Weekend in Switzerland

Over the summer it seemed that I'd been in Switzerland more than I'd been in London for work. So when I found out that I'd be working on a project that would keep me there fore two consecutive weeks, rather than fly back to London for the weekend Sloane joined me in Zurich.



He flew in on Friday night and we spent Saturday morning walking around the city that I'd gotten to know pretty well over the last few months.



One of my favorite parts about Switzerland in the summer is that you can swim in the lake and river that surround the city. On this particular morning thousands of people had joined some sort of activities where they were all floating down the river with yellow rubber duck rafts.
We had plans to head up to the mountains that night to do a hike the next morning. On our way to the mountains we stopped in the city of Luzern

We spent a little over an hour walking around the lake and taking in the sights. It was a beautiful (and very hot) day...it was all we could do not to jump into the lake to cool off. Unfortunately we didn't have time for a swim as we had to get up to the mountain before it was too late and the gondola shut down for the night.

On our way back to the train station we passed a store with a very familiar name. My family story goes that in the early 1800's Johan Hofstetter left Switzerland to go to San Francisco. On his way there his boat stopped in Panama where he bought a pineapple which he later sold when he reached San Francisco and used the proceeds to finance what would become a banking business. Given my Swiss ancestry my last name is fairly common in Switzerland and I'm even told there's a Hofstetter's sports store in Geneva. Enough of the family history lesson though...

From Luzern we caught a train to Trüb and then a bus to Stöckalp.

Our last leg of the journey was the cable car from Melchsee-Frutt up to our hotel which would be the starting point of our hike the following morning.

Sloane was very disappointed when he found out that we were staying at the Hotel Glogghuis and not the Boni cabin.

After we dropped off our backpack we joined some of the locals who were having a festival near the lake. We enjoyed some beer, bratwurst and music and watched the locals (some in traditional dress) celebrate.
We weren't able to find exactly what the celebration was for, but there seemed to be a fair amount of attention paid to this "prize cow". Whether this was because of her adornments or the fact that it took 4+ men to get her to move anywhere we couldn't tell.

Before heading to dinner we walked around the lake toward the little chapel.
It's so peaceful and relaxing up in the mountains, we'd only really thought about making the trip to in the winter to ski...but to be up there in the summer was a real treat.

We finished our walk around the lake and headed back to our hotel (on the top of the hill) for dinner. In the summer, the farmers move their cows to graze up in mountains as the weather gets warmer. The hundreds of cows, moving around wearing traditional Swiss bells on their necks, make really a unique noise (as Sloane put it "enchanting").

We were lulled to sleep by the melody of the cow bells and woke up early to get going on our hike. The hike followed Lake Melch, from our starting point in Melchsee-Frutt to Tannen Lake.
We felt like we had just stepped into a guide book as we passed though the picturesque landscape.
We took our time making our way along the trail so we could take in the amazing views.
From Tannalp we descended to the deep-blue Engstlen Lake. This is where our climb over the Jochpass started.

After a few hours of hiking up over the Jochpass we reached the summit and were rewarded with a view of the valley below. The mountain range of the other side of the valley is Titlis Massif.

From here, we made our way across the Alpine meadows and down to Lake Trüb, the last lake of the hike. We sat down for lunch and Sloane somehow managed to convince me to jump into the lake (formed from glacial run-off) with him. I hit the water and was out again as fast as humanly possible...I think we throughly entertained the Swiss group picnicking next to us.

We finished off the day by walking down to Engelberg where we caught a train back to Zurich. Sloane flew back to London that night and I stayed in Zurich for another week of work.

Surfing in Cornwall

It had occurred to Sloane and I that in our travels around Europe we'd been neglecting our home base, the UK. So when we found out that one of the train lines runs a sleeper service to Cornwall we thought it would be a good opportunity to see a little more of jolly old England.

We didn't have high hopes for the beaches, as we've both been spoiled by growing up near white sandy beaches and tend to consider anything else with a fitting degree of snobbery. However, we'd heard that Newquay was nice and we managed to recruit a few of our friends to join us for a weekend surf trip.

While the weather was typically overcast and slightly rainy, the clouds cleared just in time for us to hit the water. We were all paddling around like professionals in no time.

The beaches proved to be better than expected and well all had a great time.

After a few hours in the water our group (me, Sloane, Francis, Cindy and Liz) were starving and had no trouble finishing off our lunch.

Newquay is one of those towns that seems trapped in another era, not unlike the coastline and boardwalk area of Santa Cruz where I grew up.

In the brief moments of good weather we were able to see why so many of our British friends had enthusiastically defended the merits of their beaches.

That night we decided to play a little mini golf before dinner. The girls beat the boys as their respectable performance was no match for Liz's 5 hole-in-ones. For those of you who don't know the story, Sloane and I are really competitive when it comes to mini golf. On our first date we played mini golf and I beat him by one stroke (determined after several recounts). There have been many rematches since where I, sadly, have failed to emerge victorious. I am proud to say, however, after our game in Newquay I have reclaimed my title and beat Sloane!

After mini golf we walked along the cliffs and watched the setting sun before making our way to a Mexican restaurant for dinner.

The next day we got up for another morning of surfing. Things were going well until I happened to step on a Weaver fish, a nasty little fish that injects poison into its victims. I tried to ignore the pain and the swelling that was moving up my foot and into my calf because there was no way I was going to give up surfing for the rest of the morning. It might not have been the wisest decision as the whole ordeal of "drawing the poison out" that I went through when we were done was one of the more painful things I've gone through in a while. I ended up with foot that was swollen and purple for almost a month...thank you Mr. Weaver!

We hung out at the bar where our surf school was located while I recovered. Had some food, played some pool (or snooker...I still don't really know the difference), and just horsed around. Cindy, Sloane and Francis strike their model poses for the camera in front of the bar.

As always, the weekend went by much to quickly and we were beat as we waited to catch our connecting train back to London. Our sleeper train that got back to London on Monday morning and we went straight from the station to a LONG day of work.