Switzerland

After the trek across the Atlantic, my mother and I arrived in Frankfurt, Germany. Upon baggage claim, we learned that my luggage had failed to board the plane from New York, so I was without my clothes. Later we were very thankful for this mistake. Somewhat delirious and obviously without a clue as to the manner of public transportation here in Europe, we fumbled our way onto a train (thank goodness it was the right one). We pushed our way through the aisles with mother's two large bags, her two smaller carry-ons, and my carry on making quite the comical scene I'm sure. Eventually we found a dining car, where there was plenty of room for us to put our baggage so we plopped ourselves down there and didn't move until we had to.

Mirjam Da Costa was waiting for us with the biggest smile on her face when we arrived in Basil, Switzerland. It was really good to see her again, it had been six years since the last time we have seen each other! She traveled with us from Basil to Lucern, then we took a bus from Lucern to Root. My mother and I stayed with Mirjam and her family for the next three days. They are the nicest people and I am very happy that we have met. We met Mirjam's husband, Miguel, her baby, Carlos, her mother, her father, her sisters, and even a family friend, Ivo. The first night my mother and I had serious jet lag, so we probably weren't the perkiest of guests. We had an excellent barbecue and then we took showers, and crashed. That was the best I have slept in a long time!

Breakfast the next morning was phenomenal, European breakfasts are my favorite, breads, cheeses, fruits.. good cereals.. it's the perfect way to start off the day! This day was filled with adventure, Mirjam, Carlos, Mirjam's mother, my mother, and I took a train to Engelsberg. It is apparently this very high end skiing village. It was very cute, there were angels all over the city (hens the name) and it was tucked away in the alps, the picture perfect swiss alpine village. My mom wanted to see Swiss cheese being made, so we went into a cheese shop that was in a catholic monastery. That was fun to see. After mom got her cheese fix, we hiked up the mountain, to this place that Mirjam's mom had been before. We came to what looked like a garage, but inside was this little gondola. I thought it was broken or out of service, but nope! We got right in that little thing and Mirjam's mother called on a phone and said "bring us up!". And so it did! I guess these Swiss people who live up on the mountain can't really drive their car up there all the time, SO they have their own private gondolas! That was pretty bizzare. The view at the top of the mountain was breath-taking. I could sit up there all day and just look. We were there for awhile, then it was back down the mountain to the train, then back to Root.

The second morning we woke up to the same delectable breakfast. But this day we headed to Lenzburg to see a castle! It was beautiful. I would live there haha and Mirjam and I jokingly said that when we are rich and famous, we'll buy it together. It was a castle up on a hill, with beautiful courtyards and it had museums inside. We spent all day exploring this place, taking pictures, marveling at the structure, then came back to home base in Root. On our walk back home, we passed by a soccer festival and that was fun to witness how much Europeans really do like their soccer. It was a party!!

Our train for the next day left at 1:50 p.m. That gave Mirjam, her sisters, her mother, my mother, and I plenty of time to tour Lucern! We dropped our baggage off at these safe lockers at the train station, then we were off! We toured two bridges, and each one was different. The paintings were interesting, the second bridge was all about death. Kind of morbid but interesting. Basically the story that bridge is telling is that death is everywhere.

Well we couldn't tour Switzerland forever, but the time we spent there was absolutely perfect. Now it's off to Germany!