Europe Trip 2018-Switzerland
A couple of years ago, Brent's sister announced that she would be retiring in May of 2018 and would like to go on a trip to Europe to tour castles. She invited any of the adults in the family to come with her. Brent and I talked and he said that it would be great to go, so I got a job and started saving. As the year went on Ayslind fell in love with the German language and decided that she wanted to continue taking it. She did well in her classes and Brent and I decided that I would take Ayslind to Germany to help her see the culture and practice her language. Fortunately the job that I took on was at the Junior High, so I started working on German with Ayslind and studing alot about the country and the places we would visit. These volumes are a record of our trip. It was amazing, to say the least. I can't wait to go back and take Brent with us. Ayslind and I are already planning other places to visit that we were not able to see on this visit.
June 6th-
Ayslind and I were so excited to leave on our trip. The last day of school was just a week before, we packed and repacked probably 20 times between the two of us. By the time Wednesday morning at 9 am came, we were ready! The most exciting part about this day was that Ayslind had never been on a plane. She was so excited to be there. She acted like she was on a ride at Disneyland. The best part was about 10 minutes after being in the air, she put her headphones in and was more interested in the movies that she could watch on the flight to New York.
I was very excited to be going to New York for a layover. I have always wanted to go there and when we flew in to land, we could see the skyscape and the statue of liberty far off in the distance. We ate New York pizza while we waited for our flight and flew out across the ocean at around 8:30 pm.
The plane ride across the ocean at night was interesting. I do not love trying to sleep on a plane. The seats barely recline and the leg room is just not enough to truly get comfortable. I will give it to Delta though, they provided little pillows, blankets, earbuds, earplugs, and eye masks to try and help you be as comfortable as possible. The food wasn't to bad either. We got a dinner and breakfast on the plane ride over. It was interesting watching the scenery change as we hit Europe. All the sudden the cities were little villages with farms, and water everywhere. You saw onion dome churches in every little village.
The understanding of a hamlet, village, town, and city are all different in Europe than here in the USA. We got pretty excited flying over places like Paris. We unfortunatly couldn't see anything because of the clouds, but knowing it was there was almost as fun. The ocean at night was neat also. Watching the big ships and seeing the stars out the window, was amazing.
June 7th-
Touch down in Zurich, Switzerland. Honestly I was very nervous about coming into another country after my experience with Mexico the year earlier. Customs was a breeze and getting our luggage, no problem. We were all excited about our little "Meetvagon." We knew it was going to be a voltzwagon van and we weren't sure what to expect. The little minivan held all six of us though, and with some expert tetrus skills, our luggage also. So off we were to drive 3 hours to a little town in the middle of the Swiss Alps. We were lost in 15 minutes and on the wrong freeway Ausfahrt (exit) headed the wrong direction. Jeanette and her daughter Tiffany were our driver and navigation system. They were funny to listen to working together to navigate us in a country we didn't know the driving rules, or really read the language. Luckily we were starting in Switzerland that had most things in English. We immediately got seperated from the rest of our group out of the airport, which meant we did a little extra sightseeing. We drove towards our destination of Grindewald by the direction of Interlaken. We stopped in a cute little town called Thun. It had a little castle we call the "Rapunzel" castle because of the tower that is located out in the lake water, with only one entrance in and out that included a large wooden door and a lock. It's official name is Schloss Oberhofen castle. This castle was fun with servant quaters, dungeon, chapel, huge bells in the basement, and even ghost stories. I love the history of these places and will include them as well:
"The mighty keep of the former fortress Burg Oberhofen was built around 1200 and passed to the house of Habsburg in the 14th centruy. After the defeat of the Habsburgs at the Battle of Sempach in 1386, Bern seized the reign of Oberhofen and sold it to Ludwig von Seftigen and his sister Antonia von Scharnachthal. In 1421, castle and lordship finally came to the Scharnachthal, one of the leading and richest families of the city of Bern. Until the death of the last representative in 1590, it remained in family ownership. Thereafter Oberhofen reached a branch of one of the most important Bernese families, that of Erlach.
From 1652 to 1798 Landvogteisitz and expanded to the castle, the estate came in 1801 privately owned. 1844 bought Albert Graf de Pourtalès from the then Prussian Neuenburg Castle Oberhofen and converted it into a summer residence. Even today, the buildings and turrets in the historicist style characterize the appearance. 1926 there was a change of ownership, the new owner of the castle was the American lawyer William Maul Measey. He transferred the properties and the park to a foundation in 1940 and ensured that Schloss Oberhofen came to the Bernisches Historisches Museum as a branch, which set up a housing museum and opened it to the public in 1954.
