Gruyères

Morning
This morning we all slept pretty late. I guess we were all tired from a wild night of Swiss partying (haha just kidding). We ate an awesome breakfast and watched the movie Tangled. My dad and I went to the convenience store place at the gas station to buy milk and bacon. My dad asked for the eggs in German, and I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty cool. I also got this drink, but I couldn't read the label, so I figured it could be a surprise when I drank it. It tasted interesting, kinda like a bubbly apple juice mixed with ginger ale. Random Swiss soda ;)


The Drive
The drive was pretty fun, and of course, scenic. We listened to music and played 20 questions. I saw lots of mountains and cows. It was also cool to see the signs change from German to French as we drove closer to Gruyères. As we drove closer, we also tried to smell chocolate in the air, but I couldn't really smell it :P


Chocolate!
We parked infront of the Cailler factory, a branch of Nestle. Once inside, we went on this cool chocolate tour. We walked from room to room and learned the history of chocolate. After the tour, there was this big room full of chocolate samples! I was in heaven!!!!

A pic from the first room of the tour, which explained how the Mayans like chocolate.

Ellie and me sampling some chocolate... yummmmmmm 

I look weird

Me and Okan infront of the factory.

Château
After the tour, we went to this Chateau place, which was really pretty. It was like a castle and a little town, complete with cafes and a museum. It had ramparts and cobblestone and a great view. Also, every thing was in French, which was really cool. 

The outside of the castle

The little town inside

Ellie... aww so cute :)

J'ai parlé français! (I spoke French)
Well, there were these really cute post cards with cows on them, and I like cows, so my sisters and I picked some out. When we went into the shop to pay for them I spoke French! I was so excited! It probably won't seem impressive to anyone else, but the exchange went like this:


Me: "Trois?" (We had three postcards)
Girl: "Oui!"Me: "Merci!"


Yeah, pretty exciting right? Well, I felt proud.

A Day in the Mountain

The Drive Up
Today we went up Rigi, a mountain a short drive from the house. The road was really narrow and steep. I could feel my ears popping as we drove up. There are houses on the mountain too, mostly farms with, of course.... COWS. I really don't know how the cows stay on the mountain without falling off, but somehow they do. There was a little playground near where we parked. It had a see-saw and this cool swing thing that spun around when you put a Franc in.

The mountain... so pretty.

See-saw!

COWS!!! MOOOOO!!!

Another pretty pic... the towns at the bottom of the mountain.

Anna and Dad swinging at the playground

Cute pic :)

The Hike
Well, it wasn't really a hike. It was more like a walk. There was a paved road and there trail didn't elevate at all, but the view, weather and just everything was incredible. It looked like something out of movie. At one point I even broke out into song... "The hills are alive!" Also, there are wildflowers everywhere. Celine made a huge bouquet.

Schluchegg is the trail we took

Okan was explaining that this is a rare kind of wild flower. In the winter it can grow through the snow, and the Swiss make medicine out of them. He said he would give anyone who found a Franc. Anna found two more, and we used the Francs on the swing thing.

Ice Cream
After the walk we ate a snack at a restaurant. I had some fries and the Swiss version of Sprite. Also, at the restaurant I tried snitzel (Nicole, I was think of you and Dani the whole time :) ) The we went back to the playground and rode the swing thing. It was fun. And I fell off the see-saw. My dad and Anna sat on the other end, and it was too heavy. My side went up so fast and I flipped off! It hurt, but I was okay.

The Swiss Sprite

The Lake
After we got back to the house we walked down to the lake. It is really close and really awesome. The water is really clear and fresh too. Apparently, people drink straight from the lake. The water comes from the melting mountain snow, so it is really cold. I skipped a couple rocks, which was awesome for me because I had never done that before :). We fed a swan some bread and then headed back.

Feeding the swans.

The swing thing! Whoooo!

Tomorrow, I think we might be taking a train to Gruyère, which is in the French speaking part of Switzerland, so I am excited to practice mon français. Also I heard someone say "chocolate train" and a combination of chocolate and trains can't be bad :)

Pictures

Here are some pictures from the first day.

Our plane had THREE rows and a big TV

A street painting in Luzern

Lara with a swan

On the Seuss River

Some of the pretty buildings

The cool clock thing at the Rolex store. It is the largest rolling ball clock or something. It has a world record!

First Day

Well, technically, as I write this it is the second day, but I was so exhausted yesterday there was no way I could've stayed awake at the computer.

So yeah, the plane ride was looong. The longest plane ride I have even been on. We were served an appetizing (not) dinner, and three movies were played. The worst part was, as hard as I tried I could NOT fall asleep. So of course, all day yesterday I was fighting to keep my eyes open, literally. I even wanted to take a nap, something I haven't done since I was like, 6. But, my dad wouldn't let me, because then I would be even more messed up tomorrow. However, I found if I wore sunglasses, he couldn't tell if I was sneaking in a little nap. I slept a little while waiting for our lunch to come and while on the bus. I actually almost missed our stop once because I had fallen asleep for 2 minutes. The doors had closed with me and Ellie still inside while the rest of our group was shouting to us to press the stop button. Thankfully, the bus driver noticed and open the doors for us. But even though I was really jet lagged, I still had a good time yesterday.

Coral picked us up from the airport. Switzerland really is beautiful. Everything is really clean there. There is barely any litter and the air is clean. Citizens are required by law to
turn off their cars at red lights in order to keep the air clean. Also, there are cows EVERYWHERE, and the milk tastes really good. Believe it or not, I haven't had any chocolate
yet, but I'm sure that will change soon. And everyone speaks German. It's so weird. The only thing I remember from German class in 6th is "I have a fever" and "that's mine".

And the Isikci's house is gorgeous. Their living room has one glass wall that overlooks lake Lucerne. And the house next to their's looks like it came out of a fairytale book. They even joked that they live in a postcard.

After lunch, we went to Lara and Celine's school for their Easter egg hunt. It was very cute. Later, we went into the Old Town part of Luzern. The architechture is awesome. We ate lunch at the cool little restaurant on the river. Then we went to this place with all the little shops.The clothes there are really cute, and also really expensive. Also, I was so tired and not really in the mood to shop.

When we got back, we ate dinner and watched a "foreign film" which was a in English. Finally it was time to go to bed. I fell asleep instantly. Okan says people sleep better in Switzerland, which might be true because I felt great this morning. Today, we are going to go hiking.

I took some pictures, and I will add them later :)

The Day Before

I absolutely cannot believe we are leaving tomorrow! I am so excited. I have never been to Europe before. Tomorrow we will go to the airport at 3 o'clock and than take a NINE hour plane ride, one part of the trip I'm not as excited about. And then we will be there! YAY!

So I created this blog my beloved family/ friends could see what I was up to during my vacation, or in other words 'stalk me'. Haha just kidding. But if I sent you a link to this blog, and you are interested in following me during my trip, just put your email in the box above. Then, you will get updates of when I post by email. You could also sign up by using a Google account, but I think that the email thing is easier. So yeah.....

Also because I wanted to test if a picture could be added to my blog, please enjoy a completely unrelated picture of me holding a giant chocolate bar... yummmmm