This is what happens when your 2 year old tries to warm up his own hot dog in the microwave...
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Monday, August 8, 2011
souvenirs
We didn't bring back very many souvenirs from our trip, but we did bring home 4 wooden swords. The boys were pretty excited. Even Weston seemed to know what to do with it - poke things and people. We may regret bringing these home...
Friday, August 5, 2011
Europe - day 10
We were hoping to "go out with a bang" - but instead it was more like a fizzle, a balloon deflating... we spent most of the day staring out the window of the Glacier Express at rain and clouds. We had to make advance reservations for the trip, so unless we wanted to blow off the money we spent, we had to go. We still saw some pretty landscape, but it wasn't nearly the spectacular scenery that it should have been. The best part was probably our lunch - yummy soup and bread. We had the goulash soup a couple different times, and it was really good. Our Glacier Express began in Zermatt and ended in Chur (about a 6 hour trip).
We headed back through Zurich - we wandered around the city, pushed our way through the crowds. Too many people for us. We bought some really expensive chocolate from the famous Sprungli shop. The 4 pieces below were about $7 - they were good, but I wouldn't buy them again for that price. The whole city was VERY expensive.
When we got back to Bern, we headed over to the bear park (Baren Park), which someone told us we had to see. We didn't know about it previously, so we hoped we could see it before we left. It started pouring just after we got there, but I snapped a few pictures. The bear is essentially Bern's mascot, and bears have been kept in the city since 1513. The legend is that a bear was the first animal to be caught by the city's founder during a hunting expedition, so that's how the city got its name (in 1191). "Baren" is the German plural of "bears". In 1513, a living bear was carried home with spoils of war in a triumphal procession of winning the Battle of Novara. They kept the bear in a pit in the city. From that time, bears have been in the city for all but about 7 years (when the French kidnapped them and moved them to Paris in 1798). At times there have been 12 or more bears in the Bern Bear Pit, but they are no longer kept in the legendary bear pit. In 2009, they opened up a park for the bears. Pretty cool tradition and fun to see bears in the middle of the city!
We headed back through Zurich - we wandered around the city, pushed our way through the crowds. Too many people for us. We bought some really expensive chocolate from the famous Sprungli shop. The 4 pieces below were about $7 - they were good, but I wouldn't buy them again for that price. The whole city was VERY expensive.
When we got back to Bern, we headed over to the bear park (Baren Park), which someone told us we had to see. We didn't know about it previously, so we hoped we could see it before we left. It started pouring just after we got there, but I snapped a few pictures. The bear is essentially Bern's mascot, and bears have been kept in the city since 1513. The legend is that a bear was the first animal to be caught by the city's founder during a hunting expedition, so that's how the city got its name (in 1191). "Baren" is the German plural of "bears". In 1513, a living bear was carried home with spoils of war in a triumphal procession of winning the Battle of Novara. They kept the bear in a pit in the city. From that time, bears have been in the city for all but about 7 years (when the French kidnapped them and moved them to Paris in 1798). At times there have been 12 or more bears in the Bern Bear Pit, but they are no longer kept in the legendary bear pit. In 2009, they opened up a park for the bears. Pretty cool tradition and fun to see bears in the middle of the city!
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Europe - day 9
On Friday, Alex was busy with his conference, so I had the day to do something. I got up early and headed down to Zermatt. I took the train to Gornegrat Station (a 45 minute ride up). It was a beautiful morning and I enjoyed the views of the Matterhorn. From there, I headed back to the Interlaken area, hoping the weather would hold up. It didn't. The clouds moved in and it wasn't worth it to take a cable car ride to any of the peaks. I got a closer look at Staubbach Falls in Lauterbrunnen and then headed back to Bern.
In the evening, we were able to go to the Bern, Switzerland Temple. We really enjoyed it - of course it was in German, so we had to wear headphones to translate into English. What was amazing was half of the other people also had to use headphones - there were at least 5 different languages - German, English, French, Spanish, and Italian. And I think these were "locals" - there's quite a few different languages just in Switzerland and the area the temple serves. It was amazing to think that the Lord was hearing each of these languages, and the covenants and promises are the same no matter the language. The Lord hears us and loves us all.
