I'M ENGAGED!

I just wanted to share the good news with everyone! This morning around 11am Mike asked me to marry him and I said yes!! He set up a surprise picnic in the nature center at Albion, where we were both visiting for homecoming. Afterwards we went to the football game where he had arranged to have the commentator congratulate us, only there were some mixed signals and the commentator announced our names and then asked that everyone's attention be at the score board, where they flashed "will you marry me?" So I guess he just wanted to be extra sure that I was saying yes.

The End

Last Swiss post! And just in time too, because I leave for South America on Wednesday! The day before I flew home I went to the French-speaking part of Switzerland on Lake Geneva. Lausanne was the name of the town and everything I read raved about its charm. I arrived and immediately took a train to Chateau-de-Chillon to visit the castle there. This sounds simple. It was not. I accidentally took an express train to the end of the line, which I didn't realize until we zipped past the castle I was supposed to be visiting. Fortunately the train finally stopped not to far from the castle, and I decided to walk back. It took 45 minutes, but I walked on a path along Lake Geneva and it was a beautiful day.

The castle itself was gorgeous and so romantically situated on the lake with the Alps in the background! This was the castle which Lord Byron visited and subsequently wrote the Prisoner of Chillon:

"...And mine has been the fate of those

To whom the goodly earth and air

Are bann'd, and barr'd -- forbidden fare.."

When I had my fill of the castle, I checked the train schedule and realized the next train back to Lausanne didn't leave for another hour. I decided to walk to the next town, Montreaux, which was bigger and try my luck there. It took me another hour to walk to Montreaux, but again, it was along the lake, so enjoyable. Once I got to Montreaux, however, I had no map, and I was starving. Finally I found a place to stop for lunch, sat down in the cafe and asked for an omelette. The server wagged her finger at me and explained that the kitchen was closed by this time (it was around 3) and I could only choose from the pastry counter. Disheartened, I chose a piece of quiche and an apricot tartine. The apricot thing was amazing and quickly dispelled my frustration.

I asked in French how to find the train station, got a string of French and a series of hand gestures in return, and acting a lot more confident than I felt, set off in search of it. After some wandering I found it and boarded the train to Lausanne. In Lausanne, I couldn't orient myself for the life of me! I was holding Rick's map, peering at my surroundings, taking a few paces in a certain direction, changing my mind, trying another street, and NOTHING made sense. I couldn't find the metro station he kept talking about from which he listed directions to all his points of interest. There was an art museum I wanted to see, so I tried to find it on my own. An hour later, frustrated, I gave up because it would be closing momentarily anyway. I tried to do his walking tour, but couldn't find the starting point. Finally I stumbled on a mid-point and did the tour backwards. The other landmark (besides the art museum) that I really wanted to see was the Evangelical church--it was supposed to have great artwork and an impressive organ. By the time I found it, it had closed. I was so frustrated that I didn't even take any pictures.

Luck was not on my side in Lausanne. Back at the bottom of the hill, I sat on a bench near the metro station (that I finally found), debating whether to eat dinner there or get on the train back to Bern to eat with Etel. Just then an African guy came up to me speaking in French. I explained that I didn't speak French and he switched to English. He was holding a parking stub and explained that he couldn't find his car--he'd driven in that day, parked, and gone off for a job interview, and now he couldn't find the lot he'd parked in. I laughed, told him to join the club--I'd been lost all day, and he sat down on the bench to talk with me. Instinctively I held my bag closer, but he seemed harmless.

We ended up having dinner together, swapping life stories and email addresses--he was born and grew up in Rwanda, moved to France with his family when he was 12, got a degree in mechanical engineering, works in Geneva, but looking for a supplementary job in Lausanne. I felt like I accomplished my goal of finally meeting a young person while traveling alone. Hooray!

Switzerland was a great time--I enjoyed visiting with Etel, loved experiencing the Swiss culture, and learned that I can travel alone, but I prefer to travel with someone. I'd like to go back in the winter to see everything covered in snow.

As an update, Etel had a healthy baby boy last week! Gabriel Lorenzo. They are both home from the hospital and doing well. I also just got a postcard in the mail from Etel's mother-in-law Maria. It is written entirely in German, so I need a translator, but it was such a nice gesture!

Until next time...

