Grindelwald and Alpine Procession

Hi Folks. Today is Sunday, September 30. Can you believe that tomorrow it's going to be October? Crazy. Anyways, here's what's been happening with us lately.

Last weekend we had our friends, Matt and Brandi, in visiting from London. We have been to see them and travel with them, so we knew this was going to be another fun weekend (refer back to the "London Calling", November 2005 and "Czech, please!", June 2006 blogs). They arrived late Friday evening at the Zurich airport and we picked them up and came back to our apartment. We had some wine, beer, snacks, rubbery cheese, etc. (We had a few cheese selections laid out and one cheese tasted like sweaty socks and felt like rubber to me...Ag and Brandi enjoyed it though!)

Saturday morning we got up early and drove to the small ski town about 2 hours away from our apartment, just outside of Interlaken. The town is called Grindelwald, and it was awesome (and not just because it sort of sounds like Lindenwald, either!). It was a really small, quaint mountain town....brown houses with the huge overhanging roofs and flower boxes on the window sills, situated all over the mountains and the landscape. Cows and sheep were grazing here and there...it was beautiful.

We went right to where our tour guide, Ms. Aggie T. Marcum, said we needed to be in order to begin our hike. We took a 6-seater cable car up from Grindelwald to the top of First Mountain (that's actually it's name, not just the order in which we climbed it). From there we took a path that leads between two lakes, then climbs up and across two more mountain peaks.

Matt, the navigator, just got a new GPS running watch that offers you the longitude, latitude, temperature, altitude, etc, of wherever you are on the planet. Well, of course we were informed of our "location" (Longitude N 46 degrees 39.743; Latitude E 008 degrees 03.086, Elevation 7242 ft) at the start of our hike and the distance we had walked from that point (a total of 6.35 miles) at several points throughout the journey!

The views from up above were pretty awesome as we looked down on Grindelwald and across to the glaciers of the Bernese Alps and their 7 peaks, including the Jungfrau. The lakes were beautiful and the cows were in full force just roaming around everywhere. We finally descended and grabbed a beer at a little restaurant near the end of the path. Then we returned to the valley (and the comforts of our hotel) by bus.

We headed back to our car and went to our hotel, checked in, showered and then went out for fondue. It was delicious! Despite the fact that we were as full as could be, we decided that we just couldn't go on without a good night-cap. So, we went to another restaurant for ice cream, apple strudel and coffee with Bailey's.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel and headed back to Zurich. We walked Matt and Brandi around the city, went to Hooters for a late lunch (they were craving wings since you can't really get the "good kind" in London, and I love the Hooters chicken sandwich, so...) and went to an Irish pub to watch soccer and rugby. Our visitors took off around 6:30pm and we headed back to the apartment to get ready for the work week.

Speaking of work, congrats are in order for Aggie!! She just got a job at a kindergarten/pre-school in the city. The teachers speak and teach the lessons in English and German so she is learning German right along with the kids which is really funny (yet really helpful!). It's a part-time job, so she does that a few days a week now and continues to babysit for the family with 4 girls who live down the street. She also babysits me, so her hands are very full!!

And now it's Sunday (as mentioned above), which leads us to the extremely random day we had yesterday. One thing the Swiss do here is "rotate" their cows between the lower plains and the mountains. Basically, when all the snow melts in the late spring/summer, they put the cows up in the mountains to graze on the lush, fresh grass. In the fall, before it really starts to snow again, they bring them down from the mountains to the lower elevations to graze for the winter.

In bringing them down, the Swiss throw parties and ceremonies galore. We have heard about this and found a festival about 45 minutes from here in Weggis (pronounced "Vegas", but that's about all the two cities have in common!). Weggis is a really small village/town on the Lake of Luzern. The town was really nice and the views of the lake and mountains were amazing.

As you will see from the pictures and videos, there were definitely a lot of cows! Basically, each farmer had a group of 8-12 cows "present" in the center. Each farmer would take a turn to put hats, flowers, large bells, flags, etc on their cows (bovine beauty!). Then, the farmer and a few others would put a temporary pen (e.g., a flimsy rope) around the cows and start leading them down the street. They would then walk the cows home to their farm!

Cars were stopped, the cows walked down major roads, crowds cheered, patties were left in a few too many places...at one point, a stray cow ran into the crowd, but was quickly corralled by one of the farmers' helpers. It was interesting to say the least! We stayed for a few "rounds" of the procession and then decided to head to Luzern for dinner.

