Wilkommen!

HALLO! We have just arrived in der Schweiz (Switzerland) and have finally had a square meal, and some good sleep. Our travels from Spain to Switzerland that were very long, it was an 11 hour train ride, which was not in a sleeping car, and we finally arrived in Bern, Switzerland at 8:30 AM, leaving Spain at 7:38 PM the night before. ** I'd like to make a quick note that the last night in the hostel, hot as ever, I woke up around 6 or 7 from a dream that I was on the phone with my mom so I said "I love you too"...OUT LOUD. I'm not sure exactly how it sounded to anyone that was awake, probably gibberish, but nevertheless, embarrassing. With Stephen and I both having awkward sleeptalking experiences in hostels, my theory is that you never get into a deep sleep because of the 10 other people coming and going out of the room, so you sleep lighter and have more dreams that are real (and involve sleep talking apparently). The train ride itself was uneventful, except that it proved to us we were unprepared, mostly because all of the "cheap" foods were the same bocadillos we've had the entire time, and the real food was SUPER expensive. What made it worse was that we were hungry since we walked around Barcelona before the train ride. Let me tell you, I've never been more aggravated in my entire life...literally. First I attempt to order the salad, they handed me a tiny fruit salad, no thank you. Then, I ordered toast (because I did not care to have any more jamon at the time) and they denied me that. Sooo...I was forced to share a dry omelette sandwich, yea, it tasted about as good as it sounds. James and Kristy-there were many-a long gags as seen at Salty Nut...But, on the up side, the view from the train was beautiful and the crowd was quite entertaining (awkward people trying to make conversation, hilar).

The day of our trip was a great day for us visiting Barcelona. We were able to walk around the older and prettier part of Barcelona, and even get to do a bit of shopping, which Erin was excited about. The old area has some pretty sights, like an Arc de Triumph (picture) which is, I guess, an imitation of the one in Paris. The only thing that was aggravating about our situation was that the train station we were using to get to Switzerland did not have luggage lockers, so we had to walk almost 30 minutes to the Bus station just to lock-up our luggage, major hassle (in picture Erin is carrying hers, the area you are looking at is deceptively long). The most exciting part, which I will let Erin describe, was the La Ramblas, which is very popular, and something Erin was dying to see the whole time. When we went there we also ate at a restaurant near the open air market, and we ordered the cheese and JAMON plate, and also tried to order crab legs, but got some fried seafood dish that wasn't calamari, maybe octopus?! Another picture (left) is of me in the open-air market, located at La Ramblas, enjoying a fresh mango drink. Las Ramblas was muy fantastico! Very very beautiful with tons of outside restaurants, large majestic buildings, and, of course, several shopping opportunities. After making our way through the market, we scrambled through some shops in my last attempt to buy something from Spain...with no luck (and me quite upset that I couldn't find anything), we headed back to the horribly achitecturally designed bus station (the bathrooms were on the third floor), and made the trip back to the train station--only to realize that we had read the tickets wrong and that we had 2 extra hours until the train left....so after pouting for about 20 minutes, we decided to look/shop around the train station, bags in hand. This consisted of me running into shops while poor Steve stood outside with our bags...but after only a few, I made it to a dress shop where a very nice man helped me pick out the perfect Spain dress at last! Deal!

After enjoying our stroll around the city, we got the bus station, a little before our train left we enjoyed a bag of Doritos and a Coke-most refreshing thing I've ever had!, and we finally made it on our way to Switzerland. The train, as I mentioned above, was not bad, but I forgot to talk about the wake up call at 2 in the morning by the French police telling us to show our passports, which is quite difficult to do when they're asking in French, and you have been asleep for like 2 hours. But at 8:30 we arrived in Bern, and immediatley went to getting a cup of coffee, getting our next train to Rome booked, and then getting a train to Oensingen booked (this is the village next to my Aunt's that has the train station, hers is too small to actually have one). In the Bern train station, we had a short problem where we almost lost the tickets no surprise after sleeping a few hours on a train, and scrambled around, but Erin found them and we were off!

