Switzerland

Alright.  I am here for my first real guest post.  I know since it’s our blog, I’m not really a guest.  But, it was Ms. Tammy’s idea to start a blog, and I’m all about supporting her, and…well, here goes my first guest post.

Switzerland was great!  It was really pretty.  (Ms. Tammy fit in there very nicely.)  I served my mission there, and only so much has changed in the past 10 years, so it was very nostalgic to return.

After visiting the concentration camp, we jumped on a train and went straight to Chur, Switzerland.  I spent 9 months here on my mission; it’s in the middle of the Alps and is the oldest village in Switzerland.  We stayed with the Schmid family, who are LDS, in their cute house in Malix, Switzerland.  It’s up on the side of the mountain and it’s just so……Swiss!  We loved it.  Scenic, green, mountainous, and peaceful.  Here’s Jubi, and the view off his driveway.

We got to Chur Friday evening so that we could run the half marathon on Saturday.  I’m still amazed we overcame the jetlag as quickly as we did; we went arrived in Germany Thursday afternoon, and then ran Saturday morning.

They gave us these green running shirts.  Tammy put hers on.  I didn’t.  It was a large, but I think the Swiss large must be smaller than the American large, cause I was pretty sure I’d be flashing my belly button at everyone so I opted to keep my t-shirt on and run with it instead. Tammy was very happy at the start of the race.  We both had to chuckle at the difference in her mood after a few miles of insane mountain running.  (It was STEEP.  Holy cheese, it was steep.)

At the halfway point we ran through a little village.  They had a bunch of people together ringing cowbells and encouraging us.  I think this was one of the highlights of the run for both of us.  For me in particular, it reminded me of lots of memories of similar views and sounds back when I was on my mission there.  It was cool.

We ran over a couple of temporary bridges.  They were a bit scary.  Although, I ran behind Tammy and got to stare at her bum on the way up, which helped to distract me from the potential of us both splatting on the road if the bridge tipped over.

It was nice to be done with the race.  As you can see from the pics, it was beautiful.  But, our knees hurt and we were sweaty and tired, so it was good that it ended when it did.  As we got out of the train in Chur we were hobbling down the stairs, and a girl next to us said, “You ran the race too?”  We all laughed.

Tammy's got her game face on for the race.

Tammy and I show off are super-powers of standing sideways on concrete.

They said "baaaaahhhhh"

Lookin' good!!

This is dedicated to all the Finn/Pendleton coke addicts.

Next day, we went to church.  There were several members that still remembered me, which made me happy.  We went over to Daniel Dreher’s house for lunch.  If he were American I’m pretty sure he’d be a California beach bum.  He’s like a romantic adolescent stuck in a man’s body.  He’s a great guy and I love him to pieces.  Unfortunately I forgot to take pics, but we were there for a couple hours just chatting.  When we left, he stood out in the road waving until we turned around the bend a quarter mile away…just one of those memories that just grabs at my heart and reminds me of why I like him so much.  

After that we went to the Lichtenstein-Switzerland border, and did some border hopping.

Our last day there, we just explored the old city of Chur, the old churches, and then we went to a Swiss lake set in a quaint little mountain valley.  We paddleboated, hiked around, and lastly I worked some of my cow whisperer magic on the way back to the bus stop.

As we returned home that evening, we saw like 4,000 slugs.  We snuck up on one and filmed him (her?).

The next morning, we took the Bernina Express scenic train from Chur to Tirano, Italy.  It went through the Alps, and we saw glaciers, lots of trees, and other mountainy stuff.  I’d show lots of pics and stuff, except, honestly, we were ready to be done when it was over.  It was really pretty, but it was 4 hours long.  If you want to see what we saw just google Bernina Express.  

I’m really glad we went to Switzerland.  I remembered much more German than I thought I would.  It was nostalgic for me to buy the same foods, visit the same locations, and enjoy the scenery that I loved while was there.  And the chocolate aisle in the grocery store was like HEAVEN.  Mmmmmmm.  I’m getting fatter just thinking about the picture.

Also, one of our goals, or mottos, is “This Is It,” aka carpe diem.  Our whole trip was based on that idea; we knew there would always be reasons not to go, but we just decided one day to go for it so that we’d never look back and say “we should have gone there while we could.”  So we trained for 5 months for our half marathon, and getting to Europe, running our race, and enjoying the beauty of Switzerland was a very rewarding experience.  We took a fuzzy picture at the end that will go in our picture frame of “This Is It” experiences.  In order to make the picture frame, the picture must symbolize 1) something we have accomplished together, 2) something that took months or years of work to accomplish, and 3) is an item that was on one of our bucket lists.  So here ya go.

Germany

Things have been crazy for us over the past few weeks, but we're finally sitting down to blog about our trip. We took lots of pictures and made lots of videos which we find to be very entertaining. We hope you enjoy them as well!

We arrived in Dublin, Ireland at 8:00 AM on Thursday July 26. We got on a double-decker bus and headed downtown where we went to Trinity College and saw the Book of Kells. The Book of Kells is the four Gospels written in Latin with fancy decorated pages. It is estimated to have been written around the year 800. We also walked through the old library which had many books that were hundreds of years old.

Before we left for Europe, Tiffany mentioned we should try the Lion candy bar. It was our first purchase in Europe.

That afternoon we flew from Dublin to Munich, Germany where we met this friendly, real, on screen information woman. Colby was thrilled! He thought it was the coolest thing! He made her smile for a picture.

Friday July 27th, we took a bus from Munich to Dachau (where Colby was scolded for not stamping our tickets) and where we visited a concentration camp.

This is where the barracks used to be.

This is where they cremated the bodies.

This is one of the rooms right off from where the ovens are. They would store the bodies in here. 

This was designed to look like a shower head, but was actually used to gas prisoners.

This says something like "To honor the dead and to remind the living."

They have two plaques honoring the US Army division that rescued the prisoners in 1945.

This concentration camp was in use for 12 years. It was a very somber place and made me kind of sick to realize that this really happened. We heard a tour guide emphasize the fact that the Holocaust wasn't the first genocide and it hasn't been the last either. In the past 15 years there have been other genocides around the world and it really is our responsibility to not let these kinds of things keep happening.

We then caught a train to Switzerland. Colby sat by a lady who only spoke German, so they chatted it up while I slept. The scenery was beautiful though!

Alright, Colby is excited to tell you all about Switzerland!! That post should be ready tomorrow.