The Highs and Lows of Switzerland

The highs......

Every since I read about the scenic snow trains, I have wanted to go on one. I went to Switzerland on a USO tour - but we were not near where the snow trains depart from. It is rather expensive for a roundtrip ticket, so I was thinking I would not get to go....but.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME! Since I will be traveling home on my birthday we celebrated it early. We took the Snow Train from Chur Switzerland to Tirano Italy and back again. It was AMAZING! I love the snow and I love trains - so Chris decided to humor me and pretend to be interested. He admitted that the first half hour of our 4+ hour journey to Italy, he was thinking it would be a long trip - but then as we climbed further in to the Alps - the beauty captivated him! Something I noticed on the trip is that the Swiss seem to like to add H's to their words. Now, wouldn't you think that Chur is pronouced similar to Chair - you know - the C + H together - make the ch sound? Well, nope, we quickly learned that it is pronounced Kerr (like the canning jars). I wondered why they added the H - but then I realized that many of the towns in Switzerland have the H added to T, C or S and it is just silent. Why on earth add the extra letter? I am guessing it is just to confuse the Americans... Anyway - once we arrived in Italy, we ate outside on the patio of a nice itallian restaurant, and then took the snow train back to Chur. I will say that the snow train was a marvelous experience and if you love snow and seeing pretty things - you would love to take a ride on the Snow Train! We saw skiers, snowboarders and snow kiters. It looked like so much fun! While on the train, I had a little bit of fun with a man that snored the entire time... not sure why he wasted his money to take a nap - but to each his own. I giggled so much at his loud snoring. There was a little french lady sitting near us - we could not understand much of what each other were saying - but we sure did have fun giggling at the snoring man! I decided to take a a little video of him, and before I knew it - the entire train was chuckling - lol. It was pretty funny, but sad about that man wasting his money.

The lows....

As I was in the hotel checking out and paying our bill, ready to leave Switzerland to go to Austria, Chris was out taking a few last minute pictures.... and getting his wallet stolen. Yep - thats right... we are thousands and thousands of miles from home - and someone steals Chris' wallet! When the police were called, they refused to come out. They said they do not come out for that. I guess thats why they claim not to have much reported crime - they do not allow you to report it! I guess it is true that they are still a neutral country - neutral with thieves too....

So, needless to say, we had lots of fun cancelling credit cards and all the fun that comes with a stolen wallet. And Chris will have even more fun when he returns home - standing in line to get a new license. Poor Chris..... but at least I had a good "early" birthday :)

Preparing to Return Home

As the day of our return gets closer and closer, we both continue to get more and more excited! Chris and I had an awesome date last night! We went to our favorite restaurant here, Mama Marias Italian Restaurant. We just love the guy that owns the place! While there, we played a little game we call "I am excited about". We take turns saying what we are excited about. Our game lasted a long time since they were so busy. As crazy as it sounds, our trip we are about to take was not even mentioned. We were more excited about things related to going home and things we will do when we get home. Oh - I am sure that we will have a great time - but the thoughts of returning home are just so more exciting! I am anxious to see my mom again - even though my time in WV will be very short. I am excited to see my sweet TaiChi dog again too. I am hoping that she will not be mad at us and that she will be happy to see us again. Just in case, we will stop and get her a nice bone to give her when we return.
Its hard to believe that a room in the Army Lodging Hotel has been "home" for 4 months. We are checking out of here today and when we return from our trip, we will be staying off base instead of on base. We have to turn our IDs in, so we would have to move off base any way for the last couple of days.
Shortly after we returned from Iraq, Chris received a nice bonus check for referring an employee to SAIC. When he got it, I decided to let him do whatever he wanted with it without complaining. Well, he decided he wanted a big screen TV. Now... let me just say that when we left to go to Iraq - I had a nice BIG craft room. When we returned, our house sitters had moved our couch in there and I decided I liked the way it looked, so I decided I wanted to leave it there. So now, I was sharing my craft room with the couch and a pretty small TV. Well, Chris decided the best place for the grandfather clock we purchased in Italy would be - where? The bonus room - which is supposed to be my craft room! So we removed the drawing board that had belonged to my daddy and put it in storage temporarily. So, now, he was saying he wanted to move a bigscreen TV in it. I told him that it was not the most responsible thing to do with the money but I would not complain - no matter what he decided to do with the money. But soon, he had me excited about it as well - so that is what he purchased. Luckily his brother (Steve) and Steve's wife (Dana) showed him on the internet a site that told you what size of TV is best for your size of room. Thanks to them, Chris agreed not to buy an oversized one. {{huge thank you to you Steve and Dana!}} Because of the other additions to MY craft room -my craft area was reduced and moved to the corner of the room... Anyway, we got the TV and Chris brought it home and set it up - added his gaming systems, a laptop computer and dvd player to it. He was like a kid in a candy store. HOWEVER, I deflated his enthusiam when I announced that he could have the bigscreen TV, but we would not be getting cable until he went back to work. So much for his summer of fun with the bigscreen - lol. Even though I informed him that he was not to get cable yet, I never complained - and luckily he abided by my wishes. We have not had cable for YEARS. So, yesterday guess what I did? I contacted the cable company and made an appointment for them to install cable. I have to admit, I am a little excited about the thoughts of curling up on the couch and watching TV and movies in High Definition. It doesn't always take much to make me happy.