We had gone to Luzern with big Ferd and Andrea back in September of 2006 and, while there, saw a restaurant we thought would be really cool to go to. Unfortunately, at the time they didn't have any openings (you needed reservations to be seated for dinner and, sadly, we didn't have any). So, Aggie and I thought we would see if we could find that restaurant again and make reservations.

Well, we got to Luzern with no problems, parked and walked around. We walked across the famous covered bridge and at the end was a mini-firemen's convention that was open to the public. They had old and new fire trucks on display, along with other fireman paraphernalia. More importantly, they had beer stands and brats grilling! We walked through that area and then wondered across another bridge and onto the cobblestone pedestrian roads to find a place for dinner.

We ended up finding our restaurant, the Stadtkeller! We went in and they had a few openings...dinner was to start at 7pm and live entertainment at 8pm. Perfect! It was almost 6pm, so we decided to head to a pub for a pint and watch some rugby to pass the time (the rugby World Cup is going on, so we have been keeping up with the tourney). After watching Fiji pull a huge upset on Wales, we headed out for our "real Swiss" dinner.

We were seated at the Statdtkeller with no problems, got our drinks and started eating our fondue, etc. The place started to get really crowded around 7:30pm when basically an entire tour bus full of US retirees exploded into the restaurant! The passengers were, literally, all American travelers aged 60+. We just looked at each other, realizing what we were in for. The rest of the seats around us filled up and everyone was speaking English. It was tourist land! (Not that this is a bad thing, but since we live here, we kind of feel like we should avoid these types of places)

Then, the music and entertainment began. We enjoyed alphorns, yodeling, cowbells, and other folk music. It was interesting and actually it wasn't that bad. It was kind of fun but after one too many yodels, we were ready to go! Oh, and I do have to say the food was delicious!

Now it's the end of the weekend and we are just getting ready for another busy week.

Some things going on:

- I'm heading to Oktoberfest next weekend with a few guys from work. We have reservations for a tent so I'm pretty pumped. All I have to do is go buy some lederhosen and I'll be all set. Aggie opted not to go so that we could have a "boy's weekend". What kind of woman did I marry…opting out of the biggest beer festival in the world?? This situation is currently under review…

- I have to go back to Luxembourg in a week or two for work. The plan is for Ag to meet me there and then we are going to head to Reims (the capital of the champagne region) for a weekend trip.

- Josh is coming to visit for Christmas! He gets in on Christmas morning (what a present!) and leaves on New Year's Day. We are busy bouncing around ideas on where we should go and what we should do.

Went to the chapel....

Our wedding pictures are up! We combined lots of pictures together for your viewing pleasure, and just to warn you, there are many of them. Thanks to everyone for taking pictures for us and who sent us links to pictures as well(see below). One of the CD’s in the professional set was copied incorrectly so a few pictures shown are cut off. We are getting a new CD sent to us to correct the issue. In the meantime, click on "check out our pics" and the links below. Enjoy!

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8IcN2bVy0cMJ0&emid=sharview&linkid=link5

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=0AZsnLFu3cNWL0Y&emid=sharview&linkid=link5

http://www.kodakgallery.com/ShareLandingSignin.jsp?Uc=15tyjv3x.byr69sap&Uy=t0vbhk&Upost_signin=Slideshow.jsp%3Fmode%3Dfromshare&Ux=1&UV=544621159326_431115195505

We're Married! Let's honeymoon in Detroit!!

So folks, the wedding was a blast. Thanks to everyone who made it into such a wonderful, fun day and night. The day flew by! Actually, the whole time we were home was a whirlwind. Let me begin....

The whole wedding/home trip began August 22nd when Agnes flew home to Cincy to finalize wedding plans and arrangements. She flew right into Cincy which worked out great and she was able to get lots of things done. In the meantime, I was in London for work, finishing up some things.

On Saturday, August 24th, Aggie and I met up in Chicago. I had to work at the E&Y office on Monday and Tuesday, plus our friends from Ireland (Laura and Robbie) who were coming in for the wedding were meeting us there. All worked out really well except for the fact that it took Aggie about 2-3 hours to get to the O'Hare airport that morning to meet me because of all the construction on the "L" that weekend. I ended up waiting for her (instead of the anticipated vice versa)! Once she finally got there, we jumped in a cab and headed to our hotel in Lincoln Park.

