Switzerland, pt 4 (hiking Niesen, the Open House, Interlaken, Venice)

After a fun weekend away in Paris, we were back to work in Switzerland for the next two weeks. We spent that time doing some of the larger tasks that we had left on the backburner of our ToDo list. A big one was removing the large, rectangular walking stones from all over the upper levels of the garden. We had to power wash these and organize them in the garage to be transported to the new house at a later date. Our work during this time also included gathering large boulders/stones from the garden (these had been moved previously from Regula's parents' house) and washing/organizing these too. Additionally, we cut down large swaths of bushes and trees (unintentionally, the neighbors now had wide open views of us, and vice versa) and filled plenty of more green bags.

Meals during this time consisted of a mix of some of our favorite Swiss dishes (we did Pastetli, Raclette, and Capuns again!) as well as some Finish and American meals. We also had fondue! (The fondue set "From Switzerland," which is an inside joke from dinner that night). The Finish girls made an amazing salmon and vegetable soup and and apple-oat crumble for dessert one night. We spent some time thinking of a typical American meal, and decided that a burger/fry/onion ring meal would be perfect. We made an absolute disaster of the kitchen, with hot oil flying everywhere, but it turned out great (we even made lentil patties for the vegetarians at the table). We also made everyone cornbread (which was a tough dish to explain to foreigners, and even tougher to find the ingredients for) and American pancakes! On the Finish girls' last night, we showed them s'mores (substituting Swiss chocolate for Hershey's, of course). We got made fun of for our pronunciation of "graham crackers," which also don't seem to exist over here, so we had to substitute a special cinnamon-oat cracker instead.

On Thursday of the week after we got back from Paris, the amazing weather meant another hiking day. This time, we decided to tackle Niesen, also known as the "Swiss Pyramid." As the name implies, it is a giant pyramid-shaped mountain that also happened to be straight across the lake from our house, which meant we woke up to views of it each day. The hike was very similar to both Niederhorn and Stockhorn, as it was an ~12 mile loop with ~5,000 feet of elevation gain. At this point our sweat still consisted of wine from our time in Paris, but it was an awesome hike that was much more open than our previous hikes. We had breathtaking views for the majority of it, and there were great waypoints to stop for breaks. The day we hiked was colder than previous ones, so at the top we were in need of some hot food in addition to our typical beers. We ordered some fresh fries and some craft brews from a small town at the base of the mountain. Both were amazing, and we were off to the bottom! That night was our "American meal" night as described above, so we had to hurry back.

The next day, we went to the clinic once again to prep for the Open House that was happening the following day. We spent more time hanging shelves, and putting some signed jerseys in picture frames to be hung on the walls (as well as getting a workout in in the amazing gym!). We, of course, spent most of the day working on odds and ends (including picking up picnic tables and chares from a local school). One thing that doesn't change no matter what country you're in: there is always more to do thank you think there is before you host a big event! We had to stop for a break at a local pub just to maintain a bit of sanity.

On Saturday, we ate a big breakfast and then biked to the Open House at Fiteria, which was finally here after weeks of prep work. There were dozens of people there when we arrived (we were very late as we attempted an unmapped trail on our bikes). The event ended up being a blast as there was great food (chili from a local butcher, baked sweets from the employees), local beer, and competitions for archery and a mock bob-sled. At the end, they even had live music! It's safe to say that our bike ride home was much more wobbly than our ride there.

On Sunday, with the weather looking nice for the next couple of days, we decided to attempt what we had been looking to do since we arrived: biking around Lake Thun. We had vaguely remembered it being ~50 km (30 miles) around the lake, and we did the first part that evening, stopping in Interlaken for an evening and to hang out in Lauterbrunnen valley the next day. We had both been to this town and valley on previous trips, and loved it, but had not been there together. We stayed at a pub that evening, each got a pizza for dessert (no splitting this time after that long bike ride), and were up early the next day. We trained into Lauterbrunnen, and were riding our bikes up the valley just in time to see the sun peek onto the cliffs. This valley was where an 18-year old JRR Tolkien got some of his inspiration to write the Lord of the Rings, and the steep cliffs, 72 waterfalls, and lush-green landscape influenced the description of Rivendell in the books. Kyle had hyped this view up in his memory for years, but it truly did live up to both of our expectations.

