Tag Archives: Lauterbrunnen

A Week Worth Wanting

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With only one week left on our trip (if there isn’t a strike at the Athens airport), here is my Week Worth Wanting list of seven things for Europe (France, Switzerland, and Greece).

  1. THE PASTRIES. In all three countries we’ve visited, the pastries have been to die for. From the chocolate chip twists in Semur-en-Auxois to the chocolate-coated baklava in Rethymno, and everything in between (including pain au chocolat, giant cinnamon rolls, apple pastries, Chocolate Kiss Brownies, chocolate porcupines, and a giant pretzel), we’ve enjoyed just about every mouthful of pastry that we’ve swallowed.
  2. THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING-NESS. Although the language barrier proved almost too much in Semur-en-Auxois, in Greece, Switzerland, and Paris we’ve found plenty of people who speak English, the closest language to our vernacular (which is American).
  3. THE HISTORY. Greek civilization goes way, way back—especially when compared to that of the United States. France is also home to many historical sites, and played a role in many key European happenings, including the French Revolution and World War Two. Notre Dame (the Parisian one), the Eiffel Tower, and Arc de Triomphe are, in my opinion, the most notable French monuments. The Parthenon and Acropolis, as well as Knossos Palace on Crete, are the famous Greek sites that have been patronized by this family.
  4. THE SCENERY. In Switzerland, we woke up to the sight of Staubbachfall pouring down a cliff every morning and seeing glacier-covered mountains just down the Lauterbrunnen Valley. In Greece, when eating supper in a restaurant, we see beautiful sunsets. And France’s mustard fields are not to be overlooked.
  5. THE CATS. Seriously. In Morocco, the cats were, well, quite mangy- and rabid-looking, but in Europe they all seem quite sane (if not tame). They are very social and don’t mind being petted in the least. Actually, they mind if you don’t pet them.
  6. THE FOOD. France’s food may not have lived up to expectations, but our first night can never be forgotten: we had pizza for the first time in over a month. In Switzerland, the Bombay Chicken Pizza at Hotel Oberland was the best pizza I’ve ever had, barring frozen pizza (seriously) at home. Greece’s food has continued to amaze and fatten us.
  7. THE WIFI. Every place we’ve stayed in Europe has had wi-fi. This, of course, was planned, but you don’t know if it’s actually going to work until you get there. It’s worked in every place so far and will hopefully work on Crete until June 18, the day we fly to Athens.

 

Au revoir, auf wiedersehen, αντίο, and

Ciao!

Chicken Chow

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Now we can add another country to our ever-growing list: Germany.

We’ve been there before, but we were not expecting our GPS to take us through the country on our way to Paris from Lauterbrunnen. So now we can say we’ve been to—counting the U.S. and Portugal—seventeen countries on this trip (Thailand, Laos, India, Australia, Botswana, Namibia, South Africa, the UAE, Argentina, Chile, Peru, USA, Portugal, Morocco, France, Switzerland, and Germany). Tomorrow we’ll add yet another, as we wake up super early to fly to Athens, Greece.

After a relatively uneventful but rather stressful drive from Lauterbrunnen to Paris, Dad checked into the Hilton. Then he and Ethan went to Hertz to return our rental car.

In the meantime, I took two backpacks and three bags up the parents’ room on the sixth floor (Ethan and I are just across the hall). The key card was in my coat pocket. It was hot after struggling with the bags in the elevator, so I tossed my coat on the floor and walked out the door.

I made it to the elevator before I realized my mistake.

Downstairs, Mom asked for a new key while I sat anxiously on a black sofa. We took the suitcases and hats up to the room and waited for Dad and Ethan to return. When they finally did, we got in a van to the airport and had supper there. Mom and I shared a chicken salad and chicken penne. Dad ate the chicken penne, and Ethan had a chicken sandwich.

What wimps!

Ciao!

Aborting @ Bort

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“Too bad the toboggans are closed,” Mom said mournfully. We were at Pfingstegg, and the toboggan run at the top of the gondola was closed. After riding a ferry around Lake Brienz, we had caught the train up to Grindelwald. We had gotten off at Brienz and, while the boat was stopped for twenty minutes, Dad bought raspberries, sour gummies (ew), and a chocolate bar from the Coop.

In Grindelwald, after taking the gondola up to Pfingstegg, we walked to the gondola up to First (through Bort) and rode to Bort. Ethan and I played on the playground, flipping on the ropes, while Mom played Sudoku on her phone next to Dad on a bench.

