Rainy days and hogs. Life is sublime.

Saturday was moving day.  I shipped two suitcases ahead of me to the Zurich Airport since it is only 10 minutes by bus from my apartment. That left me with just my backpack and one carry on size bag to lug around with me and use for my last night up on the Alps.

The day was rainy.  A continuation of yesterday.  No let up.  A constant rain.  Not downpour. Rain. Steady. Drizzle.  By the time I had made two train changes, my backpack was soaked and so was my suitcase.  I was too, but I had my raincoat on and was carrying my new umbrella so the soak was on the outside. :)

The view was minimal.  Some would describe it as non-existant.  The clouds hung very low on the Alps.  As a matter of fact, if you didn't know giant mountains were there, you wouldn't have a clue.  There was zero visibility.  ZERO visibility.

I scrapped my plan to eat lunch at this fabulous restaurant on the edge of a cliff because it would just be paying for an expensive meal and seeing nothing during the hour it took the restaurant to revolve.

The hotel was Pension Gimmelwald and it was delightful.  It had an old world charm and was quite homey.  Rick Steves (travel guru) LOVES Gimmelwald and his description of this place is right on the money.  Real folks doing a great job for reasonable prices. 

The weather was drizzly and cold outside, but the staff and the friendly guests all gathered in the lodge dinner hall and hung out doing things on computers with a very slow Internet WiFi that kept going out since there was such heavy cloud coverage.  But travelers met travelers and shared a nice evening.  Here, hotel worker Barnaby (the blond guy) flirts with a couple of gals from Washington state while the newlyweds of two years are in the right corner.  Nice, fun group.  Next morning, we got up to a lovely country breakfast and two chickens looking in the window at us....checking out to see if we are eating EGGS, no doubt.  :)

As I left the hotel in the morning....

From the windows of buses and trains

As you can tell by now, I've spent a lot of time traveling all around by trains or buses.  I am always looking out the window.  Sometimes I can grab my camera and get a pic of something I see, but there have been soooo many amazing things I have seen that there was no way I could capture them for y'all.  I'll just have to tell you about them.

First, I wondered about deer.  All that beautiful woodland, but I never saw even one deer or any type of animal in the wild.  I began to think that maybe they were all rounded up and taken to some preserve.  I asked and was told that no, there are deer in the woods.  AND, there are even signs warning of deer in the woods on the highways.  Finally, I saw two young deer one rainy morning.  Mystery solved.

Then, one time I saw an empty kayak floating down the river.  It was funny to imagine how it got there...someone overturned and it floated off?  Became untied from its mooring?  As I watched it float serenely along, a woman jogger was jogging on the side of the river.  As she came upon it, she stopped in her tracks and had the funniest look on her face.  It was clear she didn't know what to do about it.  Who to tell, what to do....funny.  And it floated on past her....

Then there are the animal sightings.  Plenty of cows.  Plenty of sheep.  I saw some buffalo in one spot one time.  I saw a cat laying as if it owned a whole field, just right in the middle of the field.  I saw another cat running to the house door as if someone had just called it.  

The coolest animal I saw was running right beside a cornfield.  A row or two of the field had just been cut down that day and there was this good-sized fox running right along the rows of corn.  It was red and had a black bushy tail.  Its feet were also black.  Really a pretty sight.  Quite interesting.

Queenie is in Switzerland

So I'm sitting in the cable car station in Gimmelwald waiting to get the ride out of the Alps on the cable car when the station door opens and out exits a cat.  I haven't seen hardly ANY cats so I am immediately thrilled.  And then this cat came right up to me and expected me to pet her.  So I did.  She looked like and acted like another cat I know:  Queenie.  The Franklins' cat.

I was talking away to her for a few minutes when it dawned on me....that cat does not know English.  It probably couldn't understand a word I was saying!  So I stopped talking and just petted her.  lol

One final explanation about Gimmelwald is this pretty little hut perched upon some rock stilts.  This is the cheese hut. It is where Alps cheese is stored.  The rocks are to elevate it so the mice don't get to the cheese.  

When the farmers send their cows to the Alps for the summer to eat the grasses, there are university students (on summer break) that join the Alps farms to help take care of the extra cows during the summer months.  The students milk the cows twice a day and keep track of the cows, caring for them.  The Alps farms then take the milk and make Alps cheese.  It is only made during the summer months and is often called Alps cheese, named by the certain areas.

The farmers down below, minus their cows for the summer spend all their time making hay.  Literally.  They make hay for their cows to eat during the winter time.  They enjoy a break from tending their cows, but the are very busy making hay.  While the sun shines.  :)


I got lost briefly, but look what I found!

Sunday was a big day in the Ex-pat world of Zurich (and other parts of CH too).  For several years now, the English speaking community gathers together in one giant exhibition hall and shares what talents and skills and goods they have.  There are numerous exhibits, covering a huge range of goods and services--all  valuable and helpful when it comes to living in a foreign country.  Heck, there were many that would be great in ANY country, even at home in the USA!  The IRS would love that....then it could tax the Ex-pats some more.  (Joke.  There is a huge unrest over here as they are double taxed, by  IRS and Switzerland.)

Look at my haul of freebies....a giant stack of brochures, two toothbrushes, an umbrella, kleenex, mints, a Butterfinger, a muffin with a Basel-land flag, and a business card case with a mirror for checking your lipstick surreptitiously.  :)

But, as I was saying....I got lost on my way there.....

As I was searching for the Expo, a couple of blocks before I found it, there was another event taking place.  A REALLY COOL EVENT.

It was the Pelican Chapter Zurich-City 
Harley Owners Group.  HOG.  And they were having a charity event.  

A charity ride event.  YES!!!

I couldn't put my money down fast enough.... 

They fitted me with a helmet, a jacket, and assigned me a HOG with its owner.  





His name was Renny and one of the lady HOG owners said his ride was a Road King.

Renny took me for a 30-minute ride all around Zurich and the lake area.  There were about six HOGS in this one group.  There were several groups leaving all different times--whenever there were charity riders ready.

I'm telling you....that was SWEET.  Sweet. Sweet. Sweet.  

I could get used to that ride.  Easy rider LeBaron.  Yeah!  I'll have to learn how to not look like such a dork.  I think they have rules against that.  lol  (I just couldn't quit smiling.)