Starbucks.....oh, what a treat!

Starbucks.....oh, what a treat!

Recently, Trace and I had been given an extremely gracious gift from our home church; Jefferson Center Presbyterian Church (JCPC). They had a special collection on our behave, so that we could go and enjoy a savory cup of coffee somewhere and enjoy an evening of dinning out in Switzerland ~ what a real treat! We are so very grateful for such a special and thoughtful gift and thanks to their gift we will be able to enjoy several dinners out (a great time as well to utilize our French language skills)! We THANK YOU all at JCPC with our most grateful hearts!

Another gift that we had received recently was from friends of ours in Switzerland. They had given us as a gift, a train ticket (good for two people) to travel anywhere in Switzerlnad over a 24 hour period. To our friends we THANK YOU so very much ~ you know how much we enjoyed our travels that day! Blessing upon blessing, God has poured out upon us through our family and friends.

So, with this gift and the gift from our home church we decided to travel to Zurich. The travel time by train was about 1 1/2 hours. Okay, I admit Starbucks was our first stop once we arrived in Zurich.....and what a treat! A savory cup of coffee and a slice of lemon loaf....for a moment it felt like home again. For those who don't know me well, at least once a week I would find myself at Starbucks to enjoy a cup of coffee and a slice of lemon loaf while reading either Scripture or a book of choice. On occasion, it was delightful to meet a friend (s), a time to enjoy amongst friends.

Look for our next blog entry......our dinning out in Zurich! WOW was that great!!!

Switzerland in Autumn

Picture of the week

~ Switzerland in Autumn ~

"Allez! Allez!......Vas-y! Vas-y"!

"Allez! Allez!......Vas-y! Vas-y"!

At every soccer game you will hear that being yelled by the coaches, the team players and the vans that are watching....and that includes us! "Allez" in the French language means "GO" and "Vas-y" means "Go on".

Each week-end we try and take the opportunity (weather permitting) to go and watch the different soccer leagues that play just about 5 minutes walk from our apartment. What really nice is it's absolutely free and every seat in the stands is a good seat to see the match. Oh, yeah and we bring snacks and pop along....what a treat!

Praise

From the rising of the sun
to the place where it sets,
the name of the LORD
is to be praised.

Psalm 113:3

Picture of the Week

The Alpes from our living room window!

Be sure...

Be sure to look at previous blog entries, as today our blog site allowed us to download a lot of pictures and for us to write about the past couple of weeks. Our last several blog entries and photos cover everything from elevators to hiking. Thanks for reading and enjoy the photos!

Pic Chaussy...

Our hike near to the mountain peek of Pic Chaussy
(Double click on the picture of choice, to enlarge the picture)

I made it!

Trace and I
(yes, there is snow beneath our feet in the month of October)

Living in Switzerland, how can one pass up the chance to go hiking. Our friends from Switzerland had invited us to go for a day of adventure...to hike up to Pic Chaussy. The Pic Chaussy is a mountain peek in the what is called the pre-Alpes. The Pic Chaussy summit is 7,716 high. For Trace this was easy and he has had several opportunities to go hiking with friends here in Switzerland, but for me this was my very first real hike up a good amount of elevation.

After having a light snack we began our hike. As we continued to hike higher in elevation the view was spectacular and taking a break not only to rest a moment and to get a drink of water but also to take in the beauty of God's creation all around ~ incredible!

Once we reached the top (2nd picture above) which was a little short of the Pic Chaussy summit (due to our time limit of having to get back down the mountain in the day light), I felt this wonderful feeling of accomplishment, something I had not ever done before....to have hiked such a hike as this! After taking in all that was around us we settled into a nice spot to eat our lunch and watch as hawks and falcons soared below us, now that's was a first. It was not long though, that the clouds rushed in, covering our sight all around us.

After finishing our lunch, we began to hike back down. One would think hiking back down might be easier than hiking up. However, hiking back down was done in a very careful manner mind you paying very close attention to footing upon snow and mud at a steep level ~ what a challenge.

We gave thanks to God for our day of safe hiking, good weather and fun with friends!

"Fete de la DesAlpes"

"Fete de la DesAlpes"
and the cows that make this Swiss tradition

Traditional Alphorn

Swiss music with the accordion

"Fete de la DesAlpes"

This is a tradition that I had been waiting to see and experience since we arrived in Switzerland. We are so very grateful for the friends of ours here in Switzerland that were able to drive us to this day of the "Fete de la DesAlpes"! This particular "Fete" or festival is a day of celebration when the cows are brought down by the local farmers from higher mountain side pasture grounds. Earlier the same day as the festival, the farmers place on each cow a large leather collar (some of them colorfully embroidered) with a big bell around the cows neck. Some of the cows (such as the cow in the first picture) are given head dresses to wear as well. Then the farmers slowly walk their cows down off the higher mountain pasture grounds where they have been since the spring time.

In the early afternoon of the festival, there is a parade. The cows are the first to begin the pararde followed by the traditional Swiss Alphorn (picture above), accordion players (pictured above) and marching bands, etc.

There were plenty of food stands to choose from, bakery items to buy, home made candies and artist selling their crafts, all in all we had a fantastic fun filled day!

I could not believe...

I could not believe....

that there would be such big spiders in Switzerland! Okay, I am very much aware that I would most likely see big spiders in Africa once we arrived, but I had not ever thought I would see such a big spider here in Switzerland. Thanks to the boards that make up the ceiling in this picture, Trace a day or two later took a second picture with a measuring tape in the same place to compare/measure the size of this spider. This spider measured 3 1/4" in diameter.....that's way to big a spider to be living in our apartment! If you notice too, it only has 7 legs.

Is that really an elevator?!

Is that REALLY an elevator?!

Yes, it's really an elevator! During our vacation time, when we spent the day in the city of Berne, Switzerland with our friend Priscilla, she took use to this really cool sporting goods store. This sporting goods store had in it this very unique elevator, one of which I have never seen before. What is so different about it is a couple of things, the first is the elevator does not stop at all. It's all in the timing, and it requires good timing too. You have to wait until the bottom of the elevator floor is level to the ground you are about to stop off from and it just carries you up WITH OUT stopping. If you would notice also, there are no doors to this elevator either. Trace had so much fun on it, he continued to ride up and down the elevator a couple of times. Once was enough for me!

Sometimes....

Sometimes, things do not always go as we plan. Like for example, our blog site lately. Over the past couple of weeks we have been experiencing problems with our connection to the Internet and then when we go to post a picture, it just will not allow it. Thank you for your patience.

Lausanne Cathedral

Lausanne Cathedral

During our visit to the city of Lausanne, we could not miss seeing the Lausanne Cathedral. It's construction began in 1175 and was then consecrated in 1275.

Lausanne was one of many medieval cities to institute a nightwatch to prevent the all-too-common threat of devastating fires. Although it is mostly stone stone, the city was once made mostly of wood and burned down several times. Every night, watchmen stationed on the wall surrounding the town would call out to each other, ensuring that there were no fires and that no enemy was approaching.

The cathedral nightwatch was the most important. Every night, the watchman walks up the 153 stairs to the top of the tower. Every hour on the hour from 10pm to 2am, he calls out to the four directions: C'est le guet; il a sonné l'heure ("This is the nightwatch; the hour has struck"). Lausanne is the only city in Europe to continue this tradition to this day.