Upon arriving in Iseltwald, we made our way down the quiet streets to our lodging for the evening. We were both EXHAUSTED!! The night before we slept in Milan, in which we arrived at about 1am in the rain, checked into our small hotel situated on what sounded like the road itself, and then decided to stay up until about 3 am chatting. At this moment in Iseltwald, tired defined both of us (which for two Close girls is NOT a good thing). So, as I was saying, we made our way to our lodging, Lake Lodge.
Lake Lodge, while by no means the Hilton in Venice, is a quaint little spot. It is a four-story lodge where a friendly man greeted us at the front desk and within moments we were in our room and ready to rest up for the night! I hadn't shared with my mom that the place was found on hostelworld.com and that we
may have to share a restroom with others before this arrival, thinking there was no need to give such details, and that she would be happy with the somewhat economical choice (it is Switzerland after all where sneezing costs you about 12 CHF) that it wouldn't matter too much. Well, as I settled into the low Ikea bed in our room and quickly fell asleep, it wasn't quite the same experience for my mom. She had arrived at that point of overtired. Overtired, in an Ikea bed, with neighbors who may or may not have been smoking pot, a fly that had come in through the window and buzzed around her head while she tried to sleep and my poor mom just couldn't sleep. She also quickly awoke me to inform me that she couldn't stay at this place either. As she sat in the corner, exhausted and overwhelmed, I wanted nothing more than to tell her to go back to sleep because everything feels better with sleep. It didn't happen.
So, after explaining to the kind front desk man that we would not be staying this evening, WALKING through Iseltwald with our luggage to find a new place to stay (that would definitely not on the same economical scale as our little Lake Lodge), we did indeed find something. And yes, the view was PRICELESS. I will try to capture it here with photos; but know that no photo can handle the goodness that we saw as we walked on our porch for the first time.
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This is what we saw as we ate bread and cheese from our balcony!
Wow, I'm glad Lake Lodge didn't work out. |
The next day, after some great rest we decide to go into Interlaken. As touristy as it could be, we hopped aboard this little train to get the experience of this amazing place from this local Swiss man (whose beard was so cool I felt great in supporting financially). It was a gorgeous and informative tour- and he eventually dropped us off to explore Interlaken a bit better by foot. So as we strolled down small streets, which were impeccably clean, we saw flowers, small shoppes, and sure enough out of nowhere- the Tour de Suisse!! We were in a small shop picking out a Swiss pocket knife as a gift, we we began to hear and see news cameras. Sure enough, at that very moment, hundreds of cyclists were passing through the very street we were on for the race. What a very great moment to be in the right place at the right time!
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| Strolling through Interlaken |
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| Our Swiss Engineer! |
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| Tour de Suisse |
The days in Switzerland were filled with meals in our favorite place, the grocery story cafe where we ate like 4 out of our 6 meals, an evening stroll through Iseltwald where we came across a traditional Swiss percussion performance, and even met a nice American couple while having dinner. Although the visit was short (only 3 days), the images and moments from this place will forever be in my mind.
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It must be shared, that while we were only here for 3 days, this was about the 9th day of our trip. For my mom, 9 days without being able to communicate in her own language to just about everyone but me, is like taking a cute little fish out of water. She wanted to chat so badly with people we met; and while they probably would have understood her English, at this point in the trip she had just kept quiet. That is of course until our last morning in Iseltwald. As we were making our way to the morning bus to the train station we passed two men in the street. "Guten morgen" they greeted us with- and from the 3 useful phrases I learned before this trip- "guten morgen" was there for me as a quick reply. So as I walked on I heard the men greet my mother who was about 20 ft behind, and because I don't speak German it's hard to tell what they said- but sure enough I heard my mom respond "grehg ehrhgjen erheh". I turned around quickly to see that she had just passed the two men in the street and decided to mimc whatever it was that she heard them say. We both flashed each other a ridiculous smile- and then as she caught up to me she said "I just CAN'T keep quiet any more!" My mother decided that making any random noises was better than not talking at all. Maybe this is where I got my gift for language?? It's hard to say, but now I know that no matter where we go- I've got myself a translator! :)
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