Voyage to Switzerland!

Now for the first of my entries about the trip:

Switzerland!

We were let loose to wreck havoc upon Europe on May 31st. That morning a bunch of met together to eat a final breakfast and have a mini church service before a couple of the mini travel groups had to grab the first bus into Venice. It was nice, but odd. In honor of Pentecost we read that section out of Acts. We all said goodbye while waiting for the bus. The first ones that were off were Kyle and Stew who were catching the city bus to go to the hotel they were going to be staying at for the next night. Then 3 different travel groups got onto the shuttle bus to the city to get trains out of there. To our unfortunate surprise, the Pearses (one of our professors and his wife) were also on that bus. My travel group at that point included Carter (Hannah Carter, but we just called her by her last name), Courtney and Jenny. Another one of the groups was also going to Switzerland, but a different section, so they were with us for the first part of the train ride. The train ride, while a little crazy since it was our first time figuring everything out, was nice. Especially as we came into Switzerland. It was such a contrast from Eastern Europe! Everything was clean, green, and nicely put in order. The mountains were spectacular. There's no other way to describe them!

We were staying with a missionary family that Carter knew from Africa. They live in Thun, which is close to a lake (though I'm not sure which one). It's a cute little town, but not too small. We arrived there Sunday night and Mrs. Dolitzsch had vegetarian lasagna prepared for us (the family is vegetarian). It was amazing! And it was our first home cooked meal in weeks! We were in the German speaking part of Switzerland, so the four children all spoke German and no English. But they were still adorable. It was no nice to be in a house again! Having a nice long, warm shower was honestly one of the highlights.

On Monday we set out to explore the sights. Since it was Pentecostal Monday everything was shut down for the holiday. It was so peaceful walking into town and doing a little exploring. We visited the Castle Thun which also had a church that dated from the medieval ages right near it. The view from both of those places was amazing! The church is actually a Reformed church now, and has a magnificent organ. Someone was practicing on it when we walked in, and the acoustics blew me away. We also explored the church museum which had various parts of the church from all the different times it was renovated. From there we walked down to the water and walked to another castle. It was right on the lake and had some magnificent views. We ate our picnic lunch there, then hopped on a bus to visit yet another castle! We stopped outside of a chocolate shop there and bought some Swiss chocolate! While exploring the grounds of the third castle we found a park where we enjoyed acting like little kids again, and a random monument to Winston Churchill, the defender of freedom. The pictures that we were able to take that day were breathtaking. When we arrived back in Thun we wandered around the neighborhood for a while before coming back to ANOTHER home cooked dinner! This time it was some different salads and grilled mozzarella cheese! The next morning we got up early to catch the bus into town and take a train to Vichy, France as a day trip on the way to Paris!