A Comedy of Errors

Temperature in
Houston, Texas is:

LINKS

Sign my Guestbook
(Powered by SignMyGuestbook.com)

MSN Encarta
"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." -Morrow
"Take care of the minutes, and the hours and years will take care of themselves." -Anonymous
"Love doesn't make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile." -F.P. Jones

Profile | Contact Me | Archive | Newest | Diaryland

2004-06-17
memories of switzerland

16:59

I don't have anything really exciting to say today, so I will talk about my trip to Switzerland ages ago. November 1st, to be exact. I still remember it, so should get it down before I forget it completely.

I also wanted to mention that I forgot to say that we had passed by the cliffs of Loreley (pronounced "Lore-lie" as in "die") on the Rhine river when we took the boat trip in Rudesheim. The legend is that the maiden Loreley fell in love but upon being rejected, she threw herself over the cliffs and into the river. However, she was saved and became a siren, luring unsupsecting sailors to their deaths on the shoals and rapids around the cliff. I love legends.

Anyway, Switzerland. We had had a Halloween party the night before, and then early the next morning, I met Dave Buck and Nick to go to Switzerland. (Kelly was supposed to come, but didn't wake up until noon. Oops.) We had an uneventful train ride that took most of the day, with Nick and Dave sticking their heads out of the windows and taking pictures of each other with the gorgeous scenery in the background. That was what I remember most - the landscape. It was amazing. I can't describe it, and I have very few pictures (that was the week before my computer was stolen). Sheer cliffs, crashing waterfalls, quaint little towns tucked into the foot of towering white-capped mountains, flowing green meadows with cows grazing leisurely, endless forest, crystal rivers...Switzerland easily and quickly became one of my favorite places.

We walked around a town at our train station (cannot remember the name) and took a bus over to this amazing waterfall that Nick had discovered. We rode a lift up through the mountain and then had to walk the rest of the way up and then all of the way back down. The waterfall was special because it had carved such a deep crevice in the rock, so that it was almost falling through the mountain and there were all of these natural little caverns surrounding it. So cool! We then caught a ride with some people who were heading back into town.

We were going to stay in the carless town of Murren, which we reached via a lift that traversed a steep track on the side of a mountain. Not having a place to stay, we discussed what to do; a man and his father overheard us and told us that they knew of a lady who rented places out in a chalet for a reasonable price. We managed to track her down and she had rooms available, so that's where we stayed. We had the whole chalet to ourselves (Chalet Fontana) and it was wonderful. After a little bit of wandering around in the snow and dinner, we settled in, I made hot chocolate, and then we all went to bed. Unfortunately, it was rather cold and the heat wasn't working so well, but we all snuggled in our respective rooms and went to sleep.

Heather had been planning on joining us, but when she called in the afternoon to ask where we were, we tried to dissuade her because she would arrive around midnight and the lift to Murren closed around 7:30 or so. However, she was determined, and I have no clue how she did it, but when I woke up in the morning, she was sleeping in the bed next to me. We paid the 20�, and then went to Shilthorn Mountain right in Murren, and took the gondola to the top. Shilthorn is where the avalanche scene in James Bond movie, The Spy Who Loved Me, was filmed. Not that you could tell - they only had a gift shop selling a lot of 007 items, and a separate movie room that played the one thirteen-minute scene over and over again. ;)

A rotating restaurant was located at the very top, where we shared some expensive french fries and watched a couple of guys gliding around outside on their parachute gliders. We hiked across a ridge, took pictures, foudn Jungfrau, and admired the view for quite a while before heading back down the mountain to catch our train back to Strasbourg, where we arrived pretty late and tumbled into bed, only to have to get up the next morning for school.

We made sure to purchase a fair amount of swiss chocolate and other required souvenirs. I also bought a Swiss army knife for my dad, which Kelly played with one night and ended up cutting her finger pretty badly. That was the start to our friendship. Good start.

Previous | Next