Trip with the fam: Arrival and Grindelwald.

Time to blog about our trip through Switzerland and southern Germany with my sister and parents!

On Friday, the 28th, we went to pick my family up from the airport in Stuttgart. We met up with them and headed back on the train to the main train station in Stuttgart to go to Grindelwald, Switzerland.

For some reason, the only train tickets I found that would fit our time frame were tickets that had about five transfers. At the time, I didn't think it was going to be a big deal, but man oh man, the ride down there was quite the ordeal! It was so fun though.

A bullet train at the main station in Stuttgart

Most of our train connections were literally about 10 minutes apart from each other. So before our train stopped, we would have to get our luggage off the racks and be standing right by the door ready to hop out and bolt to our next train several platforms away before it left. We made them all, with the exception of our connection in Basel, Switzerland. But that wasn't our fault though--the train was late by about ten minutes and we arrived just to see our next train pulling away. :(

It wasn't a big deal however, because Mark just went and got us tickets for another train to the same location that was leaving shortly after ours left, so we could catch it easily. What a relief! Did I mention that I love the transportation over here?

Mark and my dad on the train to Interlaken (Mark's face in this pic cracks me up!)

Hello Grindelwald!

A glacier in the mountains.

The view from our hotel.

The neighbors--The Alps.

Flowers with the Wetterhorn in the background. (I hope that is the right Alp, someone correct me if I'm wrong!)

After we arrived in Grindelwald, my sister's friends met up with us at the train station to take us to our hotel. My sister and brother met an amazing couple from Grindelwald (Daniel and Sue) earlier this year on a cruise around Hong Kong. They offered to let us come stay and would show us around, so we took them up on their offer. (How awesome is it that they happened to meet the nicest people who are also from the same place as our ancestors?!)

After we dropped our luggage off, they took us to their house and fed us the best Swiss food ever, complete with meringues and whip cream for dessert! Man oh man, it was good. Sue explained that meringues are originally from Meiringen, which is where she grew up. How cool is that?

The next day, we hopped a bus that took us up the hill and dropped us off at the top of a mountain pass. Our plan was to walk down the road back to our hotel, which doesn't sound like a long hike but it ended up being over three hours.

A quick picture before we headed up the mountain. Man, was it cold!

Our hotel.

Mom and Dad with the Alps!

The windy road up the mountain. You can see Grindelwald back in the distance!

Wild strawberries!

At the top of the pass, there was a Swiss flag. :)

The view of Grindelwald from the top!

Looking down towards the other Alps.

These huts are where the farmers put their cheese in the summer. From what I understand, the cows graze up so high on the mountain in the summer that it's hard to take their milk all the way back into the village everyday, so they just make cheese out of it and store it in these little buildings.

On the road, there was this equation:

Inattentive biker

Road

Bus

(That's supposed to be an equal sign, it's just rotated wrong in the picture.)

Hospital

Haha! Pretty funny, huh. Mountain biking is pretty popular in the Alps, and I guess that a lot of people zoom down the hills pretty fast and there are some lethal accidents. Even as we were walking down, a few guys came zooming by us pretty fast. I don't know how they dare go so fast because the roads are so windy and narrow!

Also, on the way up in the bus, the driver has to keep honking a horn so bikers know there is a bus coming. It's pretty cool and it sounds like a song. I have a video of it, but Blogger is taking way too long to upload it right now, so I might try it again later.

Wildflowers!

Part of the crew walking down the hill.

More Alps!

Christina getting a drink of fresh Alp spring water.

We walked on a trail for a little bit, and I almost accidentally stepped on this little guy. Isn't he so cute?! Be careful, little fella!

We came across this bird sanctuary (for lack of a better word). The birds that are in here were either injured, born into domestication, or were there because there were simply too many of them in the area, so someone takes care of them in this little shelter.

Who dat?!

Did I mention that owls are my favorite birds ever?

This little snowy owl was my favorite. He was sitting right by the edge of the pen and he just sat and stared the whole time and didn't move away! I think we instantly became best friends. :)

Uh oh, someone must have made him mad. Perhaps it was me taking all these pictures? haha! This puffy owl reminded me of the owl in "Sword in the Stone." Remember how he would puff up, too?

Boo!

I can't remember the names of these birds, but they are native to the area. We heard them a lot as we were walking down the hill.

Swiss cows with their bells! We heard the bells a lot, too.

My dad was puzzled as to what exact breed of cows these are, and he kept asking the locals. Haha! The ones that could understand him didn't really know, and others didn't understand him because they didn't speak English!

In the middle of this picture, you can see a little avalanche. We saw several of these on our way own. For its size it was surprisingly loud though. It rumbled!

Wildflowers everywhere!

Warning: Beware of cows on the road! Makes me feel like I'm home again.

In the morning, you often see farmers bringing their cows up the road to pasture. You can hear them coming, and usually theres just a few of them. But it's pretty cool to see! The cows just follow the farmer up the hill to their pasture.

A church in Grindelwald. Pretty huh?

Well, this post has taken me quite a while so I think I'm going to stop for right now. I'll pick up where I left off soon. Isn't Switzerland gorgeous?

Next post: Meiringen, relative finding, and more!