We decided to bike, instead of train, from the valley back down into Interlaken. While it was only ~10 miles, it probably wasn't our best decision as we had another long ride around the rest of the lake to get home that evening. Additionally, at some point on the journey down a bug flew into Kyle's eye. He rubbed his eye so hard that an "eye-blister" formed (if you're not eating dinner right now, look up a picture of Chemosis). We stopped (at the Rugenbrau brewery, of course) to evaluate what we should do. Option A: go to the hospital as Kyle's eye was now swollen almost shut, except for the blistered portion propping it open or Option B: have a couple of beers. Always go with Option B! After beers at the brewery, and another in Interlaken, we set off for our long ride home ("the breeze from riding feels good on my eye anyways," says Kyle). The ride home ended up being just brutal after so much riding over the previous two days. We arrived well after dark, walked our bikes up the final hill, and ate a quick dinner and crashed into bed shortly afterwards. What we anticipated as a 50km bike ride was actually 50 miles! (Don't worry, Kyle's eye was back to normal by the end of the following week!).

We spent a few more days working, as well as another trip to the Salvation Army and a nice trip to Spitz for ice cream and to watch the steamboats on as it was the last week for the Finish girls as well. On Thursday, we said our goodbyes to Camila and Noora (you guys were great! thank you so much for the gift too, and your guest book entry has to be the best one yet too!). On Friday, we were off for another weekend adventure, this time to meet up with Anja and Grega again and to run a race in Venice! Just prior to leaving, however, we had to get Nicole's phone reactivated (one final piece from our Barcelona adventure). Since neither of us could actually call Verizon, Nicole's mom helped us out. Unfortunately, we needed Kyle's phone for part of the process, but couldn't speak on it because he had dropped it from a fortress back in Montenegro (that piece that flew off must have been the mic!), and the video was dodgy because his camera was covered in chocolate he had left in his pocket (is he still 10 years old? We'll let the jury decide). After some sign language and written notes held up to the screen, we were finally in business. Thanks, Chris, for the help as our liaison with Verizon!

We met Anja and Grega at the train station of Friday evening and walked to our hotel nearby. We learned that evening that, unfortunately, they were not going to be able to run the 10K with us that weekend. However, we still had a great time together! We ate a big pizza/pasta meal on Friday evening (I mean, why not when you're back in Italy?). We finished the meal with a shot of Cynar, an artichoke liquer that will definitely be added to our shelf when we get back home (are we talking about drinking more in recent posts? Let's blame it on the colder weather!). We spent all day Saturday exploring Venice, often getting lost in the winding streets. We ventured off to the island of Burano, which was a nice, peaceful break from the crowds, but still had cool architecture, cobbled streets, and beautifully colored buildings (legend has it that they were painted bright colors to help fisherman find their way home in the dark and foggy conditions). We ate at the same place as Friday night again on Saturday evening because it was so good (if it ain't broke, don't fix it).

The next morning we were up bright and early to get ready for the race, on a sunny and beautiful morning. We said our goodbyes to Anja and Grega, and then headed to the start line (we had picked up our race packet, etc the day before). It took awhile to get the race going, and we had to sign up for the "non-competition" group as we did not have an Italian racing card (weird rules). Because of this, we actually did not cross the start line until about 15 minutes after the race had begun, and we were in a complete mosh pit of people. There were literally thousands of people walking the race, so it took almost two miles to get through the crowd to actually get up to a running pace. From there, the race continued over the long bridge from the Venice mainland to the island old town. A special bridge was created near St. Mark's square for racers specifically, and it was a unique experience running through such a historic space lined with cheering tourists. The finish line and winding streets of the island were crowded as well, so while we both finished without really achieving our best times, it was still a great race in such a unique location that we are both very happy we signed up! We spent the rest of the afternoon cheering on the marathoners as they finished up, and spent some more time exploring the streets of Venice. That evening, we once again used BlaBlaCar! This time we had a nice Italian guy who was actually a mechanical engineer (and spoke English this time), so there was much that Kyle connected with and the time passed really smoothly. We arrived back home in Switzerland at 2am, and Regula had left dinner (a Swiss version of Chicken Curry) warm on the stove for us. Despite the late hour, we ate a big meal before crashing very hard from another eventful weekend! We never thought we'd have an opportunity to use such a cool place as home base for our mini-vacations!