Sweet Switzerland

It’s been a while since I’ve written a post, even though there were many other places I visited before coming back home, 11 months ago. I suppose part of the reason I took a break from writing was because I wanted to spend that time exploring and not feeling pressured to write a post right away. The other part of that was probably that I was feeling a bit more nostalgic for home as the trip continued and I needed to reset back in my familiar home place before I could continue to report out so enthusiastically about the new experiences I was encountering.  Now that I’ve had about a year to reflect on all of the places I have been, without further ado, I bring you SWITZERLAND!

Switzerland was a wonderful place, and everywhere you looked was an amazing view. The town that I was staying in was called Köniz and was about 15 minutes by bus or car from the capital, Bern. This was such an incredible little town with everything you could think of just right around the corner. The town itself was this sweet little neighborhood where all the houses were lined up in rows next to each other and the neighborhood kids would all play together after school, either running back and forth from each other’s houses, or playing outside along the sidewalks or jungle gyms. I loved this little town. Directly across from the house where I was staying there was a large forest filled with trails for people to walk or bike on, or occasionally ride their horses. But the best part about these wood trails was that there was one dedicated to parkour! All along this parkour trail was equipment and signs indicating how to use it for the work out. As soon as you were done with that station, you would run to the next; it was so great. However, these trails were very easy to get lost on, as they forked and twisted and all of the signs were in Swiss-German, which I couldn’t read. I spent about 2 hours one day happily wandering these trails in the March sun, trying my darndest to remember certain landmarks so that I could find my way back. Unfortunately, all of these landmarks kind of looked the same and I spent about an hour of that walk hopelessly lost and ended up on the very other side of this forest where I found a large field and road I didn’t recognize. Honesty, the only reason I was getting frustrated about being lost was because I was getting hungry, and we all know that the hangrys isn’t good for anyone. After that day, I stuck to the trails that I knew and didn’t wander quite so far away.

Bern was incredibly easy to get to, as the public transportation was the best that I had seen, out of all of the places I had visited. The busses were very clear and displayed all of the next stops on a screen at the front of the bus, the busses were clean, and the people were kind. In Bern, every weekend, there was this wonderful, large market that had everything from delicious food, beautiful crafts, toys and trinkets, and artwork. I think I went to this market every weekend and strolled up and down the street looking at all of the vendors and admiring what they had to offer.

My host family was absolutely wonderful and included me in everything they did. They were so kind to bring me along on their outings and to show me around the area and teach me about where we were. There was my host mom, dad, and their two kids, a 7 year old boy and a 10 year old girl. Both parents spoke English, but the kids spoke Swiss-German. They knew a few words of English and few words of French, and so I tried to communicate with them in either language, but they were a bit shy, so we got by (remarkably well) with hand gestures and a little bit of help from google translate 😉

Arriving in Switzerland

I took the train from Italy to Switzerland. I watched the scenery out the window until the sun set and I couldn’t see anything but my reflection on the glass pane. I transferred stops and sat next to an empty seat the rest of the way to Switzerland. I knew we were getting near and I peered out the window with my hands cupped around my face and pressed against the glass to block out the reflection of the interior train lights. I could see a silhouette of a large mountain next to us and I knew we had definitely crossed the border, because a mountain like that, even a silhouette, could only be seen in a place like Switzerland. I got so excited and wished I could see what I was arriving to in the daylight, but reminded myself that I would have 3 weeks to see the mountains here in all times of day.