We got settledin and I went for a jog along the lake. Aggie went for a long walk with Kelly (one of her old roommates) around the neighborhood. Then that evening, we went to the airport to get Laura and Robbie. It took them 2 hours to get through passport control! Our evening plans changed a bit due to this delay, but we did get to meet up with our good friends Darren and Nicole and Pete and Liz. The other great thing about the delay was that it gave us a reason to rationalize getting late night Pequod's pizza....one of my favorite pizza joints in the city!

On Sunday we and the Irish went to breakfast and walked all around the city. That evening, Aggie went to Nicole's for a "trial" wedding hair practice thing (Nicole was Ag's hairdresser for the wedding). Me and the boys, in the meantime, went to Fogo. For those of you who don't know, Fogo is the all you can eat Brazilian meat house. We filled our bellies and basically ROLLED out of the place. We met up with the girls at a bar later that evening for a quick drink and then to bed we went.

Aggie and the Irish went shopping and hung out most of the day on Monday when I went into work. That evening we went to Emily and Nimesh's for Indian food and a few fun games of Nintendo Wii. Talk about a good time and working up a sweat! Bowling, tennis, golf...you name it, we played it.

Ag and I left Chicago on Tuesday for home. While we were home we just relaxed and did a few more wedding things....Ag had her last wedding dress fitting, we finished some arrangements for the reception, etc.

Friday morning was when all the fun began! We went to Dayton to pick up our good friends Steph and Pete, who flew in from Seattle. The car ride on the way back from the airport was far from quiet as Pete and I sat in front and discussed all of ND's football issues. Ag and Steph kept jabbering about the wedding, friends who were coming, etc, etc. We got back to my house and we boys went to get our tuxes. The girls went on to Ag's house. She was suprised with 2 dozen roses waiting for her there! From me of course!

Later that evening we all met up at the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner. My parents did a wonderful job putting things together for the evening. We did a "wine" theme to the whole thing, so the center pieces were empty wine bottles with cork candles on top. There was also fruit around the bases of the bottles. Thanks you's and favors to most of our wedding party were wine pourers, wine bottle openers, bottles of wine from France and Italy, etc. Everything went very smoothly and the there was even a slide show of Aggie and I growing up which was great! (Thanks go out to Mike and Kelli!!)

The wedding day came and went....Ag and her sisters were all getting ready at her house and I headed out there for some pre-wedding photos (yes, we saw each other beforehand). She was waiting for me in her dress and veil outside and she looked amazing. Once I refocused, our photographer started getting to work. (We have actually seen the pictures already and they look awesome! We should have them up for your viewing pleasure soon!)

After our "couple shots", we went to the church and took some of the wedding party shots there before mass. Then we had the mass and Fr. Tim did an excellent job for us! After mass, the wedding party and parents all piled into a limo bus and off we went to get a few more pictures at the Fitton Center in Hamilton. Once those pictures were finalized, we dropped the parents back at their cars at St. Pete's and onward we went to the reception!

We were a bit early to our own reception, so we hung out in the hospitality room, had some appetizers and drinks and watched the horrible ND game....just until halftime. We decided to mingle a bit with our guests and so out of the room we went and into the atrium where the cocktail hour was being held. We tried to speak with everyone, but it was tough to make complete rounds!

Everyone was finally seated and we got announced into the ballroom. We did the cake cutting and first dance and then we sat to eat. The food was gggggooooooodddd.....we were very pleased with the service that that Marriott offered. They did an excellent job.

The toast followed and, maybe I am being biased, but Ann (Agnes' sister), Zach and Josh gave some of the best speeches I have heard at a wedding. Both were very touching and funny. All I have to say, is "It must be love!".

The rest of the night was a blur as we walked around saying hello to people and catching up with friends and family. It was such an amazing thing seeing everyone you love and are close to in one room!

After the ballroom was shut down, we all headed to the hotel bar. There were about 20 of us there just chilling out. Then, the Irish began to sing some songs! All 5 of them starting singing some of the old Irish tunes and for some reason, Ryan Larkin was singing along with them (he knew the words)! It was a great time. Aggie and I retired to the honeymoon suite after we shut the bar down, but the rest of the group headed across the street to Mesh and BW3 for late night treats.

