Switzerland Visit Days 5: Lucerne, Tower + Brewery + Starbucks + Long Pants

Lucerne! - the sunshine state, gorgeous! (10 pts if you can guess what movie that is from)

Days 5-7 we took an excursion to Lucerne, 2 nights at a hotel in the city. It was fun to get away for kicks and pretend like we're world travelers. We took the train which went a million miles per hour, and whenever the train staff wasn't walking by, I would put my feet up. They don't like that, but I'm not always one to follow the rules.

There is a wall bordering part of the city, with lots of towers. We went up 5,000,000 stairs to get to the top of one, and the billion stairs was so worth it. The view was amazing. There was this llama hanging out in a field, with a light panel getting energy from the sun to power the surrounding electric fence. That is how wireless energy is going to work I have decided.

One interesting super-not-substantial thing the four of us noticed is that no one ever wears shorts. Long pants 24/7. I wore shorts and I definitely stood out. I wonder if that's just not their style, which is totally fine. I did see runners wearing shorts tho, so I gave them a high five when they passed by as a "way to go against the grain!" (I didn't, but wanted to).

On night 1 we went to a brewery, and Lucerne is in a German-speaking part of Switzerland, ipso facto the beer was really good. I had 1 light beer and 1 dark beer, thank you very much. Not at the same time b/c that would be just crazy. It was good beer and it complimented the mac & cheese that I had as an entree. Win-win.

There is this absolutely beautiful river that runs through the city, and a part of it was under construction with a make-shift dam (dam!). So this water was getting backed up, then it just released in the corner at the end of said dam. It was just beautiful and I took lots of pictures. I'm not sure why I was taken aback by the dam so much, but just the water gushing thru was really cool, and you can go right up to it. I wanted to jump in and have an adventure but then I thought if I drowned then I couldn't enjoy more of Lucerne, b/c there were more things to see than just the towers + brewery + people wearing long pants + dam.

There were a couple of bridges that crossed the river, and one of them was super historic and wooden, and a good chunk of it caught fire in '93. A boat went underneath and got caught and there was fire. Sucks to be that guy. Lots of original paintings in the bridge were wiped out.

That night we walked around some and I hit up Starbucks. There was an upper level which overlooked the river, with Iron & Wine playing in the background and it was ah so nice.

Switzerland Visit Day 4: Nyon + France

A-ma-zing day. We went to Nyon, the town right next to Gland where my parents live, and took a boat across Lake Geneva to see France for a couple hours. That is the day summed up. The end.

Just kidding I'll talk about Nyon first. I talked about the city some in my last post. On day 4 we walked around a good bit, and it's very hilly but has fun houses that are high and right next to each other. Semi-related note: people in Switzerland are not afraid to eat right next to strangers. Por ejemplo: in Lucerne I saw a couple of friends sitting at the same medium-sized table as a group of four friends. It's fun because they don't know each other, but whatever why not sit next to each other. I want to sit next to someone in a coffee shop when the rest of the place is empty. Just a heads up if you find yourself in an empty coffee shop.

Back to Nyon. We walked around some then got on the boat across Lake Geneva to see France. I re-enacted the scene from Titanic where Leonardo stands in front of the ship and Celine Dion is singing her song. See above. The boat ride was fun.

France was similar to Switzerland, but had a slightly different feel to it that I can't really explain. We stopped at a restaurant that had CREPES (ya know, the little pancakes). I had an egg + ham + cheese crepe, then shared a Nutella crepe with my Mom. I could eat one Nutella crepe a day they're so good.

We got back on the boat back to Nyon, and then hopped on the mini-train tour. I felt like I was on those trains you see in amusement parks that kids are on (where you secretly want to be on them too, or at least I did). It was awesome. Trying to think of interesting tidbits I learned from the tour... zero, I don't remember any sorry. I should have just typed "it was cool" :-P Wait we did pass a school that had been there forever. Yep.

I think we played Euchre that night. My Mom and I teamed up against Tamara and Shelly. Love that game.

And........... that sums it up. Next up: visit to Lucerne, days 5-7.

Switzerland Visit Day 3: Hike + Cows, Church

Day 3: slept in and eased into the day. We went to some mountain (forgot the name) and hiked on it. On the way we saw some cows that had cow bells on them. As we were hiking, we could hear the bells off in the distance. Then we came across some a few feet from the path, and I could have watched them all day. Love cows. Perhaps I was meant to grow up on a farm! Picture above is one that I took.

We booked it towards the end of the hike so that my Mom and I could check out West Lake Church in Nyon, Switzerland. It's an English-speaking church, so all the sudden I feel like I'm back in the US. It was nice, comfortable. The guest pastor spoke about his mission work in India, where he has been for 30 some years. Incredible - he set up businesses to employee girls otherwise selling themselves in the sex trade. He would enter an Indian village, live there, and create businesses there where these women would work. He spoke with so much passion it was convicting. Here this guy is talking about his gritty, in-the-trenches work in India. So cool.