My host mom had sent me a message directing me to the correct bus once I had arrived at the final train station. She was incredibly helpful and even sent along diagrams and screenshots to point me in the right direction. I exited the train and ran (a bit frantically) up the stairs to where the numerous busses sat idling waiting for their passengers to board. I found my bus kiosk and stared at the ticket machine realizing I couldn’t read a single word of what it said. However, the process to acquire a ticket is pretty straight forward, so I dug in my purse for the correct change and then again suddenly realized Switzerland does not use the Euro and I had none of the correct currency I needed. Seeing my struggle and look of subtle panic, a very, very kind older lady gave me the coins I needed and helped me buy my ticket. After expressing my gratitude as best I could without knowing any German, we boarded the bus and I felt relieved, for the time being. The bus trip was only about 10-15 minutes and with the help of the screen at the front of the bus listing the stops, I was confident with where I needed to get off – my stop was also the last stop of the bus, so I couldn’t miss it, even if I tried, haha! I arrived at the stop around 10:00 and waited by the kiosk for my host to pick me up in the car they had described to me. I waited. And waited. Got cold. Waited some more. Thought I should panic but felt strangely calm. Wondered where I could sleep if they never picked me up. Realized it was below freezing out and got colder. Then finally asked a man I saw raiding a vending machine if I could use his phone. He spoke just enough English for us to communicate and I called my host mom, I think about 3 times, but with no answer. Finally starting to get a little nervous I decided it was time to walk and explore the scene a bit. Luckily, my host mom planned very well and sent me walking directions to her house, just in case we somehow managed to miss each other at the bus stop, which we did. The house was only a five minute walk up the road, and after following her directions, I found the house and knocked on the door. No answer. I knocked some more, a little bit harder this time, and called out “Stella!??” Finally, some lights turned on and an older man with such a puzzled looked answered the door and I thought “….this is NOT the right house. Oh goodness, I’m disturbing this man at 10:30 pm…he was probably getting ready for bed and now has this lost foreign traveler knocking on his door.” Confused he was, for sure, but I showed him the address I had written down and told him the name of my host and he very kindly pointed me in the correct direction. I thanked him and apologized again and went on my way. Just one more street up and I arrived to the correct house, went through the gate, and rang the doorbell. The relief and comfort I felt when Stella answered the door and I could go into a warm (and correct!) house was wonderful. Her husband returned a minute or two later (he had just driven back down to the bus stop to look for me) and they fed me and asked how my travel to Switzerland was. They assured me that everything was fine and they were glad that I was able to find the house – they were getting nervous too. Finally, I went down to my room, crawled into my warm, soft bed (which was so nice after having no heat in Italy in the abnormally cold weather there) and fell asleep.

Sledding in the pre-alps!!

This is by far, one of my most favorite things I did on this whole trip. It was a Saturday and we were all deciding what we wanted to do for the day. My host mom was thinking of taking her daughter to one of the museums in town, and my host dad was thinking of taking his son to the pre-alps to go sledding. They said I could pick which trip I wanted go on after lunch, and my goodness, I went sledding. We got our gear, a variety of sleds and we piled in the car. It was maybe a 20-30 minute drive and I could see the alps growing larger and larger as we drove. My host dad thought it was so funny how excited I was getting about the view. I stared out the windshield in amazement and exclaimed “it’s like picture, or a painting! I can’t believe this is real!” We got to the parking lot and we were indeed, at the top of these mountains, at the very tippy top and it blew my mind. We grabbed our sleds and the son and I ran up the mountain with jubilant excitement. “These are the pre-alps” my host dad said to me. “the pre-alps?” “Yes, these are the small ones before the actual, much larger, alps.” “These are the SMALL ones!?” It was quite an event on the mountain, as families and people of all ages were sledding, skiing, hiking, and enjoying the sunny, snowy day. We finished the day by going into the lodge and enjoying a warm meal and some delicious hot chocolate.

Sledding in the Pre-Alps – wow!

Aerial Silks!!

Aerial silks is something I LOVE to do, and was introduced to in college. When I read on my host’s profile that she had a silk of her own at the house and would go to the gym (with wonderfully high ceilings) twice a week to practice, I knew this was a place I had to go to.

