Europe Update - Swiss Ms. & Mr.

Hallo friends and family! We write to you following our 2-day stay in Interlaken, Switzerland. Switzerland was a little slice of Heaven for us. Since Prague, we were feeling a bit exhausted and decided to slow down the pace of our trip a little bit. Trying to see everything that could possibly be seen was getting to be too much. The small town of Interlaken was just our speed.

On Tuesday, we rented a scooter and scooted a little ways up Jungfrau mountain, where we saw incredible green down-slopes, adorable mountain villages, mountain waterfalls, and lots of fog. It was rainy and cold, but we had such an amazing time! We stopped to wander around a bit in Lauterbrunnen, a small village in the valley of Jungfrau mountain, and visited the town church which was small and sweet and heartwarmingly beautiful. After that, we scooted back down the mountain and headed over to Brienz lake to hike around. It was the cleanest, greenest lake we'd ever seen!

That evening, we dropped off our scooter and went to the Chalet, a restaurant where we read there was going to be "yodeling and alphorn blowing every Tuesday night". We had dinner, Rugenbräu (the local brew), and a most pleasant evening. We met folks from New Brunswick, Canada, and from my homeland (Milwaukee/Mequon/West Bend, Wisconsin). Even more fun than that was talking with the lovely bartender, Rada, and the two inspiring accordionists/alphorn players/yodelers who were performing. They were a man and woman duo, aged mid 60s, dressed in traditional Swiss folk costumes. The man played the alphorn brilliantly and the woman yodeled such that we felt like our hearts cracked wide open. This was a musical experience that affected both of us emotionally and even physically. Thayer and I agreed that her yodeling was one of the most beautiful sounds we had ever heard.
Rada, the bartender, was so delighted that Thayer spoke German that she spoke with us frequently throughout the night, and even called on Thayer to translate between her and other English-speaking customers. She invited us back the next night, so we returned Wednesday for dinner, more Rugenbräu and more conversation with Rada. She asked that we send her a photo from our wedding next May, and wished us lots of love, happiness, and health.

On Wednesday before dinner, we took a train back up to Lauterbrunnen to see Trümmelbachfälle, which are ten glacier waterfalls INSIDE Jungfrau mountain. It was a very unique experience: taking an elevator up the inside of a mountain, and getting to walk around and see waterfalls crashing and carving out their paths in the mountain.

On the 50 minute walk from Trümmelbachfälle back to the train, we came upon a small flock of sheep with bells on in the far corner of a small field. Thayer said, "Baaaa!" and a couple of them looked up from their grazing to see who was talking to them. Thayer repeated his call, and one by one they all started walking over to us. Soon, we had about ten sheep within arms reach. At first we didn't know whether to feel threatened or befriended, but came to realize the sheep were friendly, and probably interested in these new, odd-looking sheep who spoke their language.

This time we had a fine hostel experience at the Happy Inn Lodge. The beds were a bit springy but the company was respectful and friendly. The lodge is right on top of a happening bar, and the reception desk IS the bar, which was interesting. The bartender took a moment between delivering drinks to give us our room key when we checked in.

We are definitely interested in returning to Switzerland someday. And you really can't beat the chocolate.

We'll write again soon!
Much love,
Hayley and Thayer

**Memorable Trip Quote**
Hayley: It's so beautiful here!
Thayer: Yes, pretty! [Singing] Pretty pretty pretty PRETTY!
Hayley: There's a lady behind us so you might want to curb the crazy.

Europe Update - WE LOVE PRAGUE! WE LOVE SALZBURG!

Well, we've got our traveling shoes on again! And while we're on the train to Interlaken, Switzerland, we are preparing our next update for you! This update is a longer one, but we've been a few places since we've last written.