Prague, Czec Repulic and Poland

Prague? Where the heck is Prague anyway? And why did I want to go? Quite honestly, I wanted to go because of the TV Show Alias. Did you ever see that show? Sidney Bristow ROCKED! She went to Prague many times on her spy missions. Well, Prague is in the Czech Republic. In February, we decided to drive up there and see where Sidney Bristow did all her spy stuff. It was not a bad drive from Stuttgart. We made reservations at a "Botel". It is a pretty much just a plain old boat turned in to a hotel. It was not fancy - but, since we are boat people, we LOVED it. The best part was the HUGE window in our room! The view was awesome. There are a few pictures in the slide show that show our view. Like any other city, there were sections where graffiti littered the beautiful buildings. We found the transportation system tricky there, mostly because of the language barrier. Since we were so close, I suggested we drive to Poland for a sausage. Well, we did not find any polish sausages there (maybe they are just called sausages there - not polish sausages). Polland is known for their beautiful pottery. Chris and I picked up a few pieces and sent home. We really enjoyed the drive through rhe countryside, but it was a little sad to see what the war had done to that country - they still have not recovered completely. It made me think about Iraq and how if we pull out too early, we will do to the Iraqis what the Russians did to the Polish. You have to admit, the US left Germany in a lot better condition than Russia left the territories they were responsible for. You can really tell the difference in that we helped rebuild Germany after the war. Anyway - enough war talk.... Our trip was - as they all are - wonderful. I can not say that the Czech Republic or Poland are places I have a desire to visit again. But I can check them off of my list of places to see.

Wilhelma Zoo in Stuttgart Germany

There is an awesome zoo here in Stuttgart. It is actually a zoo, aquarium and botanical gardens all in one. The layout is awesome, the landscape is terraced and you kind of walk up to different levels. We only spent a day there and there was a LOT we did not get a chance to see. It was a great zoo and we had an awesome time.

We got some cool video too.... the monkeys playing was the funniest. We also got a really cool video of the little piggies being fed. It was so cute to see them get all worked up when they saw them coming to "slop" them. And me. being me, had to take lots of unconventional pictures.... I got pictures of the animals bottoms and got video of some going potty - disgusting but humorous to my twisted mind....

Baltic Coast and Denmark

Chris had a few days off prior to New Years, so we took a drive up to the Baltic Coast. We stopped in Hamburg to meet Chris’ cousin (Earnest) who he had never met. We had a great time with Earnest and were happy to have been able to meet him. He is a fun guy and we hope to see him again sometime. We drove on up to the Baltic Coast – which is beautiful. We took a ferry to Denmark. Denmark was nice, but if you got off the main roads, you were pretty much lost. There were not many signs once you got off the main roads. Not that the signs would have done much good – because they were not in English. If you could find someone who spoke English, they were extremely nice and helpful. Of course we went to the Hard Rock Café in Copenhagen. The next day we drove back to the coast and crossed in the ferry again. We went lighthouse hunting, but could not find very many. It was a great trip and we made it back to Stuttgart on New Year’s Eve – just in time for the fireworks!