Switzerland

Went to Switzerland.

It was beautiful.

Jordan and I started our trip with a quick flight at an unearthly time, from Berlin Schoenefeld to the Europort airport in Basel. The airport was actually in France, so tick another country off on the "Countries Visited in 2010" list. We'll actually go back to France some other time, although it's not high on the priority because I've already been to Paris, Marseilles, Colmar, and a few other cities.



We guided ourselves around Basel for a couple of hours, and found it to be really pretty. It looked like classic German architecture, except it differed from anything I had seen in Germany because it didn't look like it had been through two world wars, and was really well-maintained. They also had really pretty colored shingling on the roofs with patterns made out of different-colored shingles.

Then, we met up with Jubi in Baden, who introduced us to rivella. He said it tasted like vinegar. However, I'd put this drink in my box of evidence that everything can taste decent with enough sugar and carbonation when drunken cold. It's evidently made from whey. Like "curds and whey". I guess it's kindof pee-colored, which is now fairly grotesque to me.. which is probably why they sell it in a dark-colored bottle.

After a quick look through Baden, Jubi took us to the Temple in Zollikofen. It was beautiful. Afterwards, we bought pizzas and ate them in the dorms near the temple. We also met up briefly with a girl who is studying in Berlin. It's a small world.



We headed home to Jubi's home on the other side of Switzerland. We drove through some very pretty mountains and tunnels, and finally arrived in Malix, and drove into his house. He had to open the garage door before he drove up the final part of his driveway, because if he stopped in front of the door, he couldn't get enough momentum to get into the garage. It was pretty steep.

The next morning, we got up and headed to Lenzerheide to go skiing. Jubi was very skeptical. It was overcast and snowing. He is more of a blue-skies-and-sunshine skier. I am a whatever-I-can-get skier.

Unfortunately, at the top of a run, we discovered that the snow was coming down pretty hard, which made it almost impossible to tell where the runs were.. it wasn't very fun for the first few hours. However, around noon, the storm blew over, the sun came out, and Jubi had his blue skies and sunshine. The storms had kept all but the most dedicated skiers off the slopes, and we had the whole resort practically to ourselves. It was great skiing. Although I definitely felt it in my legs.



After we were done, we headed to the Lenzerheide resort, and spent some time in the outdoor pool. I think it would have been able to stand a few degrees warmer, but the kids who were having snowball fights in the pool probably contributed to the lukewarm temperatures. Still, it was great to sit on these little metal chair things with bubbles coming up under them, breathing the mountain air, and watching the sun go down behind the alps. Of course, I had to dunk my head under every little while to thaw my hair which kept freezing. Literally.

That evening, we came home to a nice Raclette dinner hosted by Jubi's mom, who was about 5 feet tall. She would have probably been even smaller, but her size was maintained by having an overly large and generous heart. Raclette is a traditional Swiss dinner, made by roasting Raclette cheese on a special grill, then eating it on potatoes with onions, pickles, olives, and the like. She was also concerned about our health, and informed us that she had made a tea which was to be drunken with the Raclette, because if you drink water with the cheese, you will get klumpen or "clumps" in your stomach. For dessert, she brought out stracciatella ice cream with warm raspberry sauce. We took our dessert bowls upstairs, where we watched a desert movie called "Sahara" from 2005. After a day of skiing, it was nice to sit and relax while watching a movie that had a very nice anti-let-bacteria-take-over-the-world plot.

We then jumped into bed and would have fallen right to sleep, except that Jubi had decided to sleep in the same room as us. I think he did it because he wanted to pillow talk. Jordan went right to sleep, so I was left to try to keep myself away and stumble through confused conversation.

The next morning, we went to church in Chur, and performed a musical number in the Fast and Testimony meeting. I think all 30 people in attendance were pleased. After church, we made a brief detour through Lichtenstein, so we can also officially check Lichtenstein off the "Countries Visited in 2010" list, too.

On the way to Lichtenstein, we also drove through "Heididorf", which was where the book Heidi took place. Tourists could sleep in the Heidihotel, wake up to a Heidibreakfast, take a Heidihike and Heiditour, then go to the Heidimuseum. They could buy souvenirs at the Heidishop, so they could always remember their Heidimemories. According to Jubi, it was a really big tourist spot for Asians.

On Sunday night, we slept at the apartment of one of my old mission companions, Elder Bader. He just graduated from police school, and is now working as a highway patrolman and living with his girlfriend. It was a little weird to see him in his Gs at 4 the next morning as he saw us off to the airport for our trip home.

We realized that we hadn't gotten anything for the Weimanns, so we tried to do some shopping in the Duty Free Shopping Center in the airport, where we discovered that everything in the store was also sold in Germany at half of the price. Except then Jordan found these cat-food-looking bars that were dipped in chocolate and said "Basel" on the packaging.. Eleven franks. I was all about getting Toblerone at Edeka at home for a euro, and giving it to them, without disclosing the fact that we had gotten it at the grocery store across the street. Whatever.

All in all, Switzerland was very beautiful. Compared to Berlin, there is a lot of natural beauty. I have a couple of friends coming to visit me in Berlin, and I think I am going to focus a lot less on the architecture and natural beauty in Berlin, and try to expose them more to the culture that is here in Berlin. Because really, the Alps were so beautiful, as were the houses, nestled around lakes in the valleys, and they blow the natural beauty of Berlin out of the water. However, I'm not sure that the little towns can compete with the culture of Berlin.

So, now I'm back home. And I want to go back. If I don't make it before I go back to America, I'll definitely come back to Switzerland some other time.