The last few days have been a whirlwind. We left you last on our way from Berlin to Prague. Seeing Prague was the suggestion (nay, DEMAND) of my sister, and we are so glad we heeded her advice. Why do we love Prague? Well, for starters, we were 9 days out and Prague was our first hot shower experience. (It may have gotten cold at the end, but it still counts!) We also love Prague because it is breathtakingly beautiful. The beauty may have been what got us through those first scary moments after arriving on the train Thursday evening and realizing that we didn't speak Czech and somehow had to find a hostel before nightfall. A set sun and 3 hostel quests later, we were settling into Hostel AZ, where a 6-bed room was a welcome change from the 20-bed room in Amsterdam.

Everywhere you look the buildings are old and pastel colored and lit up at night. The old town square has a giant Astronomical Clock that not only tells the time, but the current astrological position. Every time you happen to glance northwest, you catch a jaw-dropping glimpse of Prague castle.

Since Hostel AZ was booked the rest of the weekend, Friday morning we got up and moved house to Hostel Chilli, where we enjoyed a foam-and-springs bed that was surprisingly comfy, free internet, and 6 other roommates who came in from partying at 7 a.m. It is also where we encountered "the shower stealer" - a girl who, when she saw us getting ready to head for the showers in the morning, jumped out of bed and ran out of the room to get the big bathroom and the first (read: only) hot shower, only to rub it in our faces by going back to bed afterward. That one hurt.

On Friday we started the day at the Museum of Medieval Torture. Educational, yes. Disturbing, absolutely. It was there we made the mistake of using a restroom behind an unmarked door, and paid for it by being yelled at in Czech by a very feisty woman. Yikes! On the whole, Czech people are not the friendliest people we've met on our trip. We did meet several exceptions, though, like the young man who sold us a bottle of Becharovka - a delicious aperitif we decided we needed to bring home with us. Speaking of alcohol, it's true that you can buy a (large) beer from a street vendor for under $1.00. Thayer was endlessly excited by this.

One sight that we'd call a "do-not-miss" is the Jewish cemetery. It is a small plot of land with 12,000 grave stones, the the number of people who are actually buried there is much higher. The stones are next to each other, nearly on top of one another, poking out every which way they could fit, because the Jews were only given a certain amount of land to bury their dead and it is against Jewish religion to move a person once they have been buried. People were buried one on top of another with only a meter of soil in between. The last to be buried there was sometime in the 1700s.

That evening, we sat at an outside patio of the Hotel U Prince and had a delicious meal right on the square among the beautiful buildings and passers-by. Later, we wandered into a Kabaret. Not what Americans think of when they think "Cabaret".

The next day, we walked across the Charles Bridge and stopped to listen to the absolutely delightful Charles Bridge Swing Band. We climbed the billion stairs to Prague Castle and marveled at the many-centuries-old gothic basilica within the castle walls. On the way back down the hill, we stopped for a Pilsner Urquell and some meatballs at the "oldest pub in Prague". It was candlelit and wooden, just like we imagined an old pub in Prague would be. That place has been a pub since the 1200s!

Later that evening, we went walking through the dark, cobbled streets in the neighborhood of our hostel, found a little bar/restaurant where we ate chocolate mousse and sipped on Becherovka, and just had an amazing time soaking it all in.

The next morning, Sunday, we had to catch a train to... Salzburg, Austria, the winner of the poll! (Thank you for info and votes from Carol, Brad, lore, Margie, Ellen, Rafe, Jessica, Cory, and Amy.) We got up at 5, just as our roommates were getting in from partying, to get to the train by 6:30. Six hours later, we were in Salzburg checking into our favorite hostel thus far: Institut St. Sebastian.

This hostel is a former nunnery (!) connected to St. Sebastian church, behind which lies the Friedhof (cemetery) where Mozart's widow Constantia is buried. Our hostel was a few minutes walk to the Old Town, the Mirabelle Gardens (so lovely), Mozart's birth house, and the other house where Mozart lived as an adult. (Salzburg is nuts about Mozart!) We took the Sound of Music tour and were able to express our geekiness by singing Julie Andrews tunes all afternoon. As it turns out, the hills ARE alive with the sound of music! That evening, we had dinner at a restaurant just down the lane from our hostel, and chatted with an adorable Scottish couple on holiday.

