We are bound and determined to get this finished before the baby comes. (We'll have other stuff to post when that happens :)
Here we are on one of the MANY trains we took to get to Switzerland. Why are Seth and his brother sitting in the hall way instead of the car we were assigned you ask? Well, this particular train double (and possiby even triple) booked these seats. So there was someone already in our car!!! If that weren't enough, this was perhaps the only train we took all trip that didn't have air conditioning!!! That's a recipe for disaster. Long story short, the conductor made Seth and Scott leave the hallway and move 5 cars down, leaving Cassie and I with no information on which stop will be next nor instruction on what to do! ... Ah the memories :)
Made it to Switzerland and found a last minute hotel ... a Best Western in Interlaken! Seth went down to get his pregnant wife some food. He ordered a salad for me, but I'm sure he didn't know we'd get a year supply! haha! Seth said the restaurant owner was perhaps the coolest guy ever, wearing MC Hammer pants with a cow pattern on them, and they had delicious apple soda type drink!!!
We just thought the keys were cool. A lot of them were like this out there in Europe.
Went to the cool restaurant for breakfast, but we just missed the owner :(
Yep, extra large pepper grinder ...
DAIM!!!! I got this ice cream thing while we were waiting for our shuttle to the hotel, it was so amazingly tasty, and so creamy that it made me say, mmm daaaaaim! (I think I ate at least 4 or 5 of these while we were there)
What's that ... there's a giant clock in our hotel??? How could Seth resist taking a Back to the Future-esque picture?
This is the view from the front porch of our hotel. Nothing but the lake, mountains and sunsets!
This is the crazy beautiful Geissbach Hotel. This place was incredible, secluded in the mountains. Good choice Scott and Cassie!
Do we even need to comment on this picture?
Hooray!!! We found the crazy good apple soda!!! We even bought an extra to take home! For those that don't know, Seth is quite the connoisseur of fizzy apple drinks, from cider to apple beer. This stuff from Switzerland tops them all. I believe his exact words were, "It's amazing because it kicks you in the back of the throat with the first swig like a good apple drink should, but this stuff will do it every time! It kicks you in the throat and keeps doing it the whole way down!" haha!
Props to Seth's cousin Jason on this one (who served his mission around these parts.) He gave us a list of "must do's" and eating a kobab was one of them! To say they are crazy good is an understatement!
3 pictures in a row of Seth eating something you say??? That's Switzerland! haha. Paprika chips is a throwback to his Russia days!
You saw the lake and mountains in the front of the hotel ... here's the view directly behind it! Nothing but waterfall and mountains ... beeeeeeautiful!
This is Seth ... "Ballin' in Ballenberg." He's just gonna leave his hand up there because it's so pretty. (Reference from "White men can't jump" for those that don't know.) Ballenberg is like a giant outdoor museum of Swiss architecture throughout the centuries. Cool place.
I'm expecting to see Hansel and Gretel come running out of this house any minute!
Easy there navigator ... whoa there Magellen ... (He's actually really good with a map!)
Hammer racing ... apparently the kids loved this game back in the day.
The kids loved this too ... Seth still does!
See what I mean ...
Who needs Disneyland??? haha
Seth: So there were these huge chickens and a giant rooster at this one spot ... I go to use the restroom, and when I come back out, Linz is sitting on a bench and these things are surrounding her, and inching closer with each step. Lindsay Gonzalez ... animal whisperer ... who knew?
Switzerland had some great hikes, and great views! Luckily Linz's ankle situation (as described in Part 2) was retreating a little. It still wasn't easy for her.
How about a little old school wooden Swiss bowling???
Good form old man.
This is us at the start of the hike up the water fall, let's see if we're this happy at the top. ;)
Yep, the hike goes under the water fall! And you can see our hotel in the background.
Again, our hotel in the background ... and it's getting smaller!
This was a really good hike, and really hard for Linz. She is quite mentally tough though!!! It was awesome to see her get to the top, jump up and down on her swollen ankles and yell, "I DID IT!!!"
Then we realized we'd have to hike back down ... haha
This is the famous Geissbach funicular. (More or less a mountain trolley.) One of the oldest and longest in Switzerland!
We checked out a wood carving school. Seth's monkeying around ... (I know what you're thinking ... you're wrong though. He's the one on the right.) haha
We're comparing belly sizes ...
We made quite the extra effort to make sure we got to the Temple in Bern. This was quite important to Seth and I to get there to do a session. I have ancestors from Switzerland and it was especially important to Seth because since there is not a temple in Russia, this is the temple that members from his mission in Russia go to when they do their own temple work. Seth talked to the temple president and they let him do the whole session in Russian!! He said it was awesome, and he likes doing stuff like this because it's always interesting to him the words they use in other languages, and he learns a bit extra the way they carry small differences in translation and meaning.
Yep ... definitely a good experience!
After the temple we had some time to hang around Bern. Bern is "Bear" in ... german?? Switzerlandish? Anywhoo, there is a whole history with bears in this area, so they always kept a couple of bears in the city. So why is Linz frowning? Apparently the last bear died like a couple weeks before we got there. They were building another, bigger place for the bears to live and they decided not to replace them until the new place was finished. What can ya do, right?
We hit up a Burger King to finish our trip to Switzerland. You noticed there was a lot of food I'm sure, what you don't see is the price tag of that food. The cheapest thing was that kabob, which was like $9 for just the kabob! (yes I'm pre-converting the money for you) For us to get 2 meals at Burger King it cost almost $30!!! The dinners we were having at the Geissbach hotel, the cheapest was like $45, and the most expensive (the first dinner, the first night, before we knew what we were getting into) $80! haha. And it wasn't even the way nice expensive restaurant in the hotel. Tasty? You bet. Expensive? You know it. Did we worry about it ... not really, that's Switzerland! We loved it! (And yes, we brought home a lot of chocolate, some fizzy apple soda drink, and a cowbell!)
Coming soon ... (and hopefully before the baby) Part 4: Paris!