We hurried back down and bought postcards at a kiosk near the train station. I was on my way to Die Post when Dad waved me over. Up we went to Kleine Scheidegg. We had the whole three-car train to ourselves. At Kleine Scheidegg, we changed trains and went back down to Lauterbrunnen. On the way home, we stopped at Hotel Oberland for dinner. Ethan and I shared the Bombay Chicken Pizza (as delicious as before—if not better, since I got all the sour cream [Ethan doesn’t like sour cream]) and a green salad. Mom and Dad got a pizza, a salad, and a dish of rosti, traditional Swiss hash browns.

Ciao!

Schoolwork vs. Skiing

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Well, I didn’t take my huge math test today. Instead, we went up to Eigergletscher (Eiger Glacier), which is the highest our train tickets take us without any extra charge. It was cold and snowing and, after viewing the white, we stayed inside for twenty minutes waiting for the next train back down the mountain.

We returned to Lauterbrunnen and Dad and I went to the tourist office. There, I was excited to get my hands on a ski map which shows the runs that were open in the 2012-2013 ski season. Looking around in Eigergletscher or Kleine Scheidegg, an Oregonian finds it hard to believe that it’s already May here and the ski season is over.

Oh, well—at least we crossed skiing off our list in Dubai.

Ciao!

Mini-Golf and Mini Market

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We were on our way up to Grindelwald on the train after stopping for a short time in Interlaken. Ethan and I were excited at the prospect of playing mini-golf for the first time since Cape Town. Of course, it’s six times as expensive here, but it was still ‘enjoyable.’

After 18 holes with complex contraptions, Mom won with 80 points. Ethan had 108 and I had 107. Oh, that made me proud: it’s rare when I don’t place last in mini-golf.

On the bright side, the notepad on which the scorecard sat was pink, and so was my ball. Ethan had white, and Mom had yellow. The funniest moment was when Ethan, after giving up on a hole and getting the maximum score, decided he’d try it “just to see if you can really do it.”

The ball went straight up the ramp and flying into the net.

“Ugh!”

 

Mom insisted on shopping (ew) afterwards, and she and Ethan darted in and out of little tourist shops. In the end, we missed the train up to Kleine Scheidegg by two minutes and had to wait another half hour.

In Kleine Scheidegg, we switched trains to Lauterbrunnen. The car was stuffed with Indian tourists—a slight change after our ride up to Kleine Scheidegg, when we once again had half of the train to ourselves.

We walked home after not shopping in the Coop (the local mini supermarket). We had stood outside the automatic doors, but they hadn’t opened, so we had thought, Must be closed. Although it is odd that the Swiss wouldn’t do something on time (it was 6:17 and the shop closes at 6:30).

As we walked away, a man walked through the automatic doors.

Oh, well. We’re eating a chocolate bar as consolation (and dessert). It has three flavors in the squares: green (disgusting and nasty), orange (yummy), and pink (eat this one!).

Ciao!

Who’s On First?

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“Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen… fluorine, neon, lithium—wait, no!” Ethan exclaimed. He was trying to recite the first 50 elements (from hydrogen to tin) on the Periodic Table of the Elements in a short period of time. My record is 19.49 seconds.

 

We were on our way to Grindelwald from Kleine Scheidegg. After riding the train, we got on the gondola to First. Passing through the Bort stop (we didn’t abort), Ethan exclaimed, “Restez assis!”

“What?”

“Look at the sign!”—which read ‘Keep your seat.’ (You didn’t have to get out of the gondola at that stop.)

At First, we got off and walked on the snow-lined road to a frozen lake. On the way back, Ethan and I snacked on a lemon-ginger chocolate bar before we were stopped in our tracks by a mini-avalanche. This mini-avalanche was on a mountain across the valley but was still quite loud and obvious.

 

On our way back down, we stopped at Bort and Ethan and I played on the playground. In Grindelwald, we stopped at the supermarket for groceries such as chocolate bars and chicken.

Ciao!

Fire & Ice

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We tried going to the base of Staubbachfall first, but the gate at the bottom of the trail was closed due to it not being summer. So we walked for another hour-and-a-half before getting to Trummelbachfall. After paying the 30-franc (US$30) fee, we were in.