Luzern aka: Lucerne

With Rick Steves to guide me I ventured out to Luzern (or Lucerne in English) next. Adrian watched the weather the night before so warned me to bring my umbrella. I started out in Luzern with the Rick's self-guided walking tour. As I got my bearings outside of the train station, book in hand, holding it out in odd directions trying to match my surroundings with his map, it began to rain. Never fear, I pulled out the old umbrella--living in Chicago, I've become quite dextrous maneuvering with an umbrella in one hand and something else in the other. In this case Rick and his maps.

Most of the time I don't enjoy rain when I have to be outside getting wet, but occasionally the heavy gray weather is an unexpected relief. I resign myself to getting damp (or dripping) and start to feel my muscles relax under the weight of the laden sky.

I sat in the Jesuit church for a while, listening to the organist practice and then strolled over to Luzern's most famous landmark--the chapel bridge. The bridge stretches diagonally across the wide river and is original from the early 1300s! All along the inside of the bridge are panels depicting various scenes from the city's history in the 1500s. In 1993, however, a portion of the bridge caught on fire. They rebuilt it, but did not replace the paintings in that section as a reminder for what happened.

It was crowded on the bridge because it was covered and more than one tourist was taking refuge from the pouring rain underneath. The paintings were interesting. Each one depicted a normal village scene, but a skeleton was present somewhere in each one. Sometimes it was dancing with a person, sometimes standing behind them, sometimes sitting watching from afar. It was a reminder that death is always present for every person--young, old, weak, strong, rich, poor--no one is exempt.

I stopped at a cafe for lunch and to dry off a bit. Though I was getting more used to being by myself, it still felt slightly uncomfortable to get a table for 1, especially in Europe where everyone shares the tables anyway. There was a group of people sitting right next to me, but the seat across from me was free. Having people so close to you when you're alone somehow makes the aloneness active--exclusion--rather than passive--just minding your own business, being alone. Everyone told me I would meet all kinds of other young people traveling alone in Europe because people do it all the time, but that was just not the case. Everywhere I looked my fellow travelers were retirees. Perhaps the economy, perhaps the time of year, who knows.

I ate and flipped through my book to see where I'd go next. Just as I was finishing a young, handsome guy walked in to the cafe, clutching none other than the Rick Steves Switzerland book! He found a table and sat down and I started gathering up my courage and figuring out what I would say--I have the same book! Ha ha! Let's see the rest of the city together! And I thought how proud Mom would be if my great love story were: we met because of Rick Steves! And just as these thoughts were beginning to settle in my head in an organized fashion, a female travel companion walked over and sat down across the table from him. DARN! Should have known he wouldn't be traveling alone. Probably on their honeymoon. How sweet.

I spent the rest of the afternoon wandering alone through the Old Town in the rain, admiring the many murals on the building facades. I actually had to stop and buy a scarf because it was in the 50s. The only store I could afford was H&M--I know, not authentic. The $ to the Swiss Franc is about 1:1, but the Swiss make up for that by having everything twice as expensive as it would be in the states. My last goal was to find the famous lion statue. It really was a compelling sight--a great stone lion carved into a stone cliff with a reflecting pool underneath. The lion lay dying with a broken spear in its side, tears streaming down its face. It represents the valor of Swiss soldiers killed in combat, and was really quite moving.

While waiting for Adrian, Etel, and Adrian's 8 yr old son, Janosh, to come meet me for dinner, I sat down at a cafe to have apple strudel. It was delish. Adrian, Etel, and Janosh then took me to a restaurant that does a folklore show. We dined on fondue, rosti, and veal while a band played Swiss folk music. They played the water glasses, the cow bells, the saw, the accordian, the Alphorn, and got the whole crowd singing Edelweiss and yodeling their hearts out. When they brought out the Alphorn, they pulled people up on stage to try their hands at blowing it. I was one of the lucky guests to get to try, and I got the horn to sound, but it was anything but melodic!

Matterhorn, Zermatt, Raclette, Oh My!

My first day trip alone in Switzerland took me to the little town of Zermatt on the Swiss-Italian border. My only goof along the trip was hopping onto the first class car by mistake when I changed trains, and getting escorted back to second by the conductor. Apparently she didn't trust that I would make it on my own. The train ride itself was gorgeous as we went up into the mountains.

