Visit

Recently some friends, the Nelson's, came to stay for 12 days with us in Switzerland. They were our first long stay visitors, and with them and their two little boys we totaled 7 people in our apartment. There were times when we all were probably about to go crazy due to needing some peace and quiet, but it was really nice to have familiar friends here.

View from Melchsee

We also have another friend from Iowa here (who also knows the Nelsons, but did not stay with us), Ben who married a Swiss gal and they are in Switzerland right now for a few months.  Since we were all here at the same time we had a "reunion" planned. We decided to drive up to a place called Melchsee Frutt (it is also where John and I did our crazy sledding at) and take a cable car up a bit higher and then go on a relatively short hike. The views up in Melchsee area are incredible and only 25 minutes from here!

The day was great, none of us would have ever guessed we would be meeting up in Switzerland after they all left Iowa City 2-3 years ago. We were lucky enough to have a second reunion day while everyone was still here.  The second one was a rainy day which led to a lot of chatting and coffee drinking!

 

One of the days when the Nelsons were here we also decided to go on an excursion. We decided to drive through Interlaken, stop for a coffee, and then drive to the capital city of Bern to explore. Actually, we wanted to go to an old Chocolate Factory as well, but it ended up being a bit out of the way. 
From Interlaken you can see the big Alps, the one in my picture was of Jungfrau. We enjoyed some coffee on some rooftop terrace of a tall hotel while gazing at the mountains and watching lots of sky divers land (but they usually jump off of the cliff). It is a beautiful place, and it is full of hikes that we hope to go on some day.

You can see Jungfrau

 

After Interlaken we drove about 40 more minutes to Bern. We didn't know much about the city except that a river runs through it, a lot of the buildings had historical architecture, and there was a brewery on one end of town. It was a very HOT day, like it has been for 2 weeks now (75-80 this weekend though!!!), so walking around the city wore us all out. I was thankful that one of our stops to sit in the shade was right next to a Starbucks. I haven't splurged on a cool drink from there since being here, but it just sounded too good that day.  Next time we visit Bern I definitely want to join in on the fun of floating/rafting down the river, it looked lovely on the hot day.

 

 Floating down the river sounded really nice