June/July happenings....

Summer has finally made it here to Zurich.  April was a great month, weather wise.  May was okay but for part of June, it not only rained nearly every day, but was overcast and chilly as well.  Chilly as in 60 degrees for the high!  Recently though, the past few weeks have been excellent: sunny and warm. Unfornuately, last weekend it was rainy and chilly....and it was my birthday!! Yes folks, I have finally reached the big 3-0. It's quite a milestone actually. I am in a great place in my life, and Aggie still loves me. What more could I ask for!?

So I mentioned in the last blog, the Euro 2008 Soccer tournament was being hosted by the countries of Switzerland and Austria.  Therefore, the downtown area of Zurich had a "Fan Zone" area where big screens were set up for watching the games.  Plus, there were tons of food stands and vendors lining the lake front, inviting for an easy dinner option!  The games have been a ton of fun to watch and a few of our friends actually had tickets for some of the matches. The finals were on June 30th, where Spain beat Germany 1 - 0 in a barn burner.

Aside from all the soccer action going on, we have been meeting up with our friends for a few fun activities.  A few Saturdays ago, a group of us got together for brunch and then played cornhole down by the lake in Enge park.  That park is such a scene and of course, we fit right in by bringing the first and only cornhole game to the city.  The afternoon basically consisted of us drinking and playing...a perfect day in Hamilton right?  I have this dream of being the "Father of European Cornhole".  "We'll see!" says the Ag.


One weekend later we went to our friends, John and Helen's, for a tasty BBQ and then went out for just a bit.  Aggie wasn't 100% just yet, so she crashed early, but as I said before, she is getting her strength back day by day.

So far, the month of July has been lots of fun!  The first weekend in July (5-6th) began my birthday week as Aggie and I had a "spa weekend".  Aggie had received a very generous spa package from the family she works for and shared the gift with me.  We thought this would be great way to relax from all that has been going on over the past few months and that it would be an excuse to kick off my birthday celebration! Plus, I got some awesome hiking shoes and pants from Ag for by birthday (a week early but that's okay!).

We chilled on Friday night and then got up early on Saturday morning.  We drove down to the town of Schwyz, parked the car and then headed for Stoos, which is a car-free town (you could only get there by cograil up the mountain).  The ride was super easy (about an hour from Zurich), and we got there with no problems.


Up we went on the cograil for about 7-10 minutes.  When we reached the top, we got out and found the hotel with no problems...there was only this wellness hotel and then one other hotel in the whole town on top of this mountain!  There were a few shops around, but most were closed as they were ski shops.  


We went to the hotel and dropped off our bags.  Our plan was to go hiking in the morning and then get our treatments in the afternoon. The hike we chose was great! It ended up being roughly three hours total: two hours up and one hour back. The trail went up a mountain and through cow pastures. (We started at 4000 feet and hiked up to roughly 6200 feet.) It was quite the climb! The views were amazing too (be sure to check out the pictures).



The crazy thing and the scary part about the trail was that we literally had to walk through herds of cows....and these cows were not small! We have been on many hikes where we were in similar situations, but there was usually only 5-7 cows, and we were always with more people. Well, this time we had about 20-30 cows and no other people!

Our heart beats increased rapidily two times walking though two different pastures. On the way up, we passed through one pasture where the cows had horns and were about 5-10 feet away from the path. A couple was about 50 feet in front of us though and they got through with no problems so we thought we would be okay too. We were fine, but after we got through, we found a huge stick to use as "back up" if we needed it! We kept the stick for most of the hike up as it turned out to be a good hiking stick!

Then, the second cow pasture we encountered that was rather stressful was on the way back down the mountain. Of course, we had discarded our "protection stick" a while back! Two girls had just come through the pasture gate and we stopped for a second to survey the land. Aggie and I saw the cows and the path leading down the hill. The path seemed to lead to the backside of the cows; no problem we thought! Well, as we walked along, the path curved back around right into the middle of the cows! They were literally sitting on the path! We really couldn't go off path as the stones and mountain side would be an easy ankle twister. So we took a deep breath and maneuvered our way through the cows. It was nuts! One actually swatted me with its tail as I passed it. Anyway, we got through and made it down. We were really disappointed we didn't video tape the whole ordeal! It would have been some excellent coverage.

So, when we got back to the hotel, first thing was first - we grabbed a beer at the hotel!


Then we changed into our swimsuits and crashed on the lounge chairs out in the patio area. It was great! As we laid there, several people came out, walking around in white robes and slippers. At 3pm or so, our room was ready and we went to drop our things off. Sitting on our bed were big fluffy robes and slippers as well as towels and a "beach" bag. We felt like royalty! We slipped on our new "wellness gear", packed our bag with our towels and magazines and headed down to the spa.

First we had full body messages. That felt nnnnniiiiiicccceeee, especially after a challenging hike. Then, we had some time to kill before our next treatment so we went to the sauna and jacuzzi. Let me tell you, Europeans LOVE to get naked! There were naked people in the saunas, hot tub, steam room, etc. I have never seen so many booties before in one place, just walking free as can be. I had my speedo on, so I almost felt like one of them! Anyway, the time came and we got our pedicures. Yes, you read that correctly. Aggie got me a "Man Foot Treatment". I hate to admit it, but it was really nice!


That evening we had a delicious four-course dinner and some wine. We finished the evening off by reading and watching the sunset out on the patio, then headed off to the lounge area for a night cap. The next morning we had a huge breakfast spread, and it was very tasty! After eating we checked out and headed back to Zurich. The rest of the day we just hung out and enjoyed the nice weather.

My birthday week went pretty well...nothing too crazy went on. Of course (as I mentioned above) it was rainy and chilly all weekend. On Sunday afternoon we met up with our good friends, John and Helen, for a light dinner. They hooked me up with a great birthday gift...a bottle of Scotch and some Sprungli chocolate!


We have some other fun things going on in July...Helen's birthday was this weekend and our friends Laura and Robbie came into town to visit (we'll write more about that next week).  Next weekend I am running in a half marathon in Davos (middle of the Alps). In August we are heading to the French Riviera for a long weekend, and we will probably try to toss another trip in there, just not sure on the destination yet.  Then, my Uncle Terry and Aunt Phyllis will be vacationing in Europe at the end of August and will stop by to visit us.  I'm heading to London for a few days in September for work and Aggie might try to join me for part of the trip and visit with Darren and Nicole and their new baby, Alexandra. In early October we are coming home for a couple of weeks (and weddings). The summer is flying by!