Sorry I've taken so long to write my last post, but I'm sure most of you gave up on me a long time ago. That's ok.
Anyway, I've fought long and hard against procrastination and finally feel motivated enough to write this.
May 31: After Meret and Senta came home from school we visited the town of Hergiswill to visit a glass museum. We took a tour to learn about the history of glass and of the factory and finished in the furnace room where the workers were blowing glass. I bought myself a glass hippo!
June 1: Meret's boyfriend Moritz invited us over for breakfast for dinner. They served rolls with some sort of sweet, creamy sauce. It was really good! Afterwards Eliane, Senta, and I went to Lucerne to meet up with their friends.
June 2: We returned to Kerns in the afternoon and had a relaxing night at home.
June 3: Eliane drove me to Flueli, a town a few minutes away. It is the home of the Paxmontana, the sister hotel of the Keller's hotel home, Hotel Burgfluh. More importantly, it is also the home of Brother Klaus, the patron saint of Switzerland. We toured the house he lived in before he became a hermit and walked down into the valley to see where he lived and slept (a narrow wooden board with a rock for a pillow). If you're interested, here's a link to a page about Brother Klaus: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niklaus_von_Fl%C3%BCe
June 4: Mr. Keller had to work in Zurich and took me along so I could explore. I walked and walked and walked around the city and had a good time even though the museums were closed. I made it back to Mr. Keller's office and we headed to the train station to pick up Senta, who had a foreign exchange program (she's going to Chile for a year!) meeting later that night. We ate dinner, sat through the meeting, and made it home late at night.
June 5: While all Kellers were out I went for a walk in the fields around the house. At night we walked to Meret's friend's house for her birthday party.
June 6: I went to Lucerne by myself to do a day of souvenir shopping. After hours and hours I made it back to Kerns with several bags o' goodies. For dinner, Senta, Eliane, Meret, Moritz, and I went to a really good pizza place in Sarnen called Da Mario's.
June 7: Meret and I went to Lake Sarnen to have lunch with one of her friends and later went out for coffee with more friends.
June 8: I flew home!
A few words...
Thank you very very very much to the Osmanajs and Kellers for being so hospitable and especially to Westminster's Take a Friend Home Program for funding the flights!
Below: My favorite part of Lucerne that I had to revisit: The Lion Monument.
The Lion lies in his lair in the perpendicular face of a low cliff — for he is carved from the living rock of the cliff. His size is colossal, his attitude is noble. His head is bowed, the broken spear is sticking in his shoulder, his protecting paw rests upon the lilies of France. Vines hang down the cliff and wave in the wind, and a clear stream trickles from above and empties into a pond at the base, and in the smooth surface of the pond the lion is mirrored, among the water-lilies.
Around about are green trees and grass. The place is a sheltered, reposeful woodland nook, remote from noise and stir and confusion — and all this is fitting, for lions do die in such places, and not on granite pedestals in public squares fenced with fancy iron railings. The Lion of Lucerne would be impressive anywhere, but nowhere so impressive as where he is.— Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad, 1880