Upon arrival I headed straight for the ticket window for the Gornergrat Glacier. Adrian recommended I take the train up to Gornergrat, from which there is a great view of the Matterhorn, and then hike down to Zermatt. The weather was supposed to be great, and he said it would be a couple hour hike. It had snowed in the alps the week before I arrived, so all of the mountain tops were clothed in white. The sky was deep blue, and some clouds were just beginning to creep around the tip of the Matterhorn. The glacier was vast and breath-taking. I stood at the top of viewing point for a little while, smiling at the tourists having their pictures snapped with St. Bernards with wooden canasters strapped around their necks. I bought a cheese sandwich for a little snack on the way down since it was about 11 AM, but I figured that I could eat lunch once I arrived in Zermatt.

I started down. It was my first time hiking alone. Once I stopped to turn around and look at the glacier behind me, and I was struck by the silence. It was so quiet! As if the air and the ground and the mountains and the glacier were sucking the sound right out of the world. I could hear my own breathing and feel the rhythm of my heartbeat, and I thought about the natural rhythm of the universe and of how out-of-touch I am when I am home going through MY daily rhythm. In that moment I felt very connected to the soul of the world. Profound, yes. But did you see the mountain I was hiking toward?? If there was ever a cause for inspiration, that was it!

I hiked happily down the path. And hiked and hiked. And hiked. 4 HOURS LATER I arrived in Zermatt. I was very tired and hungry, so I stopped at the cafe Rick Steves recommended and had a huge plate of rosti (the hashbrowns). Zermatt itself was a bit disappointing. I had high expectations because we'd actually been here for Christmas when I was just 2 years old, and it had been immortalized as a darling little town. Over the last 20 years it has grown to become a tourist haven without its own character and soul--I did walk around and see the English church, where 20 years before Jennifer and I practiced skiing down the alley.

The next day after a lazy day in Bern, Maria, Fritz, and Adrian's sister Miriam came over to the apartment for dinner. After our cocktails and appetizers we moved into the dining room to start cooking raclette! Normally there's an apparatus where you put a hunk of cheese under a kind of burner. When the top of the cheese is browned the way you want it, you tilt the wheel and scrape the melted cheese onto your plate. As you eat the cheese on your plate, the next bit is heating up for you again. However, we had a different version-- a hot plate with little compartments underneath where we each stuck a slice of cheese in a tray and slid it under. On the top of the hot plate we cooked up chicken, beef, and sausage at the same time. When the cheese was bubbly, we took it out and scraped it over boiled potatoes. Then the whole process starts over. It was delicious and so much fun! All of the Liechti's were trying to instruct me in raclette etiquette at the same time all in a mixture of German, English, and Spanish, so we had to pause and appoint one person as my guide. Miriam showed me the way, and my plate was soon empty!

New Photos!

I'm doing this out of order, I know, but I just put up some photos on my Rome post. Scroll down...

Switzerland begins!

Switzerland was a much more relaxing pace than Italy had been. I alternated days of adventure-filled trips to different cities and days of lazing around Bern with my friend, Etel. Etel is my Argentine friend who was the first person I worked with at my last job and the person who introduced me to tango. Last summer she married her Swiss fiance, Adrian, in Las Vegas and they moved to a village just outside of Bern, Switzerland shortly after. She began intensive study of the German language, started working at a bilingual daycare, and then became pregnant with complications and had to stop all of her activities. I think having a visitor was a real treat for her, especially since her activities were so restricted, and just to have an old friend to share all of her excitement about her pregnancy. We had a wonderful time!

When we spent lazy days in Bern, we woke up when we felt like it (and when the church bells from across the street wouldn't let us sleep anymore--they chimed every 15 minutes all day and all night), had breakfast of fresh bread, honey, jam, espresso, juice, etc for hours as we chatted away. We took the bus and train into Bern (about 15 minutes), strolled along the streets from the new town to the old town, passed under legendary clocktowers, peered into the greener than green Aare River which loops around the town, stopped and had lunch somewhere, strolled some more, stopped and had a piece of chocolate or a coffee somewhere, went home, rested, cooked dinner, ate with Adrian, watched TV, went to bed. Ahh the life of luxury.

