Switzerland Rules!

I am not sure what I should do for last week. Getting on the internet has been getting harder and harder. Go figure its in Western Europe that it's more of a pain to get on the internet. I want to cover some of the stories to this point that I had to summerize but I think I will do that later. Or maybe I won't. I guess I will let the poll dictate my actions. But int he meantime here are the major events from Sunday to now.

As I said last post, we headed off to Assisi Sunday night. We then had about a mile to walk to our hotel. Normally this wouldn't be that bad but my pack is considerably heavier now and we spent a lot of time in Rome walking. Our stumbled across the hotel and it was really nice. It was run by a family and had the mother and son working the counter. When I saw the price of the room in the busy season I was really thankful we came this time of year. Monday morning Eric and I split up and saw what we wanted to see in Assisi. Well, I saw the main monastery but not much more. I really liked Assisi and wished we could have stayed longer but Monday was also a travel day to Switzerland. We had to take a total of 4 trains to get up there but the views when crossing the alps were incredible. I snapped a few pictures with my trusty camera phone but I think the pictures will leave something to be desired. We then met a distant relative of mine Christoph. After dropping our stuff off we went to the local bar for a night cap. The bar was in a hotel that used to be owned by my great great grandfather. Sort of cool to see.

Tuesday was a little hectic. I have some more family in Switzerland that I wanted to see but not having a cell phone to call people makes it harder to contact people. I was going to visit the Hurliman side of my family on Wednesday but I was able to call and I found out that the whole family was busy that day. So after an incredible lunch Eric and I hopped on the train and went down to Walchwil. There I met another distant relative, Franz. He took us around the town and showed me the house where my grandpa was born. Just to note, on tradition my mom failed to pass down to her kids was the appreciation of the festival called carnival. It is HUGE here. We were only able to catch the tail end of the celebration but it was great. Franz's 2 sisters both play in a carnival band and we were able to see them play at the local bar.

Wednesday we went to mass at the local church and it happens to be the same church where my grandpa was baptized at. From there we just about ran out of the church because our train was just about to leave. This whole running around at churches is becoming a little too regular. We did make the train and from there we went to Luzern. It's the most touristy town that is in the area. So it has a lot of really nice views. There is a castle there that Michael Jackson tried to buy but he couldn't. After spending the afternoon there we headed back up to meet the Haedingers again. There we got a traditional Swiss meal but I have no idea what it is called. I do know that it tasted really good though.

We left early Thursday morning because we planned on touring around Fussen and then going to Munich. This would allow us to save days on our rail pass. When we got to Fussen we missed the bus and noticed the next bus left in almost an hour. Since we were able to rest up the past few days we decided to walk to the castle. It wasn't until we got there that we found out 2 things. First, it is 5 km to the castle from the train station. Second, they stop selling tickets at 3 PM and we got there at about 3:05. We still hiked up the mountain (only about a 20 min hike) to get a better view of the castle. If you haven't heard of the castle it is interesting. Although, any castle built by a guy nick-named Ludwig the Mad has got to be interesting. I guess instead of getting an architect to design the castle Ludwig got a stage designer to design it. The result is a fairy tale looking castle. I don't really see anything wrong with it but people were a little upset at him for it. After the castle we went up to Munich. From there I got on this computer and updated my blog.

Also, I forgot to mention but I got my camera while in Switzerland. So now I can be posting pictures except the computers in our hostel do not have a USB port for me to plug into. Oh well. I should be able to post some pictures on Saturday. But at this rate I will probably just be uploading them from home.