The next morning we held a brunch at the hotel for all the overnight guests. That was a huge success, the amount of food was perfect and the coffee was refreshing (and necessary). That day we just headed back to my parent's house to hang out and chill. Later that evening we all went to Aggie's for a BBQ. We made a big fire in their fire pit and roasted marshmallows and made smores. This was a first for the Irish and they LOVED the smores.

All five of the Irish left on Monday and we all just relaxed. Monday night Aggie and I made arrangements to stay till Friday, the 7th. Both Aggie and I were so tired and just on a high from the wedding that leaving the next morning didn't seem right. We were originally supposed to leave on Tuesday, Sept 4th to head back to Zurich. Long story short, we made some calls, transfered a few thousand miles and completed a few online surveys to get more miles (even after the miles transfer, we needed a few more...), etc to make it happen. Our new arrangements were to leave on Friday, Sept 7th and arrive in Zurich on Saturday, Sept 8th (today).

Not only did we want to stay to chill, go through gifts, have Skyline, etc. but I wanted to be around to support my dad. Unfortunately, my grandpa hadn't been in the best health and he actually passed away on Thursday. I was happy to be there to help and support my family as much as I could.

So, we then left yesterday for our 24 hour quest for Zurich. Because we changed our flights at the last minute, we only had so many flight options for our return back to Europe. We had to fly out of Chicago, there was nothing they could do to switch us to Cincinnati. Fine. Aggie's mom took us to Indy and we flew on a cheap flight from Indy to Chicago on Friday morning at 10:30am. We got in and landed at Midway. Well, we now had to get to O'Hare....which is about 45minutes -1 hour from Midway.

Our remaining flight schedule was as follow:
Chicago to Detroit; leave at 6pm and arrive around 7:30pm
Detroit to Amsterdam; leave at 10pm and arrive at 11am today, Saturday, Aug 8th
Amsterdam to Zurich; arrive in Zurich around 1pm

We landed in Midway with no problems and signed up for a shuttle to O'Hare. Well, it's a miracle we didn't die on the way to O'Hare! It ended up that we were in the jive and gettho van. One of the passagners whips out his rap CD (actually, HIS...he was a "performer") and the driver was all about playing it. Then the driver managed to weave in and out of traffic like it was nothing, leaving us feeling like bobble head dolls just bouncing around in the back seat. We finally got ot O'Hare about an hour later and were so happy to be on solid ground.

We got ourselves and our bags checked through all the way from Chicago to Zurich and we were set to go. We went to the Chili's at the airport and had some food and drinks. Finally, it was getting close to 6pm so we headed to our gate for our flight to Detroit. Of course, we didn't board till 7pm for our flight and then sat on the runway for 20-30 minutes due to bad weather in Detroit. An announcement came on the plane and said that because Detroit was so backed up and delayed, no one should have issues with connecting flights. Everything was behind schedule. Well, long story short, we finally land at 10:10pm and our flight was set to leave at 9:50pm. We literally sprinted to our gate, hoping for the best. When we got there, we see the ticket lady walking away and the plane backing out of the gate. We were crushed! We were so close yet so far away....

Of course, there were about 10 other people on our flight trying to catch that plane too, so why they didn't radio Detroit and ask them to hold the plane is beyond us. Talk about a mess. We went to the customer service area and there were additional 5-6 people trying to rebook flights too. Long story short, we were put up in the Best Western Hotel and given $60 bucks worth of airport/meal voltures that work with many resturants in the area.

We got to the hotel and went to the over priced and limited selection giftshop. We bought underware and deodorant. (The front desk gave us toothbrushes and toothpaste; very generous of them I must say.) We then went to the hotel bar, the Palm's Lounge. Talk about a bad movie! The waitresses were so bad and you could tell they hated their jobs...and each other! The decor was struggling in the place too. The only good thing was we could get a few beers and take them to our rooms. We then ordered some food from a nearby pizza place and chilled for the night. The best part was that as we were laying on the bed, you could see (and hear) the planes coming in for landings. I thought one was going to come through the window! The highway and the view of the large parking lot outside our room made our honeymoon suite top notch!

Today we went down to the contential breakfast and we had our selection of a few pieces of bruised apples and bread. The coffee was average too. The oranges were delicious though! We are now sitting in the Detroit airport once again. We hope to never return here as we feel our time in Detroit is done and done! We leave in a few hours for Zurich and keep your fingers crossed all goes well....