Our roommate situation in Salzburg also proved to be interesting. First, there was Jess, the sweet student from Portland, Maine studying German in Salzburg for the next 9 months. We liked her quite well. Then there was Kristin and her cronies, Stereotypical American #1 and Stereotypical American #2. They proclaimed that they were going out to get drunk, and when they returned, they were so loud that a woman from a neighboring room came in and asked them to be quiet. In German. They were livid and baffled as to why this person would be speaking to them in German, and assumed that she had simply come in to insult them.
This morning, they reminisced about last night's events, and Kristin stated that she did not speak German, but she DID speak "The Global Language". Could this be why Americans have such a bad reputation?

Roomies and all, we loved Salzburg and definitely want to return someday. But for now, it is off to Switzerland!

Much love,

Hayley and Thayer


**Memorable Trip Quote**

How our new term "Panda House" came to be:

[Passing a run down house with broken windows alongside the train tracks]

Hayley: Whoa, who lives there?

Thayer: Abandoned.

Hayley [having misheard]: The pandas?

[later, passing more run down shacks]

Thayer: Dude, look at THOSE panda houses.

[later still, while looking for a hostel in Prague, we find a very rough looking one]

Thayer: Well, THIS is a hostel...

Hayley: Please let's not stay here. It looks like... the pandas live here.

Europe Update - Berlin

Hello Everybody. It's time for another update.

We are on a train headed for Prague after 2ish fun days in Berlin.

Berlin is the home city of our recently wedded friends, Brian and Claudia. They put us up for three nights in the living room of their new apartment on WarschauerStrasse (Warsau Street) - a bustling street in East Berlin. There is scarcely an un-graffitied surface in East Berlin. Every wall and every window of every street level store or apartment building is covered. Brian said sometimes people paint over the graffiti, but it just gets graffitied again as soon as the paint dries, so most people have given up the fight. Berlin has the most well-behaved dogs we've ever seen! They're everywhere and they don't wear leashes, they just follow their humans wherever they go.

On Tuesday, Brian showed us around his quaint-yet-busy neighborhood. We also walked over the Oberbaumbruecke, an old bridge that used to be closed because of the wall. Then we took a stroll down the longest stretch of the old Berlin Wall that still stands, called the East Side Gallery. It is covered by gigantic, beautiful paintings, and of course graffiti. We also walked through the Brandenburger Tor, one of the most famous symbols of Berlin.

A few years ago, in school, Thayer read about the building of the Holocaust Monument. In Berlin, we got to see it, and it was a pretty intense experience. It is a huge uneven plot of cement holding rows and rows of rectangular cement blocks (reminiscent of graves or smokestacks, perhaps) in sizes ranging from flush with the ground to fifteen feet tall. The shorter blocks are around the edge of the monument, so as you walk toward the center, you seem to be walking down, down, down, and the blocks get higher and higher and higher until you feel completely overwhelmed by the scope of the monument and the weight of knowing what it is for. The name of the monument is Denkmal fur die Ermordeten Juden Europas - Memorial to the Murdered Jews in Europe. A must-see if you ever go to Berlin.

Yesterday, Thayer and I went to Treptower Park and saw the (also giant) Soviet Monument, dedicated to the soldiers of the Red Army who died between 1941 and 1945. Those Germans sure know how to say Thank You.

It was really nice to be staying with friends for the last few days. Most of the time we will be on our own, so we really enjoyed spending some quality time with Brian and Claudia and getting to know some of their friends.

Current favorite memory:
Drinking wine with Brian, Claudia, and their friends Anna, Sandra, and Mathias. Thayer and Brian in heated discussion over organized religion, Claudia and Hayley reminiscing about Catholic upbringing and the joy of Christmas in a Catholic church. Inevitably, Hayley and Claudia break in to Stille Nacht (Silent Night, the only German song that Hayley knows) and try to drown out the rest of the conversation.