Up the ascensor we went, and we were reminded of Valparaíso. At the top we went up the stairs to chutes 6-10. Trummelbachfall is a series of falls in the mountain. The water on the rocks drips and drops and it’s cold and wet as you stand near the wall to get a better view of the falls.

After viewing chutes 1-5, we wandered back to a picnic table by the creek, where we ate an almond chocolate bar and Dad read us a BBC article on grammar– especially apostrophes.

 

In Kleine Scheidegg, after riding the train, it was sunny (totally unlike yesterday, when it had been snowing). Ethan instantly ran to the snow and started chucking snowballs at us.

“I don’t know how he does it, but he misses every time,” I noted.

“Ready… aim… FIRE!” Ethan hollered, missing again.

“Seems more like ice to me.”

 

We caught the 17:31 train back down to Lauterbrunnen, and Ethan hung his jeans over a chair to dry. They were wet after I threw Ethan into the snow.

Ciao!

Swiss Snow

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Today was the first time I’ve seen snow fall from the sky in thirteen months. That’s a long time, by the way—the last time was (I believe) 2012 spring break, when we lost our power for two days, our tree house fell down, and Willamette Pass Ski Resort was closed due to too much snow.

 

Today was better since we still have electricity. We don’t have a tree house, but all the ski resorts were closed due to a lack of snow.

After buying our tickets, we boarded the train up the mountain and rode to where the line ended. It started snowing on the way, and the little boy in the car ahead of us was practically screaming: “Look, Dad! It’s snow! Look, Dad! Look!”

We could get on another train to Jongfraujoch—the Top of Europe (not really)—or we could go to Grindelwald. We chose Grindelwald because there was a mannlichenbahn we wanted to ride in Grund, which was a stop on the line. After walking through the interminable parking lot, we read the sign that said ‘Closed 8 April 31 Mai.’

Back to the train station we went. At Grindelwald, we changed trains and headed down toward Interlaken. At another station, we changed trains to Lauterbrunnen. There we went across the street and bought a lemon-lime Lindt bar (which was gross) and four ‘chocolate kisses’ at the bakery. We ate the chocolate kisses—brownies in a cup—while waiting for the gondola to come down the mountain across from the train station. It finally did, and we rode up.

At the top we got into the train car and rode to Murren, where we stayed for about half an hour. It was snowing and cold, the bakery was closed, and Ethan was in a snowball frenzy. Going back down the hill and Ethan had a snowball in his hood and several in his pockets. I dodged in front of Dad, using him as a shield. Ethan threw one at Dad, and then cried, “I missed!”

I turned around and wham! Ethan’s last snowball hit my hot pink umbrella. I burst out laughing, but now one of the rods on my umbrella is bent. Hopefully it can be fixed…

 

On the way down Ethan and I played 20 Questions. He almost stumped me with bumblebee hummingbird, and I got him with pygmy shark, ibex, wolverine, and trumpeter swan. I relinquished my hold on the role of ‘chooser’ when he correctly guessed red-and-green macaw.

Ciao!

Spar Swiss Cheese

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Holding your breath for 1.8 kilometers would be more impressive if you were walking (or running), but doing it for 1.5 minutes seems pretty impressive to me. Which is good, since I did that. We drove through four or five tunnels after crossing the France-Switzerland border on our way to Lauterbrunnen. Lauterbrunnen means ‘loud fountain’ in German. Although Switzerland has four official languages (Italian, German, French, and Romansh), two languages are primarily spoken in the touristy Lauterbrunnen: English and German.

We arrived in the town at about four in the afternoon after buying groceries from Spar in the town of Interlaken. Along with salad dressing, green beans, lettuce, bread, milk, yogurt, and eggs, I was sure to add Swiss cheese to the basket. Once the organizing was done, we went out on a walk. It wasn’t sunny today, so we couldn’t see anything that beautiful. However, we could still see about six of the seventy-two waterfalls in the valley. The main one is Staubbachfall, which is right behind the town. It is 297 meters (974 feet) in height and was first measured in 1776. Then, it was recorded as being the height of ‘900 Bern shoes’—Bern being the capital of Switzerland.

For supper, we ate dinner while seated on chairs swathed in soft sheep skins at Hotel Oberland (‘top country’ in German). Mom and I shared a green salad with French dressing and the Bombay pizza. The Bombay pizza came with sour cream, a raisin-y chutney, pine nuts, and chicken on top of mozzarella, tomato sauce, and a wonderfully thin crust. It was surprisingly delicious.

Ciao!