Day 16: I think I am Swiss now

Today was a quintessentially Swiss day.

Jackson and I rose at the ungodly hour of 5:30 am to milk the cows and then collect the freshly laid eggs.

Wait, none of that happened. Well, we did get up at 5:30. That happened. Against all bodily protests.

An early start to take a train, another train, and a bus to the bottom of a valley called Euthal. Jackson, two friends of his, and I hiked for a couple of hours through varying terrain into the Swiss alps reaching our summit at Chli Aubrig (around 1,600 meters elevation). We started at about 800 m so it’s not as impressive as it sounds. At the summit we had some baguette, cheese, and – of course – Swiss chocolate.

The hiking scenery was idyllic. We passed cows, goats, sheep, humans, aliens, and dogs! We passed barns and houses and people having picnics. The grassy slopes were smooth and rolling, appearing as if a large green felt mat had been layered over the land.

The descent was nearly harder that the ascent, being tough on the knees in steep areas. Sometimes the pace would pick up and before you knew it you were running down the hill arms flailing and hoping not to fall and turn it into a roll down. Eventually we reached the bottom and waited for our bus. Then a nap on the train.

In the late afternoon Jackson took me for a tour around the historic city centre. It was a warm, sunny afternoon but toward dinner time storm clouds started rolling in and it threatened to rain.

To finish out the typical Swiss day we had Raclette for dinner. For those deprived souls who are not yet acquainted with this food, I highly recommend it. It is essentially a large wedge of cheese that sits above a heater while slices are shaved off in big, melty chunks. Your plate arrives with a perfectly crisped and melted cheese glob and then you use various items – potatoes, pickles, mini pickled onions, etc – as vehicles to shovel the cheese into your mouth. Best of all, this place was an all-you-can-eat Raclette restaurant. I won’t say how many rounds we had.

After dinner we walked off a bit of the cheese sweats by taking the longer route to a tram station near the ETH Zürich downtown campus. ETH is where Jackson will be starting his Masters in the Fall, however Civil Engineering is at a different campus than the one we saw tonight.

We ended up running for the tram as it had started raining and we saw it pulling into the station nearby. Not a good idea after a massive Raclette session.

The tram was having trouble chugging up the hill. Jackson thinks this was because of a worn flat spot on the wheel in combo with the rain. I happen to think it was because our post Raclette consumption bods were weighing down the back of the tram.

Either way, we made it home and I am ready for some Swiss beauty sleep.

DOTD

Apparently Winston has been reincarnated as an exact replica of himself and lives in Zürich. Very cute cavy!