In search of Heidi

Another week has gone by, and by next week I'll have been in Europe for a month! Hard to believe, but my time in the little house on 118th seems like ages ago. This is the summer I have been looking forward to all year, even if the weather has been a little too reminiscent of the Puget Sound.

Thursday, as promised, I went to a castle: The Schwerin Schloss. As it happens to be one of Germany's most beautiful castles, I took a bajillion photos, currently on facebook. The outside of the castle was vastly superior to the inside. The tour was overpriced and incredibly short; you didn't even get to see a fourth of the building. But the gardens made up for it, though our exploration was quite wet due to rain. That night we finally found some Italian restaurant. I'll spare you the gruesome details of my worst dining experience in Germany ever, but I will tell you the food was awful.

Friday we took a walk in the forest looking for the mysterious "Blochberg" but never found it, then we went to Lubeck where we found TWO awesome music stores. Henle is outrageously cheap in Germany (no duh! why didn't I think of that before--German publisher!). I resisted the temptation to buy anything, though now I seriously regret not getting that Mozart concerto. That night we went to a play that Mareike was performing in...in German. Luckily it was a spoof on the Odyssey, so with my knowledge of Greek literature and German swearwords I understood a surprising amount.

Saturday we once again tried to find the Blochberg, but no luck (I'm still no entirely sure what the heck it is...some medieval fort or something?) That night there was a party with the family which was great fun.

Sunday was really fun: a church service completely in German. That was wild. After lunch my host parents said we should all go on a bike ride. They brought a picnic basket, and Marlese joked about "no more than 40 kilometers, or my knees won't hold up!" to which I laughed at happily. Foolish Andy. The bike rides I'm used to, especially ones involving picnics, are no more than a mile, or say, 2 kilometers. WE WENT ON A 33 KILOMETER BIKE RIDE. I'm happy to say I did not die, but the next day I wanted to considering the pain in my legs and backside. Nonetheless, it was beautiful ride, and how often do you get to have coffee and cake on the beach by the Baltic Sea after 20 kilometers of bike riding? I think what really did me over was that we went dancing that night.

Monday morning everyone got up at 5 am to say goodbye to me (excluding Wiebke: she gave me my hug goodbye the night before.) The breakfast was very nice, and Oma said she hoped Marieke would drive too slowly so I would miss my flight and have to stay. Marieke managed to drive right pass the airport when we got to Hamburg, but it all turned out and I got on the flight okay. By 10am I was in Switzerland!

I met up with Lukas, an old camper of mine, and his mother at the airport in Zurich. We explored the city, but the oh-so-Seattle weather made it a very wet ordeal. Then we went to St. Gallen where they live. At 70,000 people, it is the 5th biggest city in the country. I'm still in awe of the world-class public transportation, which is sadly more functional even in the tiniest villages than the vast majority of the US. That night we saw sand sculptures from around the world. (random, I know, but super cool.)

On Tuesday we hopped on a train and heading deep into the Swiss Alps! I kept an eye out for Heidi. When we got to see the Rhine I got my other eye out for Rhinemaidens, but luckily I had on my glasses, so I had another 2 eyes to see the scenery. The trains here are unreal; we ended up on the "Bernina Express" (or at least that's how I translate it) and it went OVER the Alps, climbing several thousand meters. To me now Amtrak is Steve Urkel and Swiss trains are Arnold Schwarzenegger. It was crazy how steep they would climb, often going in complete circles over themselves! We ended up in Italy (crazy, I know!) and had lunch there. On the train ride back Lukas casually pointed to a castle. "See that castle" yep, sure do "That's a country." WHAT!?!?!? Turns out I was staring at Lichtenstein. But we didn't go because apparently it's too boring, but we could also see Austria outside the window too.

Wednesday I got to experience Appenzell, a little Swiss town with culture of it's own. They have their own special cheese, their own clothing, their own folk music, even their own piercings. We got to hear a family of 8 perform traditional music.

Thursday was the most amazing thus far. We went to Jungfraujoch, which apparently you can't go to Switzerland without seeing. After about 4 train rides, passing through the alps and lakes and towns like Interlaken, we found ourselves on "the top of Europe." Picture this: An underground train climbs up a mountain and stops at the highest train station in Europe. We then explore the ice palace, complete with sculptures and other touristy things, then we go out on the Jungfraujoch. It's a small connecting valley between two peeks from which you can see a 16 mile long glacier, the longest in Europe. We had lunch at there, and I will never complain about American ski resort prices again. My brat with fries was $18! (which apparently is "really reasonable for Switzerland.") A very small bowl of cereal with milk was $8, and a bottle of water was $5.50. And this was the cheap restaurant at the resort. Of course I took a ridiculous amount of pictures, as it's probably one of the most beautiful sites in the world. We stopped in Bern on our way back and got a brief tour of the capitol city.

This morning I got to be show and tell for an English class. Lukas' father is a teacher and thought it would be great to bring in a real live American. Americans are definitely a rarity in Switzerland; I think I've heard a total of 3 American accents my whole time here thus far. At the Jungfraujoch there were a lot of British, but the majority of tourists are from mainland Europe or Asia.

I'm not sure everything else that's planned (there is a little bit of a language barrier...Swiss German is a lot harder to understand than regular German, but their English is getting better every day! Lukas' mom even told me she dreamed in English last night) but I think it will involve cable cars, band concerts, and who know what else. Probably cheese. Let me give you idea about the Swiss diet: lots of cheese and chocolate, both of which they tell me is the finest in the world.