EUGENE and SHELLY!: November 2008

Monday, November 10, 2008

Day Three and Four - October 16 & 17, 2008.

Thursday was the rainy day that everyone has when they go on vacation. The gang wanted to head to Luzern but Mike and I were drained and had a few things to do to get ready to leave on Friday. After waiting for the rain to slow down the gang decided to change plans and head to Biel to look around. Biel is about 10 - 15 minutes away by car. The three of them went and came back in time to go to Bern with Mike. He had his language class that night (which he had skipped on Tues) so they decided to walk around with Bern with me while he was in class. After his class we came back and we ended the day with a very nice cheese fondue (another traditional Swiss dish based on melting cheese and drinking).

Friday we had to get up early and head for the airport. We all crawled onto a plane from Basel and headed for Berlin, Germany. We arrived there about 2 pm ish.

Will the group be detained in a post DDR apacolyptic no mans land, or will they hang out in bars?Tune in next time for more Eugene and Shelly.

Day two continued...

We stopped by a town called Lausanne (not to be confused with Luzern) on Lake Geneva, which was very beautiful, and a nice place to walk around. Ladies just hope that you don't have to use the public WC (water closet - bathroom).

Montreux was very beautiful, and 4/5ths of the group had basically come here exclusively to see the Freddie Mercury statue. We walked along the lake and got our pictures in front of Freddie (again we have to wait for Aaron for the pictures). It was a very beautiful day and we could not have asked for better weather. (Thank you google images for picture below, Aaron get on it).

Day Two - Wednesday October 15, 2008

Today we started out with stopping by Avenches, the Roman reunions, on the way to Montreux. We had a lot of fun playing around and taking fun pictures. All of these pictures are staged for silliness, except for the one where Mike is getting ready to brain Christian with a rock. That was for real. They were fighting about which side of Physical Graphitti was the best.

Day one - Tuesday October 14, 2008

The first full day (Mike's Birthday) started out on a bad note. About 30 minutes into our drive to Interlaken we ALL realized that we forgot our cameras. Yes that's right all 5 people in the car forgot to grab one camera. As we walked around Interlaken Christian bought a deposable camera and as soon as he sends us copies of the photos I will post them. Interlaken was very beautiful and a quiet city in between two lakes (hence the name Interlaken, get it?). As we all were walking around Interlaken we found the Hooters (Not that far away Diane, he he he).

After Interlaken we got back in the car and headed up the Alps to Gimmelwald . We grabbed a gondola (See picture below) from Stechelberg (3025 ft) up to Gimmelwald (4593 ft).

This is a very pretty quite town and if you are interested there is a hostel there. We decided to continue up the mountain some more. Christian, Mike, and I wanted to go all the way up to Schilthorn (9748 ft / site of a 007 film) but there was too much fog so we took one more gondola up to Mürren (5361 ft). Aaron and Erika wanted to have a nice walk so they walked the paved path up to Mürren and met the three of us up there. The views from all levels were unbelievable... if you ever go bring a camera. We all walked around Mürren for a while, which was very empty and very few people there, in a cool way, then decided to grab a beer before heading back down the mountains. One beer turned into... well Mike didn't make it to German class that evening. We all thought it would be nice to take the paved path that Aaron and Erika walked up to go back down. I was a beautiful walk and the views are too breathtaking to ever try to explain. We were all glad we picked to go to Gimmelwald because it is a less known tourist location and that made for a nice quick adventure.

(This is a photo from the Gimmelwald website, I will add more of our own pictures as soon I get them from Christian).

After a long day in the mountains we headed home and had a nice Raclette (traditional Swiss dish). Its all about melting cheese and drinking. But not like nachos. Not at all.

Our first visitors - October 13, 2008

Just in time for Mike's Birthday (October 14) we have are first visitors arrive. Aaron, Erika, and Christian are the first to see Chalet LeRoo in person. With Aaron and Erika in the guitar room (guest room) and Christian on the nice big coach we were out of have a week of fun while they were here.

Aaron with a bass, even while on vacation.

Erika looking good as always.

Christian plotting our adventures.

Christian getting Mike in on the plotting.

Almost complete apartment.

So after three days of having to leave the apartment and having all the furniture in the middle of all the rooms, so the painters could come and paint, I was able to start unpacking and putting stuff into the right places. It took some time and there are still a few things that need to be done (hanging the pictures, MIKE!!!) So here is a look at are new furnished apartment. Oh, and please take your shoes off.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Shelly's finally here - October 2, 2008

After two months apart I finally arrive at the Zurich airport with Roo in hand. It was a long trip (Cincinnati to Detroit to Amsterdam and finally ending in Zurich). Unfortunately Roo had to travel in a compartment under the plane for two of those legs.

I was in my seat and ready for the last leg of the trip (Amsterdam to Zurich) when the stewardess came up to me and asked, "Are you traveling with a dog"? The first thing that came into my head was "OH MY GOD!! What happened to my dog"? She explained that Roo was in her cage at the back of the plane and wanted to see if I wanted to sit by her. Well of course I did, so I traded places with a nice man in the last row of seats and Roo was strapped in next to me.

When the two of us FINALLY arrived at the Zurich airport it took some time to get to the exit but all of a sudden we saw Mike. There was a glass wall dividing us and that was like water torture. I finally went through customs (with not a single person looking at the dog or her paper work) and met with a big hug and kiss, like the movies. Roo went crazy when she caught his scent and wanted out of that cage as fast as she possible could. This task became every interesting because I had secured her cage with a zip tie so she would be safe. Since I was flying I of course did not have scissors to cut her free and it happened to be the first time “Eugene” was without is pocketknife. We finally found a nice lady at the newsstand that let us borrow a pair of scissors. We got Roo out and she was so cute with her excitement to see Mike. Mike told me later that she had seen him through the glass barrier and recognized him even then; he said that it was very heartbreaking. So after two long months we were all back together again.

Chalet LeRoo

Sorry for sucking in the blog department. Please come back and Ill do better.

This video was carefully designed for your viewing pleasure about one and a half months ago. About 15 minutes after making the video the big old truck arrived with all of our crap in it. From that point on it was crazyness... unpacking my underwear, unpacking my moogerfooger, unpacking all the packing material and trying to figure out where to stash it. Everything traveled pretty well.. well Cleo The Goldfish didn’t survive the trip...

So this video begins with a really stupid look on my face. The weather was really nice, but its not like that anymore. So sit back and relax cuz your about to be whisked away to Chalet LeRoo. But Wait! After the film join us for a small Shelly feature to fill in some of the holes since my last post.
Cheers,
e.