Our First Visitor in Switzerland (book 1 of series)

My sister Julia came to town!

She's gone now and I bawled as she drove away. It was great to have family in town, especially because I haven't lived with her for over 6 years now. Wow. I feel old now. Tally was in London on business for the first few days she was here, so we went and had fun without him. It was fun getting to explore Switzerland with "Peach," going places we haven't been before. First we went to Lucern. It's only 45 minutes by train from where we live. Of course we had to see the infamous bridge and Julia couldn't resist harassing the swans. We also went to the Lowendenkmal (Lion Monument), which was really cool. It's by Thorwaldsen, hewn from the face of the living rock. It commemorates the 850 Swiss guards who were killed defending King Louis in Paris during the French Revolution in 1792.

When we bought the train tickets to Lucern, we asked how much it would be to go twice the distance to Interlocken. It was only 6 franks more ($4.50) so of course, we did it! It was a bit of a train ride and pretty hot so instead of sleeping, we hung out the windows with our cameras trying to capture the beauty of the Alps. Pictures just don't do it justice.

Interlocken is a central hub for all the trains up to the Alps and over to cool little valleys. Since it was a cloudy day, we were advised not to go to the "Top of Europe" because the view would be covered by the clouds. So instead we went up the hill across from Jungafrau called Harder Kulm. Luckily there's a cable car that takes you to the top b/c there are over 4,000 stairs next to the cable car and it's a steep incline. At the top, we had a cloudy view of Jungafrau and the alps. There was also a playground that little Julia loved and a cute restaurant where I got chocolate pear pie. Interesting, but good. We also had a great view of the twin lakes, Brienzer & Thun. They're a beautiful turquoise color with the Alps as their backdrop. I can't wait to go back.




On Friday, Goldman Sachs, held a community service event where we took kids from Chernobyl, Russia (where they had the nuclear spill in 1986) to an amusement park in Zurich called Connyland. Even though there was a language barrier (the translators spoke Russian & German, not English of course), there is a universal language for love & fun. The kids & Julia went on lots of rides, but the bumper cars seemed to be their favorite. Then we saw an acrobat show and a dolphin show. We were quite impressed with this small amusement park.
At the Southern end of Lake Zurich, there's a bridge that connects the East side to the West. On the East side of the lake, there's an old town called Rapperswil. There's a castle, cute little restaurants overlooking the lake, and there's always something going on. We saw three brides getting pictures taken there - how romantic! Tal came back so he got to go with us. We walked around, took pictures, and ate at a cute little Italian place that was delicious!

This is Rhinefalls. We didn't even know this place existed and was so close to our house until reading my friend Alyssa's blog. Thanks Lys. It's the largest Falls in Europe with an average flow of 25,000 cubic feet per second. Yeah, I don't really know how much that is either but it's alot. Trust me. They're only 75 ft. tall, but 450 ft. wide. We took a boat to the rock in the middle and it was a little frightening to see how powerful the water was. There's also an old medievel castle at the top.

To get to the falls we went to a town just an hour North of Zurich, close to the German border, called Schafhausen. We randomly found Castle Munot up a staircase and when we got to the top, there were men playing the Alphorn! We asked them if we could try and got some good laughs from our small audience. It downpoured while we were inside the castle, so we started doing interpretive dance. Actually, we just wanted to take these cool pics.

I think Julia also got a taste of what it was like being an American moving to Europe. We made crepes one morning and since our crepe maker has an American plug (and we only have a tranformer in our office), we had to make crepes on our office desk! She thought it was quite comical. She also had to blend her shakes in the office as we have the same problem with our blender. We loved having her here and can't wait until she comes back. We'll have a babysitter (wink, wink). To view more photos from this trip, visit: http://picasaweb.google.com/jessicalangprice/JuliaInTown?authkey=iqZBVSIcLts