Well I am the tail end of 48 hours with out guests for a couple of weeks. This morning, I am cleaning the house, washing clothes, and writing this before I have class this afternoon. Having guests is good. We did get another example of exactly how bad air travel is again.
My Sister and Brother in Law were originally going to be staying for three days. The airlines cost them a day, though. They got to their first airport and their flight was cancelled. (You will find out, that this makes no sense in a few sentences.) Of COURSE the cancellation was due to weather, so there was no compensation for the delay. They were forced to get a hotel in the evening, because they were rebooked for something like 5 or 6 AM the next day. They asked for their luggage back, but they were told since it had been checked it could not be retrieved. So far this makes sense. They got on the early flight the next morning, and had an 11 or 12 hour layover at the next airport before making the flight across the Atlantic.
They made it into Zurich, but this is where it gets confusing. Scot, my Brother in Law, couldn’t find his luggage on the carousel. So he gets in line to file the missing luggage report, but as the queue was moving he noticed his suitcase in an area for luggage that came in the day before. So my question for the airline is…… If there were no other flights between Indianapolis and Philadelphia (which is what they were told), how did the one suitcase make it Zurich the day before the passenger? Oh well, we still were able to have a quick visit, before they boarded a train to Italy, but I am kind of angry that we lost a day of visiting.
We didn’t have much planned for Monday. After a shower, and a couple cups of coffee we boarded a train for downtown. They got to see a little of Zurich, before they crashed Monday night. Tuesday morning, we got up early and drove to a nearby mountain town called Engelberg. It was kind of funny as we were driving there Scot told me had been there before about 35 years ago. He said the mountains looked the same, but the town seemed a lot different.
I was very happy, because this was the first time I had the perfect combination to walk over the suspension bridge at the top of the mountain. I have only take the bridge one other time. Most people see the bridge and say NOPE! My daughter walked the bridge with me, but it was cloudy so we couldn’t see anything. This week the weather was perfect.
I was shocked by the amount of construction going on. I did learn that building on a mountain is kind of hard. In fact you even have to bring your cement plant up on the mountain with you.
The nice thing is that you do not have to go very far to find the stone that you need for the concrete.
I was a little shocked at some of the building practices, however. There is a glacier up on the top of the mountain, and just like glaciers everywhere it is melting incredibly fast. The top of the glacier on Mt Titles is even covered with a blanket to try and minimize the melting. The construction, though, is making the glacier degrade much faster than it would otherwise. In one way it probably makes sense. It just doesn’t matter. There is nothing that can be done to stop the glacier from melting. The steps the government is taking simply delays the inevitable. If something really needs to be built, protecting the glacier that will disappear anyway probably does not make a lot of sense.
After we visited the mountain we made a stop by Luzern. I figured my sister needed to get a taste of Switzerland even though she had only 48 hours. So we hit the mountains, and got some pictures by arguably the second most famous place in Switzerland die Kapellbrücke (The Chapel Bridge) in Luzern. I realized that I am a really bad tourist. I was looking for a picture of the bridge, and I only have one that was not even of the whole bridge just of the tower in the middle. Oh well, I am sure I will be in Luzern at least one more time before we move back to the US! :). I would post a picture that someone else has taken, but I got burned once by posting a picture that I thought had a free copyright. I don’t want to make that mistake again. So here is a link to a Google image search Link
Our next visitor arrives in about 18 hours. It is my wife’s oldest friend. On Saturday we are going to do something we have wanted to do since moving here. We are going to one of the mountain villages for the Alpabfahrt or if we were in the french speaking part of Switzerland; Désalpe. This is the celebration that takes place at the end of every summer when the cows come down off of the mountain pastures. So I should have some more pictures and video for my next post.
I have some pictures, but I am waiting for permission from my sister to put up some of the pictures with her in them. :). So enjoy the ones for now, I will update the gallery once I get her permission.