During the day, when no one was using the room, I would practice my strength building on the silk. It was only about 8 feet high, so there wasn’t a lot of room for tricks, but low to the ground strength exercises were certainly possible, and something I needed to work on. Besides, one should never practice on the silk without a spotter, so keeping everything at ground level and simple was a good thing in this situation. In the evenings, my host mom and I would go to the gym in Bern where we joined a group of other women who worked on the silks, trapeze, and lyra hoop. We all taught each other, brought instructional books, and would review videos from tutorial website. I LOVED this sooooo much! The ceilings were so tall and these silks were incredibly long and gave us so much room to work with and possibilities for tricks to try. I reviewed and practiced the tricks that I already knew, and with the help of these other talented women, learned new techniques and skills. THIS was where I did my first (terrifying, but incredibly rewarding) drop. I twisted and turned and wrapped the silk around myself until it formed a pseudo harness and I was suspended in the air. I let the fabric fall off my shoulders and wrapped it twice around either leg and brought myself through the two fabrics holding me in the air. With my hands gripped tightly on the silk just above and behind my head I turned to my host and asked “I did everything right, didn’t I?” “Yes, I believe so” she answered back and with my heart racing, I watched the floor several meters below me and let go, letting my face plummet towards the ground. It was the most unnatural feeling, to let yourself fall, going against every instinct you have to NOT let yourself land on your face from several meters up. But as quickly as I let go, I swung upside-down, my head facing the ground, and then completed the 360, extended my arms out to stop me, and I swayed safely and securely in my silk harness, happily in the air. With tremendous relief and hearing my own mom’s “Amber, you be careful!” in the back of my head, I unraveled myself from the harness and carefully climbed back down to the ground. (Amazingly, a full 13 months after I performed this trick, I still remembered how to do it once I was back on the silk at home again! (last week, in fact!)). After returning to the ground I ran up to my host mom and said “that was the most terrifying thing I’ve done on this whole trip! Even scarier than traveling to foreign countries completely by yourself!” and then proceeded to do the drop 4 more times before we went back home.

Lucerne for a day

My host mom had this train ticket that was good for ANYWHERE you wanted to go in Switzerland for a full day or two. The expiration date was coming up and she wasn’t going to be able to use it in time, so she gifted it to me! I decided to go to Lucerne for the day, and if I had planned a bit more thoughtfully, I would have just taken the train to multiple places – just get on board whichever train was next and go where ever it was going. By the time I thought of doing that, it was too late in the day and the sun was setting, so I happily enjoyed a nice long day walking the streets of Lucerne. It was a beautiful place and easy enough to navigate. Of course, there were many tourist-y shops, including this 3 floored Lindt Chocolate store with all of the chocolate you could ever imagine. But my favorite chocolate stop was this store, Confiserie Bachmann, that had a wall of flowing, liquid chocolate. It was like being in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. When I wasn’t gawking at walls of chocolate, I was exploring old castles, admiring the murals across the buildings, appreciating the small, spring flowers, petting the cat I found (or that found me!), and sitting by the water, enjoying the end of the day before returning back to Köniz.

Spending time with the family

We spent a lot of time together; we went out to brunch, went to gardening workshops, walked around the weekend markets, built insect hotels and the local university, and even went to a Croatian New Year celebration (I think that’s what it was) and I joined along in the group dance! The kids and I struggled to communicate, as we couldn’t really speak the same language. They knew a little bit of English and French, so I tried switching back and forth between those two languages, but understanding was limited. We got by just fine with hand gestures and google translate, and we found activities to do that didn’t require words at all! I taught the kids how to do origami and they absolutely loved it! We made little chickens and a paper house for them to live in, but their favorite was definitely the butterfly ball, something I learned in my high school calculus class: http://www.cutoutfoldup.com/936-butterfly-ball.php (the website is actually from that teacher too!). The kids LOVED it. They were so excited to throw it up in the air and pop it, letting all of the “butterflies” flutter back to the ground. They were very well behaved and always asked if they could pop it first, as it took a few minutes for me to put back together. I showed them how they could re-assemble the ball and after some practice, they became little professionals! I think if we could have spoken the same language with each other, we would have had even more fun, but despite the language barrier, we always had a great time.

Walks around the neighborhood

I loved this neighborhood. The streets were lined with cute houses, the kids would run from house to house and play with each other, the woods with these incredible trails was right across our street, it was 5 minutes to walk to town where there were little shops and a tiny mall, and the city of Bern was just 15 minutes away. The architecture of these classic Switzerland homes was so sweet and I loved admiring all of the different houses as I walked around the neighborhood, not to mention that just about every other house has a friendly cat that would run up to you and let you pet it. I would often just go on neighborhood walks and play with the cats as I passed – which for me, was a great way to spend an afternoon. Why everyone didn’t play with these friendly little cats is beyond me, honestly. My favorite house had to be this bright yellow classically built home, with a red roof, trim, and picket fence, with a little ginger kitty sitting outside the door. If I could live in any of these houses, it would be this one. If I could live in any place, it would be a place like Köniz, where your friends are your neighbors and takes only seconds to walk and visit, there’s a beautiful wood trail system behind your house that goes for miles, the town is just down the road, there’s a beautiful wooden jungle gym and park for the community to use, and the city is just a short bus ride away.