauty we had seen, we set off with written directions from Mapquest, a highly suspicious attitude towards Garmino, and Lowell and Renee in the back seat en route to Italy.  About twenty minutes into our drive (after Garmino had proved himself incompetent time and time again) Renee asked if she could take a look at him.  We willingly passed Garmino back, explaining we'd already tried changing the settings but she could mess with him all she wanted because he was of no use to us.  A few minutes go by, and suddenly we hear quite a lot of laughing coming from the backseat as Garmino's problem is diagnosed: he had been set on "pedestrian" mode the entire time (who knew that was even an option?!?!).  With relief and shame, we uttered apologies to Garmino for the misunderstandings, expressed our gratitude that we were speaking the same language now, and optimistically hoped for smooth travels from here on out.