lauterbrunnen hike with becky & caitlin

For Becky and Caitlin's last day in Switzerland, I took them on one of my favorite hikes in the Lauterbrunnen valley. We had great weather which made for a great hiking day and great views of the mountains.

I introduced them to my friends the Swiss cows :)

Caitlin drinking from a mountain stream. She said it was very delicious.

We had so much fun taking goofy pictures. I sure do love these girls!

 

Probably the most hilarious piggy-back ride ever.

After a cable car ride down the mountain we walked to Trümmelback falls. It was my first time visiting the falls and it was very impressive. There is a series of 10 waterfalls inside the mountain.

Becky made friends with this goat.

 


This was such a great day and I will always cherish the memories of the good times with these two great friends. Thanks for visiting. Love you girls!

lausanne roadtrip

Becky, Caitlin and I went on a little weekend roadtrip to the west of Switzerland - the french-speaking part. This was really my first time west of the "Röstigraben". It is really funny to see when all of the "Ausfahrt" signs change to "Sortie". Our first stop was Broc and the Cailler Chocolate Factory.

The tour at Cailler takes you through the history of chocolate, you get to see one production line and then.....the sampling room!!!! After about 10 years of training for this in the form of Bloomington and Bright Indiana chocolate fests, I was ready. I did well and stuck to only the good stuff. Caitlin with her lack of chocolate fest-training couldn't resist and sampled everything. She suffered the rest of the day because that is just too much chocolate for one person!

Our next stop was Gruyère, the home of Swiss cheese!

We had a great lunch at the Gruyere cheese factory restaurant - rösti and älplermagronen.

Our next stop was Chateau de Chillon, just outside of Montreux. We walked around the castle to walk off some of the chocolate and cheese we'd eaten. The chateau sits right on Lac Lémon (Lake Geneva) and is really beautiful.

I'm beginning to realize what a LONG day this was, but the next stop was our wine "hike". This was by far my favorite part of the day. We walked along a path through the vineyards with Lac Lemon on our left side and the most breathtaking views. Unfortunately it was Sunday, so most of the wineries were closed, but we managed to stop for one tasting.

Finally we made it to Lausanne, where we stayed for the night. After finding a hotel and walking around a bit, we walked to the store, grabbed a light dinner and headed to the lake to watch the sunset. It was a little chilly, but we had a blast taking pictures and jumping around.

In the morning we woke up and went to Geneva. We didn't let the rain deter us and walked around the city and saw all the highlights.

St. Pierre Cathedral 

Le Jet d'Eau

United Nations 

Reformation Wall 

Broken Chair

Flower Clock

Crepes for lunch

On the drive home to Zurich we stopped in Bern to say hi to the bears, have dinner, and be entertained by Caitlin's seatbelt testing :)

caitlin & becky visit zurich

My good friends from IU Becky & Caitlin came to visit. Caitlin was coming from Kenya where she'd been working the past couple months and needless to say, suffered from some culture shock. We did a lot while they were here (more posts to come), but here are some pictures from while they were in Zurich: 

Caitlin bought TWO new pairs of shoes and both had PINK on them. For those that know Caitlin, this was an event in itself.

We had an impromptu roof party with my co-workers in honor of Lukas' last day at Deloitte.

IU girls with Daniela in an IU hoodie:

Day trip to Lucerne:

We were there during Lucernefest which equals lots of really yummy food stands: