This is a picture of a Swiss glacier that used to go down to the crossroads on the bottom right. Now, due to global warming, it has melted/dried up to just that white part. The other photo is of Kilby and me in front of Big Ben.
London was so much better the second time, because Kilby was with me. We tore up London together. We went to the National Gallery, took the touristy bus tour, saw a play, and ate really good Indian food. On the tour, we went to the Tate Modern (very cool modern art museum--have to go back there), and toured Westminster Abbey (yay, I finally went!), which is really beautiful, but looks disorganized, because there are tombs everywhere, scattered around. After the tour, we had amazing Indian food right near our theater (we got cheap tickets from a London version of Duffy's). This restaurant bosted patrons of Tommy Lee's celebrity. If I was at all interested in that former crackhead and his shannigans with Pamela Anderson and Hepatitis, I would have been impressed. But the food was actually really really good. We got a before the theater deal. The show was okay--In Celebration. We saw it because it had Orlando Bloom in it, but he was not good in this--the most flat actor out of the whole cast. Most of the audience were girls, :o). But I must say, he needs to work on getting out of his pretty-boy image and start acting. He's hot, no doubt, but he'd be hotter if he was a good actor like say, Brad Pitt, or Johnny Depp, both heartthrobs who happen to be really good actors.
Next, I took the Eurostar to Paris Nord and found out that I needed to be in Paris Gare de Lyon. My French communications skills were better than I thought. I was impressed with myself--I wish Prof. Polachek had been there, so she could see that I'm actually good at French, even if she doesn't think I'm ready for France. Anyway, I met a French-African guy in line for the tickets and he comes from the Ivory Coast. His name was Jean-Claude and he was very charming--he is now another penpal I can practice French with (and he wants to practice English), so I will e-mail him.
I got to Switzerland very late, because all the early trains were taken, took a train to Lyss, a suburb of Bern(for free, because I didn't understand the German ticket booth in the station, and they didn't check me for a ticket). Martin and Ines are amazing hosts and I wish I could stay longer. They were nothing but kind to me, and refused all my offers to help around the apartment. Ines took me sampling on my first day there and let me tell you, if I had to sample in such beautiful country-side all the time, I would love her job. It was so much fun. We saw parts of Interlaken, the city of the beautiful lakes on our way there.
On Thursday, we went to a medieval section of Bern, which was beautiful. Just beautiful. Then, on Friday, we went to the mountains, took a boat cruise to get there and just had an amazing day--it was really gorgeous, except that it was foggy up on the mountain. But I still liked it. Saturday, we went down south to DeGino, where Martin's parents have a summer house. The house is very nice and they even grow their own grapes. The town was very beautiful, and being so close to Italy, everyone speaks Italian. The weather there was very Mediterranean, and we even saw palm trees, which is an unknown secret about the Swiss Alps Switzerland people usually think of. Lake Lugano was right there and it was really a Cape Cod kind of town. There were art, shops, theater, etc. Gorgeous.
On Sunday, we went travelling to the famous James Bond dam that has James bungy jumping off in Goldeneye. Before that, we saw the hotel that was in the movie. This dam is huge and there still is, for the equivalent of $200, bungy jumping. The whole set up to finish lasts only ten minutes, and the drop is only 15 seconds, so really, it's like $133 per second of the drop. Very expensive, but they always have takers--they make $1000 and hour. It's kind of ridiculous. We went through Italy on the way back and then went home. I can say that I was in Italy for maybe thirty minutes though.
Today, it's Monday and I got my haircut--not a pixie cut-but maybe I'll have it done later, before school or something. Ines is very good though. And she's an amazing cook. I might go to another town with Martin's parents. We had dinner on Friday at their place and I'm staying overnight there tonight. They'll take me to the train station tomorrow, because Heinz has to get up early to sample anyway. He can be chipper and awake at 3am! The train is at 5am to Paris to make my 10:15 train to London. It's going to be a long day tomorrow. I went to Solothern with Gerhilda, Martin's mom, and it was extremely beautiful-famous for being a baroque town. Very old. And it was a lot of fun spending time with her. She and Heinz are amazing. Alas, this is the end of my trip and adventures. I'm sad. Thanks for reading!
Love,
Hannah