In the evening, we were able to go to the Bern, Switzerland Temple. We really enjoyed it - of course it was in German, so we had to wear headphones to translate into English. What was amazing was half of the other people also had to use headphones - there were at least 5 different languages - German, English, French, Spanish, and Italian. And I think these were "locals" - there's quite a few different languages just in Switzerland and the area the temple serves. It was amazing to think that the Lord was hearing each of these languages, and the covenants and promises are the same no matter the language. The Lord hears us and loves us all.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Europe - day 8
This day was supposed to be one of our most scenic. We planned to see the Interlaken area and take a cogwheel train to the top of Jungfraujoch (the "Top of Europe") - but it was rainy... the webcam at the top showed nothing but white. We decided not to pay $200 to see clouds. What we did see instead was Trummelbach Falls, which were pretty amazing - glacier waterfalls inside a mountain. We took a lift inside the mountain and then walked through the tunnels and out onto the platforms to see the falls twisting and rushing through the rocks. Pretty cool.
We weren't sure what else to do - we did get some peeks at the peaks.
By lunchtime it was drizzly and yucky and you couldn't see anything, so I took pictures of wildflowers and birds and of Staubbach Falls. And we ate. Since we weren't spending $$ on the cable car rides, we figured we could spend $45 for lunch and dessert. We tried Rosti, which is like hashbrowns with cheese. This dish had a fried egg on top as well. It was pretty good, and it felt good to have food in my tummy, since we'd mostly been scrimping on meals.
It was still cloudy in the afternoon, so we decided to take a boat ride. Turned out to be a really relaxing thing to do (and it was free, since we had a Swiss Pass). It was a 3 hour ride (if I'm remembering correctly) on Lake Brienz. We thought about getting off on the other side of the lake and taking the train back, but we're glad we stayed on. Despite just going back the way we came, this time we saw a cool rainbow - one nice little benefit of the rain. And what was cool was you could see both ends of it.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Europe - day 7
On Tuesday evening, the place we stayed at was actually in Austria, in a little town called Jungholz. The GPS couldn't find the address we put in, but at least we got to the town and then a kind German lady who was out walking in the rain was able to point us in the right direction. We were lucky to find it because we forgot to print out directions. It was one of our more enjoyable places to stay - it was cheaper than any of our other accommodations and it included breakfast. That was huge, since most of the places charged about $15 each for breakfast, which meant we didn't eat breakfast usually or had store bought muffins. It was also run by a family, and the friendly gentleman had 4 kids, so we had something in common.
Our plans to do the luge (on wheels) for Wednesday was spoiled by rain, so we decided to drive to the tiny country of Liechenstein. Who can say they've been to Liechenstein? The country is in between Austria and Switzerland with Germany to the north but not bordering Germany. We visited the capital, Vaduz, and got our passports stamped in the Liechenstein Center. We were only there for about an hour.
We then headed towards Zurich Airport to return our rental car, but stopped at Rhine Falls on the way. Rhine Falls is near Schauffhausen and not far from Zurich. Pretty neat falls - nothing spectacular, but we enjoyed seeing them.
From Zurich, we began our train travel. The transportation system is really amazing in Switzerland. It was easy to get around by trains, trams, or bus, and the Swiss Rail Pass allowed us to use any of those. By Wednesday evening, we were in Bern, the location of Alex's second conference. We walked around the city for a little bit in the evening. At first I wasn't too impressed, but it does seem to have a certain charm to it and the lights at night were pretty. We had a 7 minute train ride from the city center to the front door of our hotel, which was connected to a mall. We were in for a shock when we went to get something to eat. We wandered around the restaurants in the mall and everything was so expensive. We finally settled on an italian place, and I ordered the cheapest pasta dish on the menu. It was about 12 swiss francs, which was about $15 US dollars. For that amount, I was expecting to get a lot of food. Nope. It was a small bowl of pasta with a couple of tomatoes on it. Alex got a pizza for about the same price, which was pretty much like cardboard with a little bit of cheese on it. We never ordered a drink anywhere - the sodas were about $5.75. We ended up eating cheeseburgers from McDonald's a few times, because they were only about $3.25 (for the $1 menu burgers). Luckily the grocery stores weren't as bad and we bought some things for breakfast. I think we still ended up missing a meal every day we were in Switzerland, either for lack of time or trying to save money.
Monday, August 1, 2011
Europe - day 6
While in Germany, we had to have the German autobahn experience. In general, on the autobahn (freeway) they don't have speed limits, although they do post recommended speeds. I think what happens is you don't get speeding tickets, but if you're in an accident and were going over the posted speed, insurance will not cover you. The recommended speed in many places is about 80 mph - it's pretty crazy. They drive SO FAST. You don't want to get in the way either. They don't go around - they push through. Actually I think it's illegal to pass on the right most of the time anyway. Luckily they drive on the same side of the road as us (it was tricky in Scotland for Alex to drive a standard on the left side of the road - I don't know how he managed the gear shift with his left hand.) Anyway, we had about a 5 hour drive from Cochem down to southern Germany, so Alex had a chance to cruise along the autobahn. He got up to about 120 mph in a few places. Most of the time we were going the recommended speed, although in a few open areas, Alex tested out how fast he could go. We made sure there wasn't much traffic around while flying down the road at 120mph. It wouldn't go much faster and we were on a downhill slope when he got to 195km. Really crazy and dangerous! We were driving in this Golf VW car (without hubcaps) that had 6 gears. You'll see he almost got to 200km.
