7/12/11 Lucerne, Switzerland, Germany and the Black Forest

We left our hotel early and headed to Lucerne, Switzerland.  In Lucerne we did some shopping.  I found a Switzerland pin and decided to collect one from each country we visit.  I also bought a key chain and a sucker in the shape of a giraffe for Makenna.  There were lots of decorative buildings in Lucerne.

Sometimes I would not be able to remember our meeting place, so I would take a picture of it :)

After meeting up we went to lunch.  I didn't journal too well here and can't remember if this food was from lunch or dinner, but it was good.  These were homemade noodles with Parmesan cheese and fried onions.  We also had a great chocolate pudding this day.  One of the things I loved in Europe was the Orange Fanta.  It tasted like fizzy orange juice and not like the stuff in the US that is made with sweet syrup.  Fanta in Europe is so much better!

 

We left said goodbye to Switzerland and gutentag to Germany via a long bus ride.  Our first stop was a cuckoo clock shop in the Black Forest.  We had a tour and learned how they are made.  They are all hand carved.  My favorite cuckoo clock had a working water wheel.  In a window was a girl and on the hour a boy climbed up a ladder to her window and a farmer came out with a pitch fork.  It was over 400 Euro!  My friend, Savannah, and I talked about buying clocks but decided they were too expensive. The least expensive one that I liked was 32 Euro and battery operated.  Shipping almost doubled the prices.

This is what the first cuckoo clocks looked like. 

I looked for a souvenir here and found a cuckoo clock pin for my collection!

Next we toured a glass works shop where handmade glass art is made and sold.  It was beautiful!

Dinner and then we checked into the hotel.  Our hotel was across the street from the cuckoo clock shop in the Black Forest. 

We had four people to a room and two of us to a bed.  That wasn't bad because there was a "valley" in between us!

Tomorrow night we meet our host family!  See you then.

Some photos on this blog are courtesty of my friend, Savannah.  Thank you Savannah!

7/11/11 Ardez and Scuol, Switzerland

Today we went to Scuol to explore the city.  We were given a scavenger hunt to complete as we walked around the city taking pictures of landmarks.  The city was GORGEOUS!  For the scavenger hunt, we were in small groups without the leaders.  My group had 6 kids in it.  We were given a sheet of pictures and we had to find those places in the city.  Each picture had a question/riddle that we could answer once we found it.  We had three hours to do the scavenger hunt. Here are some pictures I took during the hunt.

 My friend, Savannah

 The beautiful Inn River

During the scavenger hunt we stopped at grocery store.  I bought this Swiss chocolate bar.  It was super good! It tasted like a Nestle Crunch bar, but without the rice.  I brought the wrapper home.  Here's a picture.

After the scavenger hunt we had lunch.  This soup was really good.  I'm not sure what kind of crackers were in it, but they weren't crunchy.  At home I never eat soup, but I loved this one!

There was also spaghetti with meat sauce, which I also don't ever eat at home.  It was OK.

Dessert was a raspberry ice cream which was good too.

After lunch we went to the Swiss countryside where we worked on a People to People service project.  We cut down and sniped tree branches to add to a maze.  The maze is for fun for families who can't afford a lot of entertainment.  People to People groups have been working on this maze for about 5 years.  It was very cool, but it was scorching hot outside!

We headed back to Scuol to do some shopping, but I didn't find anything I couldn't live without.  Dinner was assorted meats and fries.  It was good. 

Germany tomorrow - night night!

7/10//11 Scuol, Switzerland

Today was amazing!  I woke up to the sound of my iPod and we had a breakfast of bread, cheese, cereal, and orange juice.  The main activity today - white water rafting for 10 miles on the Inn River.  We put our swimsuits on under our clothes and drove to the white water rafting place.  Once there, we put on wet suits and heard safety instructions. The most important instruction they told us was to grab onto the "oh s*it" line if we fall out! I was thinking, "man, this is a deadly sport"

Some photos courtesy of Gayle Bluhm and Lynne VanDuren (I really hope they don't mind!)

The rafting was soooo much fun.  There was one scary part when another group got stuck and jumped out onto a rock.  Their boat capsized after that.  The guides were able to rescue them and their boat and get them back on the river.  I wanted to go rafting again and again. 

We dried off and headed to the mountains to ride a gondola.  The gondolas carried up to the top of the mountain where we had a lunch of dumplings with cheese sauce.  Lunch was OK.

After lunch we got to go for a walk on the mountain.  It was GORGEOUS!  There were a lot of butterflies everywhere.  The butterflies were all different colors - red, orange, blue, and purple.

 This place is one of the most beautiful places I have seen in my entire life! 

We rode a chair lift down the mountain and walked to the oldest mill in Switzerland.  It is over 400 years old.  We watched the lady (who is a 5th generation owner of the mill) work the mill to make wheat and barley.  They harvest grains and crush them with a stone.  It was cool!

We left the mill and went back to our hotel for dinner.  I saw some more neat windows on the way back.

We had french fries and eggs for dinner.  The french fries were great and the eggs were OK too.  Dessert was FLAN!  Yum!  Something I thought was interesting, the pepper in the shakers was white!

and there were cigarette vending machines everywhere

After dinner a local band came and played for us.  They were funny to watch.  There were only three instruments, a bass, a clarinet, and an accordion.  We played musical chairs and had dancing competitions.  That was fun.

Well, I'm done for the day.  See ya tomorrow!  Good night.