Wow! its been forever since we've been able to have a blog post! There has hardly been any internet where we've been, but this cafe let me bring in my computer so we could put up the blogs we had on it!
Right now all we have is Switzerland and Venice. Brit was working on Rome, but she got sick today (but doing better), so we will have that to yall soon as well.

Switzerland: So after a charming but short time in Germany we started off early for Switzerland. We had a few “pee pee stops” as Vitor (our tour director) calls them and then finally stopped for lunch at a cuckoo clock shop in the Black Forest. We walk into this cute store and see hundreds of cuckoo clocks lining the walls. One of the guys there even gave us the inside scoops on the clocks and showed us how they worked. A few of us got some souvenirs and we all had lunch before we headed off towards Switzerland again. Several hours later we took another pit stop at the beautiful Rhine Falls. There was the huge falls that fell off into a lake surrounded by mountains and trees everywhere. It was definitely a marvelous sight to see. While there, we continued to eat and eat… we can’t seem to stop! I got a delicious donut filled with vanilla pudding…the best donut I’ve ever eaten! Kaci and Erin got chips and Brit got some kind of coffee, some Swiss chocolate and was still eyeing the ice cream, but stopped short when we were giving her a hard time! Back on the bus we tunneled under many mountains and curved left and right until we could finally see our hotel way on top of the mountain. The bus driver had a pretty hard time navigating around the mountains since the turns were so sharp, but we made it! The view is amazing up here! It is so peaceful and you can see everything! We picnicked on our balcony enjoying the breathtaking mountains, lakes and town below us and are excited for the day ahead of us up to Mount Pilatus!

Day 2 in Switzerland was an early start as we wound down the mountain from our hotel into the city. Vitor announced that he had some vouchers for free presents for us. I was real excited…I love free! As we anxiously waited for our free gifts we shopped around a Swiss souvenir shop buying things for our loved ones. Soon Vitor arrived with our vouchers and we got tiny silver spoons, one from Rolex and the other from the Swiss souvenir shop. When we were done at these places we wandered around the town Lucerne looking in boutiques and trying to find a place to eat. We found a sandwich place that looked good so we tried to get some stuff from there. Our little stop turned into a small fiasco….The thing is people in Europe are real weird about where you eat your food. If you want your food in a “to-go” bag, then you better take your food to go, OR ELSE! Well we had kind of figured out their stinginess by now so we all ordered sandwiches to eat at the place, but Kaci and Brit wanted to order salads in addition to their meals, which were only provided in “to-go” containers. First, this was a huge problem, because the lady would not give Brittney a salad because had ordered a “eat-in” meal. Somehow Kaci was able to get a salad, but then they gave Kaci, Erin and I our sandwiches in a “to-go” bag (which we did not order). We decided not to complain about it and just eat at a little table outside. We had not so much as two bites of our food when a waitress hostilely approached us demanding that we leave the premises because we had “to-go” bags. It was a weird, weird ordeal, so we went 10 feet across the street to a bench and ate our meals there and grumbled about the poor customer service that we have received more than once during our stay in Europe! Sure makes us appreciate American service!


But back to mountains... The scenery, like I have mentioned before is just incredible: rolling hills, tall mountains, and green, green, green everywhere you look! We rode a steep tram up to the top of the mountain – the sign said that this tram was the steepest in the world! And I don’t doubt that! The whole group hung out on top for a few hours. It was great to just take in the mountain air and ponder how awesome our God is! It’s hard to miss his beauty when you are in such an amazing place as this!
On our way down, the four of us rode a cable car and got some good conversation in during the 30 minute ride. It was starting to get late so when the whole group returned, we got some food at the grocery store and returned to our hotel for another relaxed dinner, before calling it a night and turning in early! Italia awaits us, and we want to be fresh!
-Jackie and those other ones!