Switzerland with mommy

In two days I will have been in Madrid for almost a month, so now is obviously the perfect time to recount the vacay that I took with my mom between working in Germany and starting school in Madrid. Ten days, just me mom and the Alps... sounds dangerous, right? Well, we survived and hit most of the categories of Swiss sterotypes: mountains/cows, chocolate, trains and I even bought a knife (also wine, which they are trying to push as the 'next Swiss thing'). Okay, almost all of them... I guess we forgot cheese and cuckoo clocks.

Mountains

They are tall, windy and beautiful. We went up Mt. Pilatus where we explored some dragon caves. There was also this cute white church halfway down that mom wouldn't hike to, despite her trip goal of wanting to go to "a cute little church." The doors/doorhandles were particularly nice in this area.

From there we moved onto the Berner Oberland, which was even prettier. We did a bunch of hiking and got some great views of the Eiger, Jungfrau and Monch, saw some crazy paragliders (I want to try! well, I guess that isn't something you 'try,' but you know what I mean) and cheered on the poor souls running in the Jungfrau Marathon. We stayed in Grindelwald and Wengen, both of which were much nicer than Interlaken (where I had camped the last time I was in der Schweitz). There was compulsory frolicking. Another of mom's goals was to see some cows on a mountain side. This lil guy joined our picnic on one of our hikes!

Chocolate

I think that any of you who have met my mother can probably guess the sort of role chocolate played in our trip. We went into so many chocolate shops and even went to chocolate school! The lesson was on filled chocolates and then we toured the factory (and bought a bunch of chocolate). My pralines were dark chocolate with a chocolate and port ganache (mom was supposed to share them around NC, let me know if she didn't) and mom's were dark chocolate with dark chocolate ganache. The playground at the factory had huge chocolate bars to climb (or in my case lean) on.

Trains

We had SwissPasses so we rode them (a lot). The SwissPasses were really nice and allowed for flexibility. For example, on the way up to the Pilatus Base Station, we saw an advert for a Glass Blowing Museum with FREE ENTRY. So we just hopped of at that station did the tour, bought some glass accouterments (i got a hippo), then got on the next train heading our way! Also they have trains just for Chocolate tourists (we did not ride those).

Knives

I got the most adorable victorinox ever! Mom gave me some crap about buying a Swiss Army knife, given the selection we have at home from my Granddad, but I like to think of it as carrying on the tradition (plus we had leftover CHF). Guess which color I picked out!

Wine

After mountain-time we headed to the wine region in the French speaking part of the country around Lake Geneva. The lake and the vineyards are so pretty! Honestly, the wine was a little boring, but a nice grape farmer's wife gave us a bunch to try.

I think that's all for Switzerland (for now)! I'll start working on some Spain stuff, but between classes, a new ultimate community and cervesas with the classmates I've really been going pretty non-stop since I've arrived. I really like it here!!!

PS: ENE geeks don't worry. I documented the MSW and water distribution systems while I was there.