Our itinerary for the day was to tour a couple of castles in southern Germany, near Fussen in Bavaria. We mostly wanted to see the Neuschwanstein Castle, built by King Ludwig II (also known as Mad King Ludwig). We also saw Hohenschwangau, which was Ludwig's boyhood home. Both were impressive, but Neuschwanstein was just incredible. It was the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle and other Walt Disney castles. We couldn't take pictures inside the castles, but the intricate details of the painting and architecture were just amazing. The N castle was built in honor of and inspired by the composer Richard Wagner, so many of the paintings were characters from Wagner's operas. The story of the castle and Mad King Ludwig is an interesting one. (I had to go back and look up some of the details.)
Ludwig II became king of Bavaria at the age of 18. He later began construction of the N castle, but it was never fully completed inside (I think he actually only lived there for about 6 months). Ludwig had gone heavily into debt with the construction of castle, and instead of halting work on it, he pressed on trying to force loans from all of Europe's royalty. When threatening to dismiss his entire cabinet, they decided to act first and try to de-throne Ludwig by means of declaring him unfit to rule. They succeeded and he was declared mentally insane (without a medical exam) and he was to be replaced on the throne. Shortly after that declaration, Ludwig was found dead (at the age of 40). He and the physician who had proclaimed him insane were found floating in a lake near Munich, a mysterious death (likely murder/suicide, but there were controversial reports).
Anyway, whether he was actually insane or not is unknown, but his eccentric personality contributed to this incredible design of the N castle. It's interesting - he meant the castle to be a private refuge, but only about 7 weeks after his death, it was opened to the public. And now millions of people have been through there - I think more than one million visitors every year!
Overlooking the N castle is a bridge, called Marienbrucke, which Ludwig II's father built as a present for his wife Marie (hence Mary's Bridge). Ludwig later replaced the wooden bridge with steel. We loved the view of the N castle from the bridge. (I have a picture of the H castle in this collage too - the small yellow blob, but you couldn't actually see it from the bridge.)
Our itinerary for the day was to tour a couple of castles in southern Germany, near Fussen in Bavaria. We mostly wanted to see the Neuschwanstein Castle, built by King Ludwig II (also known as Mad King Ludwig). We also saw Hohenschwangau, which was Ludwig's boyhood home. Both were impressive, but Neuschwanstein was just incredible. It was the inspiration for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle and other Walt Disney castles. We couldn't take pictures inside the castles, but the intricate details of the painting and architecture were just amazing. The N castle was built in honor of and inspired by the composer Richard Wagner, so many of the paintings were characters from Wagner's operas. The story of the castle and Mad King Ludwig is an interesting one. (I had to go back and look up some of the details.)
Ludwig II became king of Bavaria at the age of 18. He later began construction of the N castle, but it was never fully completed inside (I think he actually only lived there for about 6 months). Ludwig had gone heavily into debt with the construction of castle, and instead of halting work on it, he pressed on trying to force loans from all of Europe's royalty. When threatening to dismiss his entire cabinet, they decided to act first and try to de-throne Ludwig by means of declaring him unfit to rule. They succeeded and he was declared mentally insane (without a medical exam) and he was to be replaced on the throne. Shortly after that declaration, Ludwig was found dead (at the age of 40). He and the physician who had proclaimed him insane were found floating in a lake near Munich, a mysterious death (likely murder/suicide, but there were controversial reports).
Anyway, whether he was actually insane or not is unknown, but his eccentric personality contributed to this incredible design of the N castle. It's interesting - he meant the castle to be a private refuge, but only about 7 weeks after his death, it was opened to the public. And now millions of people have been through there - I think more than one million visitors every year!
Overlooking the N castle is a bridge, called Marienbrucke, which Ludwig II's father built as a present for his wife Marie (hence Mary's Bridge). Ludwig later replaced the wooden bridge with steel. We loved the view of the N castle from the bridge. (I have a picture of the H castle in this collage too - the small yellow blob, but you couldn't actually see it from the bridge.)
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