Schloss Oberhofen was released into independence in 2009 and has since been operating as a private-law foundation. With the new building, which forms the lakeside conclusion of the dependencies, a bridge was built into the 21st century. Since 2013, the restaurant Schloss Oberhofen is in operation in the cube with a terrace on the lake." https://www.schlossoberhofen.ch/de/schloss/geschichte
After our excursions in the castle, we went to a little cafe that was right next to the castle and had our first taste of European food. We quickly learned that Drinking is more important than eating as the cafe would not serve food until 5pm, but the castle museum closed at 5pm. The cafe was always open for beer or drinks. We had gotten money at the airport so I had swiss franks to buy food. Ayslind was a little nervous when everyone started asking her to traslate the menu. Ayslind order a hamburger and got the Swiss equivelant. No bun, lettuce, tomato, or sauce. Just the meat, fries, and steamed vegetables. Needless to say she was a bit disappointed.
We left Thun and drove the 30 minutes to our hotel in Grindewald at the base of the beautiful Swiss Alps and the JungFrau, the highest point in Europe. Our hotel was beautifully situated with glass windows for a surround view of the Alps. We went swimming at the local pool that was included as part of our hotel stay. Ayslind was put off by the lifeguard coming out and literally yelling at her for wearing a shirt over her swim suit. The lifeguard was an old grey haired man. We went back to our hotel for some much needed and very comfortable sleep. Day one in Europe, done!
June 6th-
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| Ayslind's first flight! |
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| Statue of Liberty and skyline |
The understanding of a hamlet, village, town, and city are all different in Europe than here in the USA. We got pretty excited flying over places like Paris. We unfortunatly couldn't see anything because of the clouds, but knowing it was there was almost as fun. The ocean at night was neat also. Watching the big ships and seeing the stars out the window, was amazing.
June 7th-Touch down in Zurich, Switzerland. Honestly I was very nervous about coming into another country after my experience with Mexico the year earlier. Customs was a breeze and getting our luggage, no problem. We were all excited about our little "Meetvagon." We knew it was going to be a voltzwagon van and we weren't sure what to expect. The little minivan held all six of us though, and with some expert tetrus skills, our luggage also. So off we were to drive 3 hours to a little town in the middle of the Swiss Alps. We were lost in 15 minutes and on the wrong freeway Ausfahrt (exit) headed the wrong direction. Jeanette and her daughter Tiffany were our driver and navigation system. They were funny to listen to working together to navigate us in a country we didn't know the driving rules, or really read the language. Luckily we were starting in Switzerland that had most things in English. We immediately got seperated from the rest of our group out of the airport, which meant we did a little extra sightseeing. We drove towards our destination of Grindewald by the direction of Interlaken. We stopped in a cute little town called Thun. It had a little castle we call the "Rapunzel" castle because of the tower that is located out in the lake water, with only one entrance in and out that included a large wooden door and a lock. It's official name is Schloss Oberhofen castle. This castle was fun with servant quaters, dungeon, chapel, huge bells in the basement, and even ghost stories. I love the history of these places and will include them as well:
"The mighty keep of the former fortress Burg Oberhofen was built around 1200 and passed to the house of Habsburg in the 14th centruy. After the defeat of the Habsburgs at the Battle of Sempach in 1386, Bern seized the reign of Oberhofen and sold it to Ludwig von Seftigen and his sister Antonia von Scharnachthal. In 1421, castle and lordship finally came to the Scharnachthal, one of the leading and richest families of the city of Bern. Until the death of the last representative in 1590, it remained in family ownership. Thereafter Oberhofen reached a branch of one of the most important Bernese families, that of Erlach.From 1652 to 1798 Landvogteisitz and expanded to the castle, the estate came in 1801 privately owned. 1844 bought Albert Graf de Pourtalès from the then Prussian Neuenburg Castle Oberhofen and converted it into a summer residence. Even today, the buildings and turrets in the historicist style characterize the appearance. 1926 there was a change of ownership, the new owner of the castle was the American lawyer William Maul Measey. He transferred the properties and the park to a foundation in 1940 and ensured that Schloss Oberhofen came to the Bernisches Historisches Museum as a branch, which set up a housing museum and opened it to the public in 1954.
Schloss Oberhofen was released into independence in 2009 and has since been operating as a private-law foundation. With the new building, which forms the lakeside conclusion of the dependencies, a bridge was built into the 21st century. Since 2013, the restaurant Schloss Oberhofen is in operation in the cube with a terrace on the lake." https://www.schlossoberhofen.ch/de/schloss/geschichte
We left Thun and drove the 30 minutes to our hotel in Grindewald at the base of the beautiful Swiss Alps and the JungFrau, the highest point in Europe. Our hotel was beautifully situated with glass windows for a surround view of the Alps. We went swimming at the local pool that was included as part of our hotel stay. Ayslind was put off by the lifeguard coming out and literally yelling at her for wearing a shirt over her swim suit. The lifeguard was an old grey haired man. We went back to our hotel for some much needed and very comfortable sleep. Day one in Europe, done!