After the service ended we walked to the train in Nyon. It's a cool city. And the trains are ALWAYS on time. You can bet your life on it (I wouldn't tho because it's not worth betting your life on a train. doesn't make sense). I appreciate that about Switzerland: their public transportation system rocks and they're super on top of it.

We capped off the evening watching Boston Redsox vs. Yankees. Brother lives in Boston which makes us all insta-Redsox fans.

Day 3: success.

Switzerland Visit Day 2: Champery, Chillon Castle

I kicked off Day 2 going for a run (in Switzerland no big deal) in Gland where my parents live. I ran on some of the roads and through the shops and apartments. It's awesome to see mixed residential areas. Lots of buildings have shops on the 0th floor and have apartments on top of them. Switzerland has 0-based floors by the way.

All around Switzerland there are water fountains, which I imagine provide 100% pure water from the top of a mountain. But seriously it's cool because you can fill up your water bottle and it tastes good and it's nice and cold.

I then hit up a cafe and had a hot chocolate, and read some. I learned how to say "hot chocolate please" in French and then she spoke some more French and I was like crap I don't know what you're saying. And she switched to English and said that I can sit and she'll bring it out to me. My French is a bit rusty (I don't know any).

My family later went to visit Champery, a town that exists on a hill in the mountains. I went there several years ago on a band trip and loved it. You enter the start of the hill and there's a playground on your left, and you look up the hill and it's a beautiful little town. There's a clock on the left as you go up less than a mile, and off in the distance during the night time you can see a lit-up cross. It's breath-taking. It's easy to take good pictures there because the town is very picturesque. I bought a miniature cowbell there. Awesome.

We also ran into some other Americans there in Champery. It was nice to see some people who spoke English. We had an instant bond both being from the US. They were super nice and had fancy cameras and have websites where they put their photos online. I'll maybe comment on this post later w/ the website urls.

After Champery we hit up the Chillon Castle right on Lake Geneva. Pretty awesome. A part of me wanted someone to attack the castle while we were touring inside of it, just to make it the full experience. It did not happen. I did learn that the color blue was considered super rare back in the 14th century because you got blue powder from rubbing a rare stone together. As a result, only royalty had blue. So if you had blue back in the 14th century you were kind of a big deal. I would have probably tried to get some on eBay.

On our walk to the car after the castle visit, we walked along Lake Geneva. The lake is super clear, and when it's warm enough you can swim in the lake and look at the mountains and watch the sailboats. Win-win-win.

Later that evening we got back in time to watch VT beat Miami on espn360.com. It was funny watching Virginia Tech play football from Switzerland. Technology is connecting the WORLD together in a beautiful harmony, I think. It's deep I know :)

We also Skyped with my brother which was fun. He lives in Boston.

Switzerland Visit Day 1

Day 1 of visit to Switzerland. First a quick background. My parents moved there circa 9 months ago, with my Dad getting a new job for World Wildlife Fund. Not sure how long they'll be there. 3 to 5 years, maybe less than 3.

This is my first visit to see them. The traveling was just fine. Flew from Richmond to DC, then DC direct to Geneva. I met my sister in DC and we caught the same flight over, which was nice. She gave me a Tylenol PM on the flight and that knocked me out. A good note to self.

We mostly took it easy on day 1, since we arrived at 8am in the morning, which was weird. It felt like the longest day of my life. I took a nice nap which was oh-so needed. We also walked around Gland some, where my parents live. It's next to Nyon, which is next to Geneva. ish. I convinced them to visit my Dad at work, which rocked. Met his boss who is super cool, and his work place is a 3 minute walk to where they live. Win-win. We also walked to Lake Geneva. Really nice lake, and HUGE!

Part of the chillin' back at the homefront involved playing some Nerts. Love that game.

We had some home-cooked dinner and it was amazing. My Mom doesn't mess around when she cooks. That was nice. I mean pasta or eggs over easy for dinner is good too back when I cook for myself, but, I prefer my Mom's cooking. :)

They have a fun place. They're renting an apartment, and it's right atop of some shops. They walk to the grocery store. They're also just across a lawn from an elementary school. You can hear the kids laugh and play during recess throughout the day, and if Joy had a sound it would be that.

Those are the big things for day 1. Pictures to come. So far it's been a blast. :)

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Alien talking with humans

Don Miller is one of my favorite authors.  Lately I've been re-reading Searching for God Knows What because it's a good book.  There is a part where Don imagines what a conversation would look like between an alien and humans, if an alien were to land on earth, having a completely different way of life back in its own alien world.

I'm going to paste a screenshot from Google Books.

Ready?

Ok here it is.