Poll time
It's a long trip from Prague to our next stop in Switzerland, so we want to break it up by stopping in either Vienna or Salzberg for one day and night. Which one should we go to and what should we see---- I cannot find a question mark on the keyboard, so you don§t get one.

It§s been great hearing from you guys. We will send another note out as soon as we can.

Cheers
Hayley and Thayer

Memorable trip quote:
(Brian's friend Rafael telling story about a man who ate a Snickers and drank a Coke every day, and then sued Snickers and Coca Cola for giving him diabetes...)

Tanner= "What are they supposed to do, put a disclaimer on Snickers that says WARNING, THIS IS NOT A BANANA"?

Please note the immense effort it took us to edit this because of the keyboard differences, and symbols like +ìšèáøužéíáý§ù.

Europe Update

Liebe Freunde und Familie!

Here is an update on our trip thus far:

Following the trend of our Airport Curse, Thayer and I slept through both of our alarms the morning we left Seattle. Luckily, we were only 20 minutes off schedule. Nothing like running ten blocks to catch a bus to the airport at 5:00 in the morning.

A 5-hour flight, a 7-hour flight, a 4-hour train ride, a 20-minute walk, a 12-minute ferry ride, and a 20 minute taxi ride later, we arrived in Sønderho.

Sønderho is the tiny town on Fanø where we spent the last two days and nights. We came to Fanø, an island off the west coast of Denmark, to see my friend Brian and attend his wedding to his German fiancée, Claudia. The wedding was simple and small (whoever could make it out to Fano – not an easy trip) and held at the local Raadhus (town hall).

Brian and Claudia had a party the night before and a reception the night of the wedding at their rented house on the island. We got to meet a lot of wonderful people. Claudia's entire family spoke very little English, so when Thayer sat down and started speaking German, they were overjoyed! Thayer was, too, as he loooooves speaking German but never has the chance. We also met Jon and Lucy, a couple Brian and Claudia met while vacationing in Mexico for six weeks. They came to the wedding from their home in London, and were generous enough to let us spend our second night on the island (which was unplanned) at their rented house. We had such a fantastic time!

I cannot imagine a more adorable place than Sønderho. People live in houses with straw roofs! Businesses open late and close early, and everywhere you go, you can see someone eating ice cream. Life is slow and simple and peaceful. The "downtown" streets are cobblestone. You can't find coffee before noon, there is one bus for the whole island, and there are more bicycles than cars. You can't go to any restaurant without a reservation. We would LOVE to return there someday… it was a welcome break from Seattle city life.

My current favorite memory: On the back of the bicycle with Thayer tipsily driving, with Jon and Lucy on the other bike, riding on a path along the dark, still, silent Danish countryside, staring up at a billion stars, and faking a British accent while my new British friend faked an American accent back to me.

After Fanø, we got lost on trains until somehow we found our way down to Amsterdam. We got in around 11p. and checked into Hostel The Globe, where we shared a room with 18 other travelers. The next day, we took 3-hour walking tour and learned quite a bit about this incredible city. We strolled through a very popular shopping street (European fashions are awesome!) and then visited the Anne Frank house for an intimate look into the the life of the girl we've all read about. Last night, we walked through the Red Light District, which was an educating and surreal experience! When we got back to our hostel, we attempted to fall asleep over the sound of 30some drunken Irishmen down the block singing "I would walk 500 hundred miles...." Amsterdam is another city that doesn't sleep! Basically, the opposite of Fanø.

Today, we hop a train over to Berlin. You'll be hearing from us, soon!

All our love,

Hayley and Thayer

**Memorable Trip Quote:**

[While searching for a place to eat breakfast in Copenhagen....
looking at a menu in a window of a restaurant]

Thayer: I don't understand what the words mean! Let's keep going.

Hayley: Til what?! Til we understand Danish?