Upon arriving in Oensingen, we called my Aunt and were wisked away to Kestenholz, Switzerland. Our first stop, by the way, was a chocolate shop with Swiss chocolate truffles and cakes galore...his aunt bought about 6 pieces of cake for us to try, including a black forest cake, a dark chocolate cake, and the Solothurn (mentioned below) cake with hazelnuts and cream. I have seen the area before (which doesn't matter because it is very pretty no matter how many times you've seen it), but it appeared to me that Erin was astonished. Their village is right below the Jura mountains, and so from my Aunts house, you can see these mountains, and the castle that sits right on them. After getting to the house and having a meal (which was great because it was HUGE, tuna steaks, chicken, sausages, and potatoes) we went to the first (of many hopefully) Swiss cities, Solothurn. This is an older city, and it was beautiful. but very small and quaint...it reminded me a little bit of a college campus (but much much prettier, kind of like Cambridge) because of the bikes, cobblestone, and adorb shops. We got to climb the tower of the main church, and look our over the city and some of Switzerland, a breathtaking view (picture).

Also, as we were walking around Solothurn, we came to a shop that sold olive oil and vinegars that were infused with different flavors (they also had sherrys and brandys of the same). We tried a vinegar that was mango flavored, and Auntie Gail bought a orange olive oil and strawberry vinegar that we used to make salad that night Best salad dressing I've ever had. Erin thought this was a great shop so of course there is a picture I could have spent hours here, especially because you could taste them...they had vinegars mixed with avacado, peppers, banana, coffee, almond, etc.--delish!. They also had recipes that you could take, so we took one it was a salad with cooked asparagus, strawberries, nuts, cheese, and of course the delicious dressing, went to the store to buy the stuff, and had that for dinner. We also bought some Swiss beer, and my cousin and I played ping pong for a couple of hours. The first day finally finished with Erin, Andreas, and myself taking a walk around the big farm in the village with his dog Desty (pic) who sits by Stephen at every meal because she knows he'll give in if she lays her head in his lap or looks at him long enough, and then showing the pictures of our trip over a glass of wine.

The second day began a little dreary, but we still had a good day planned. We decided to climb the Jura mountain that is behind my aunts house. It is called the Roggen, and it isn't very high, but still high enough to have an amazing few of the surrounding villages. The castle that sits behind her house is also on this mountain (picture at top), and we were able to visit this as well. The path up to the top of the moutain had fields full of cows, (picture is of Erin trying to feed one I've tried to make friends with several but most don't notice me) snails that were ENORMOUS, and a fantastic cabin that you could rent out for parties and things. The top was fantastic, although the clouds prevented us from being able to see the Alps, and we could see nearly all the surrounding villages.

After seeing the mountain, we came back home to cook dinner, and play some games. We had a good Swiss meal for dinner, which was veal with mushrooms and onions in a cream sauce (Zurigschnatzlets), with noodles, and some salad. It was delicious! After that, we played a Dutch game (picture at bottom), which I won by the way I came in last so I don't know why there's a picture of me doing it, and had a great time. picture of Erin below playing the game. Let me quickly recount the treats that we've received from Stephen's aunt (picture of her, Stephen and Stephen's cousin Andreas): first stop at the bakery of course, fresh Swiss cheese at every meal, including breakfast!, granola and chocolate snack bars to bring on the train, sample size everything that we needed, some truffles to take with us, sandwiches packed for the train with cheese and a dried meat tha's similar to a combination of salami and beef jerky, tea before bedtime, a eucalyptus bowl for the slight cold I have, freshly squeezed orange juice, etc. I'm sure the list is much longer, but I can't think. But anyway, it has been fantastic being in an actual home with all these goodies. Today, we are going to another Mountain, then packing for Rome, and leaving at 11:00 tonight. Chow!