Switzerland is such an interesting country. After spending time in Italy I welcomed all the little signs everywhere telling you exactly how long it would take to walk from that point to another. There were trekking paths and bike paths everywhere, and regardless of where you were in the country--even right smack in the middle of Bern, the capitol city, you could see green space in the distance. The Alps were never too far off, though you couldn't see them if the air was hazy. Seeing so much green and open space is really refreshing. Somehow it made me feel like my lungs expanded further, and I could breathe all the way down into my toenails. Switzerland charges residents for trash pick up, but not for recycling. There are recycling drop-offs everywhere, and you can imagine how much more conscientious the people are there. They have all kinds of gadgets and gizmos in public places to ensure hygiene.

It is illegal to let your vehicle idle at red lights or anywhere else. You have to turn it off to reduce air pollution. They only raise happy cows and chickens (the kind that have space to roam, live on small farms, etc) for meat, eggs, milk, etc rather than the mass production we employ in the US that often means a poorer quality for us since the animals are kept in poor conditions. Etc, etc. Interesting country.

Adrian's parents live about 3 blocks away from Etel and Adrian and are just as doting as Swiss parents-in-law could be. They don't speak a word of English, and German is a MUCH bigger stretch for me than Italian was, but that didn't stop them from making sure I had the best possible time in their country. My first trip out of Bern, Adrian's dad Fritz, drove Etel and me to the town of Emmental. Yes, that is the town where Emmentaler Swiss cheese comes from! The whole drive was nothing but green rolling hills, the occasional village perched in the distance, and happily grazing sheep and cows. We toured the cheese plant, which was just one room with a few things of cheese-making equipment inside. We toured the old house where they still make one kind of cheese in a huge kettle over an open fire. Then we sat down to brunch--coffee, croissants, a plate full of all kinds of cheeses to try, and rosti--the Swiss version of hash browns. We ate and ate and ate. All the cheeses were good except the goat cheese, but I didn't eat that one.

When we'd had our fill, and I mean our FILL--we could hardly breathe for how full our stomachs were, we got in the car to drive back. Fritz chose the scenic route as I snapped scenery pictures from the back seat. Fritz found this amusing. He decided to make a detour to the Kambly factory, home of a brand of well-known Swiss cookies and chocolates. When we got inside there was aisle after aisle of half-kilo bags of different shapes and sizes and flavors of cookie. Every single variety had a basket filled with samples sitting next to it. How could you not go row by row sampling them all? We had no choice, but we really thought we were going to be sick. They were all good, despite the fact that we had vowed only 30 minutes before to never eat again.

We drove a little further and came to a beautiful, tiny, old wooden church from the 1500s. Everything inside was carved out of a light-colored wood, and someone had taken care to decorate it with fresh sunflowers. The organ was beautiful, too, and Fritz said that people come from all over Switzerland to be married there.

Last stop of the afternoon was back in Bolligen at Fritz and Maria's garden plot. They had sunflowers, potatoes, cucumbers, squash, tomatoes, raspberries, carrots, herbs--all kinds of overflowing from their little garden plot. Each plot also had a little shed and a cement patch outside of the shed. Fritz and Maria had a table and chairs set up on their cement patch and inside the shed, in addition to gardening tools, was a portable cook stove and utensils. It felt like we had just joined Peter Rabbit in one of Beatrix Potter's books as we pulled out the utensils and set the table for afternoon tea. Grossly exaggerated facial expressions, gestures, and lots of laughter made communication with Fritz and Maria no problem. By this time some of our appetites had returned, so we took advantange and snacked on fresh raspberries and cherry tomatoes.

Beginner's Luck Revisited

1. I've added pictures to some of the Italy postings! Scroll down for the illustrated version. Still a work in progress for the Rome and Switzerland ones.

2. I was inspired by the fresh bread with jam and honey we had for breakfast in Europe, and I decided I would start making my own bread. Being unemployed has given me great aspirations. After searching for a recipe (ANY recipe that wasn't made for the bread machine!) I found an oat bread that sounded good. Wednesday I went to the grocery store. Thursday I went to buy loaf pans. This morning I started the bread. Except that I don't have a thermometer and I think the milk I added was too hot and killed my yeast. Yes, after the labor intensive process of mixing, kneading (I was sweating), shaping, rising, baking, I ended up with 2 solid brick loaves of bread that weigh about 7 pounds each. It has been 5 hours and I only have bricks to show for my work.