So more adventures in Germany! Thursday, September 10, 2009 Chad and I headed to the train station to head over to Frankfurt. It was fun to be ableto ride on one of the fast trains. I must admit, Europe has the mass transit figured out and the freeway system. It is often heard that there is no speed limit on the autoban, but that is false. There are portions of the autoban that do have speed limits, very similar to ours here in the US, however there are sections that are speed free, we went around 130 MPH at those points. The autoban is 2 lanes in each direction and you stay to the right, unless you are passing. The Europeans follow that and are very polite drivers. The use their signals, they let you merge... I did not see one accident on the autoban in the 12 days I was there, much different to the daily accidents I see here.
Anyway, Frankfurt to me looked and seemed like the typical larger city. I must admit that the cathedrals and the history is very impressive. My goal in Frankfurt was to locate a Birkenstock store! That mission was sucessful. I bought 2 pair of birkenstocks for a little more than I would have spent on one pair here. One of the pairs I bought were 30 Euros, which is about $42, that pair here in the US would have run me $100, talk about deal! I finally disgarded my pair of birkenstocks that I bought in when I was 12, 21 years ago. What a deal! Wahoo. Yes I will admit I love shoes and expecially Birkenstocks. They are so comfortable. After walking around Frankfurt, seeing the cathedrals and the opera house, it was back to Mannheim for Dinner at Vapianos... I was craving a salad, needing vegetables, so I ordered what I thought was a salad with Mozzerella and Tomatoes... come to find out, that is all it was... no lettuce or anything... I ended up munching on it and then eating a slice of my brothers pizza...which I must add was amazing and not full of oil and such. What a fun day, I am glad that I was able to visit Frankfurt, but it is definitely not the city I would choose to live in if I lived in Europe.
Sunday, October 4, 2009
Frankfurt Shopping! 9-10-2009
Sunday, September 27, 2009
Where I hiked in the Swiss Alps September 8, 2009
Words can not describe the beauty of the Swiss Alps. I can say after hiking for approximately 8 hours, my feet were killing me and I had 4 blisters. I wouldn't trade any one of them for the views I saw.
We began our day from our 'hotel' in Lauterbrunnen and hiking to Wengen. This was a tough, the toughest section of the day, all up hill for about an hour and a half... I thought I was in shape, but I am not. We hit Wengen and decided to take the tram to Mannlichen. The tram went straight up the mountain. From Mannlichen we hiked to Klein Scheidegg and had lunch there. From there we hiked back down to Wengen and then took the train back to Lauterbrunnen. This section is the Junfrau region. I am guessing we hiked about 14 KM, which is about 22 miles. The hills are gorgeous. We got to hike thru a pasture, right past the cows, all of which do where the swiss cow bells making the hills alive with music. What an experience. I can't wait to head back to Switerland. After hiking all day, we headed into Interlaken to meet a very dear friend, Rebecca Titz, who lives in Zurich. She took a 2 hour train ride just to meet us for dinner. 
It was so great to see her. I last saw her in the spring. After dinnner it was back to Lauterbrunnen for a good nights sleep!
September 7, 2009: Basal and Lauterbrunnen Switzerland
The drive from Mannheim, Germany to Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland (where we were staying) was only a 4 hour drive. We left Mannheim around 6:00 AM... really early. You would never know that we were only going for 3 days by the way my younger brother, Chad, packed...
As compared to the one small backpack I took... 
We did stop in Basal Switzerland for breakfast and to walk around for a bit. First stop was a bank so that we could all get the Swiss Francs. Everyone pays cash for everything in Europe, which I thought was great. There are ATM's everywhere. While in Basal we stopped at the Raushaus, which is similar to the city hall. Also know as the Red House or the Rat's House. 
I personally think Rat's House fits very well for politicians. hee hee hee. We also visited an amazing Cathedral where we were able to climb up the bell tower and over look the entire city. We climbed up over the bell as well. The church has a gorgeous and very unique patter on the roof. I believe it was the Rhein River that ran thru Basal. We finally arrived in Lauterbrunnen about 2:00, and couldn't check in to our room until 3:00, so after parking the car we walked to a cafe to have lunch. I was amazed at our room, absolutely cute and darling...
It was probably a 9 x 9 room with 2 sets of bunk beds, that were not a full size twin. My feet hung off the end and I am only 5'9. There was also a small shelving/closet unit and a tiny desk. This little room was quite pricey as well, almost $200 a night, but worth every penney. It had a communal bathroom, including showers. I felt like I was staying in the dorms again. 
I also had to pay for hot water in the showers. It was half a franc for 4 minutes of hot water (about $0.50) and again after hiking around, worth every franc. After checking in, we off to walk to Trummelbach Falls. The waterfalls drain the water of Eiger, Monk, and Jungfrau glaciers ... over 20,000 liters of water flow from the waterfalls per second ... and the waterfalls are the only glacier-waterfalls in Europe that run inside a mountain and are still accessible. We had to take a lift inside the mountain ... very similar to a mine shaft to reach the middle of the waterfalls ... then we were able to hike around tunnels to see different sections of the waterfalls. It was really really cool. After the supposed 20 minute walk, according to the desk agent at the hotel, which actually took 2 hours round trip, we headed to Interlaken for dinner. On the walk back, we discovered a playground, which the boys enjoyed immensely. 
Dinner in Interlaken was fantastic. What an exhausting day! But worth every minute. Switzerland is absolutely gorgeous!
