It's been too long...

Wow I just decided it was time to jump back into this blogging and catching up - and it's been since the end of October! Geesh Carrie. Well life has been quite a roller coaster ride since around then.  Tunisia was going through some unrest so I took off to meet Alo in Budapest where he was working in late September. Then one of my best friends, Maggie, came to meet me in Europe and we traveled around for a couple weeks.  After that we had many visitors including our friend Charlotte from Madrid and most importantly - Alo's mom and her friend from TX! We were so happy Alo's mom was able to come visit us - she always planned to come to Indonesia as well but time got away and before you knew it we had left so this was a real treat for us! After that I went home for the holiday early and just got back about 2 weeks ago! Home was a world wind of things going on as usual - but this year was extra special and exciting because of one huge thing that happened - Alo and I got engaged!!! Yep - after 4 years and living in 2 foreign countries and traveling our buns off - we're getting married!

I'll make sure to post about all the exciting things I mentioned above but first I want to wrap up our our trip last August to Switzerland...

After Lucerne we didn't have a plan. We kept our last 2 nights "free" so that we could kind of plan as we went and decide what we loved and wanted to go back to or might still want to see. We headed from Lucerne to Lake Brienz for the day. It is just GORGEOUS. I was told by everyone before our trip that we HAD to see Interlaken area and Lake Brienz but man were they right! I will say from our 1 full day in the area, Lake Brienz was our favorite. We stopped at the local grocery store, filled up on some goodies, and drove around the lake until we found a spot to set up a relaxing day with a picnic.  It was by far one of our favorite days on the trip. Nothing to do but enjoy the beautiful scenery and relax - we had no plans or expectations of the day so it just felt nice compared to our jam packed schedule previously.

We had some visitors!

We both jumped in and went for a QUICK swim - wooo it was freezing!

We stayed in a little town we stumbled upon called Grindelwald, in the Jungfrau region, and our sweet little hotel had this sign that I just loved! Will be making a sign like this for my house someday :)

For our last free day we decided to try to find a chocolate factory and see the Chillon castle so on the way we stopped in Bern to check it out. The old city centre is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site and Bern was ranked one of the world's top 10 cities to live in for best quality of life - Switzerland in general gets this award if you ask me!

We visited the Caillers chocolate factory and just loved it! Definitely worth doing if you want to see how it's done and how chocolate first came to life :)

 See all the different shades of colors on the wall? Yup those are all different kinds of chocolate bars - candy heaven!

And then for the best part - the tasting! Never.have.eaten.SO.much.chocolate!

And lastly, the Chillon Castle in the french speaking region of Switzerland on the shore of Lake Geneva...

The toilet! Not bad for dating back to possibly the 12th century!

After touring the Chillon Castle for hours we headed back in the direction of Milan where our flight left the next day hoping to find a sweet town in Switzerland on the way to stay the night in. Thanks to our bad navigating skills - we accidentally ended up back in Italy and stayed in some random little town in the mountains. I swear I've sadly forgotten the name but was near Aosta I believe. Ops! Next time we'll pay more attention to the route instead of unintentionally getting on a toll road that cost like 30 Euro with no way to turn around! This entire trip to Italy and Switzerland certainly ranks up there at my top favorite adventures Alo and I have taken together :) 

Furka pass and Lucerne

When driving from Zermatt to Lucerne the drive is just beautiful - AND scary. Yes I said scary referring to the Furka Pass.  We of course didn't know what we were up against because we were following our trusty GPS :) The photos really don't make it look nearly as scary as it was. If you search the youtube videos they show you a bit more and how incredibly curvy it is. The scariest part is the road is very narrow and there are no guardrails, just a couple cement boulders far apart on the side of the road so you can literally look straight down the mountain and it is FAR down! yikes. At times we even passed big greyhound buses on this road and that was the craziest part. We would literally have to reverse it until we found a larger curve or place to pull off so the bus could pass. Luckily Alo was driving of course - I would have had a panic attack! ha. 

The Furka pass was in the James Bond film Goldfinger. If you click HERE you can see a clip from the movie (it's featured in the beginning). Also, HERE is another video so you can sort of see what it's like. Alo and I just love this ladies accent!

 

If you click on the photos so they are larger you can see the tiny roads above and in the pic below (right side of Alo) 

Even though the drive was probably 3 hours or more we enjoyed every second in the car. The things you get to see and the tiny towns are so cute. The grass was such a vibrant green and all the cows are just so darn happy! Alo and I decided they definitely have the happiest cows in the world :) We had to stop so Alo could get some cheese!

 

Lucerne was our first "big city" in Switzerland but we loved it. Certainly a very different feel like than the countryside of course (which was our favorite!).  It really doesn't feel that large and pretty easy to cover the sites in a day.  The city was filled with tons of young and hip young people - there must be a big University of some sort right where we were.

The Chapel bridge is one of the main sights in Lucerne. It's a wooden bridge that dates back to the 14th century.  It's Europe's oldest wooden covered bridge as well as the world's oldest surviving truss bridge. How gorgeous are the flowers hanging off the side?! 

 

We drove to Engelberg for the day from Lucerne to see the show cheese factory.  It's a cheese shop and show cheese factory located in a monastery.  You'd think being from Botetourt with so many farms I would have seen the process of making cheese before but I haven't! It was neat to see the assembly line that goes on all day long over and over to produce their signature cheese (it was like a Brie cheese).  Inside the shop you can also order food as well as buy so many different kinds of cheeses.  I wish I had taken a photo of what I ate because it was SO yummy. It was a piece of thick homemade bread with white wine, pear and bacon smothered in cheese. Trust me it was amazing! Alo tried the local sausages with their cheese inside which were tasty too. All around a great day at the cheese factory :)

After stuffing ourselves with lots of yummy cheese we headed to Richard Wagner's house in Tribeschen on Lake Lucerne.  He was a famous German composer who lived in Tibeschen for six years.  You would surely know his one song he composed - the Wedding March - as a kid you may have sang it "Here comes the bride - all fat and wide" haha. His home was nice but the views were just wonderful since it was surrounded by a large piece of land sitting right on the lake with views of the mountains as well.  The most fun part about the museum was that we suddenly heard loud horns playing, looked out the window, and saw a bride and groom arriving with a small party of about 10 people. I guess they decided to have a tiny reception with champagne and snacks at Wagner's house. Very cute and intimate idea - except for all the random visitors like us who got to stand by and peak into their pretty day!

Alo pretending to be a composer - he thinks he's so funny!

Below is the Lion Monument in Lucerne.  It was built to honor the Swiss guards who were killed in 1792 during the French Revolution.  Mark Twain said the sculpture of the lion as the "most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world".  

Off to Lake Brienz! 

Something about this photo I just love. Can you see the teal blue lake in the background?  It's not Lake Brienz but a small lake on the way - I had never seen a lake like this in my life - my kind of lake! :)