Snails Attack!

Almost a week ago already, my aunt and her friend came over to visit us for a few days. It was really fricking awesome and we jammed and talked and hiked. They're musicians and were playing shows in Berlin. We went on this one really awesome hike to the end of the world; that's what it was called. Mountains framing on each side, massive waterfalls plunging to their death in throttling veins every few half mile or so. We went through a mostly flat trail, but had to cross several many rushing, icing (because that's a verb) and trecherous rivers. No exaggeration, man. And the season was rather early, so the bridges weren't up. After our lovely lunch of bread, cheese and whatnot in a grass and dandylion field with aged cowpies mixed down under, ominous clouds creeped up and about half an hour into the hike, it started to rain. It was mountainous rain, but we were seasoned hikers. We told stories, jokes, and I stopped many times to take pictures. Then as I turned my head to glance at the now gray mountainside with the waterfalls, I noticed an amazing effect of nature- the wind would blow the water falling from the waterfall across, so it was like a slight, thin cloud or another dimension scraping across the rock.

We got right next to a waterfall at one point, but first had to cross a particulary hard river. At first we went up the river a bit, thinking the rocks looked more promising there. They weren't. With leaping jumps, Steve had crossed way before us and was already snapping pictures. My dad got over a certain part and tried to help me. I held his hand, trying to catapult all of my gravity (well, myself) to that certain rock, and hang on. It happened so slowly, of course. And there were splashes, of course. Almost sickeningly slow, with me jumping, putting my...self into Fate's hands (or maybe it was their feet, really- you'd think Fate would get their hands pretty full a lot of times) and then my feet going down... down... descending... not making it. Ker-plunk. Splash. The sound of a failure. Whatever you wanna call it. My feet nerves suddenly so aware of the icy sock clinging against my skin, and wet stuff plunging deep into my "water resistant" new shoes. An annoyed "agh" immediately escaped my mouth, and then laughter. While all this is happening, the things that make people react, made me react. As in, my feet suddenly kicking up a storm down in that dog-gone French stream. Get up! Out! No! Wet! Dry! Move! was basically my brain's message. But of course, the whole thing lasted as long as a snap of the finger, and it's the kind of thing where you just act. The ending of the story was that I got up eventually, but actually didn't really get anywhere. My dad let out a puff of annoyance, and then we seemed to laugh. Oh yes, I was smiling. Jeans wet, but just a few centimeters up.

So I guess that place didn't work.

We went back to the main crossing place, where I noticed a bridge folded up. At first I just saw the wire railings and thought "Gee, what a bridge failure", but this of course was not the story. There were hikers, the kind that hit the gym at 5:30 every morning and that you find at nature parks, carrying those backpacks and wearing sunglasses occassionally and maybe even spandex in part. The river wasn't so deep, and maybe about.... 10 feet across. Probably less. The rest of the group (i.e. my dad and my aunt's friend) had gotten across, and now we were left to find the least wet route. There were rocks here and there, but none seemed plausible. Unless of course, we were to magically increase our leg span and/or have courage/bravery/etc. One of the 5:30-am-nature-park people (who was French, I'd assume) pointed me to a spot that seemed rational to cross, and we all sqinted our eyes, considering it, while I scrunched my mouth in that way when you know you have to do something you don't really want to, normally something physical. I had to step on a largish rock next to the riverside, then there was a apparently secure log maybe two feet away. It was mostly perpendicular to me, which was helpful. Then there was another rock near that, and then you get to the middle area and can just go across.


Steve was there, my dad behind him, beckoning me to "stop being a sissy". Oh no, they didn't ever mention the concept or word in any shape or form, but sometimes we criticize ourselves, you see. After procrastinating the daring steps, frozen with fear (okay, not literally) at the icy water just... a few feet down. I cleared my throat, made excuses to my dad's encouragement until the French lady came back and handed me two walking sticks, the kind not made of wood. She demonstrated how to get across, using some basic French, gave me an encouraging smile and I turned to the new scene.

Well. I would swing a bit, debating mentally whether to just bite the bullet and to the fricking thing, and then my brain got the better of me. Or actually, maybe it was the body. Either way, it took a while before I just took the leap. ...And didn't die. Amazing, I know. And actually, I wasn't all that frazed from the concept of falling in, because unless your whole body slips, it seriously wasn't that bad.

We all got over eventually, of course, and then proceeded to overcome several more obstacles of the same nature.

On the way back of that particular river, we decided to just go with the railing. There were four wires, perhaps almost 5 feet from each other. I decided to slide across the wrong way, because I felt the most comfortable with my two feet on the left wire, my left arm on the left wire, and my right arm on the right wire. It was slippery, slightly amazing, and scary-ish. It wasn't such a big drop, and I wouldn't die anyway. The water rumbled a few feet below, and my eyes switched from looking down, looking across to my dad who was nicely holding the ropes together a bit and looking straight. Biting my lip. Trying to breathe. Making irked noises. It was really like those rope course things in real life.


It started climbing after the rain stopped, and then the sun came out. It was looking more and more like a desktop background as we glanced back. Green mountains pretty much on all sides, white waterfalls carving lines, and then snails. They don't lie when they mention the whole France-snails thing. I mean, I haven't eaten any yet, but there were TONS up there. One there, then one over there, on the right.. on the left... up ahead, on that leaf, on the trail.... it was interesting to see their mucusy head ooze back into their... shell as I pointed my camera lens right at the sneezer.


The hike was described at certain parts as "very difficult" and I had to give it to these guys- sometimes hiking maps are acurate. We couldn't see where the heck the trail went after the top, and then noticed a slight trail-resembling thing curving up to the left. It was right on the edge, and as we hiked up it to check it out, you had to cross a waterfall to get to the next part of the trail. Frankly, it was pretty suicidal. The edge of the waterfall was right there, and even though the water flowing down where you would cross wasn't even deep, I wouldn't do that ever. Like, ever. So we walked down again and made our way back to civilisation.

We jammed a lot; it was really exciting to have other musicians with us. We stayed up till almost midnight talking about facebook and the Internet and music and it was just the best thing ever.

Tomorrow I get to play rugby in gym because my math speciales teacher won't be there in the morning. Should be fun, violent, and I might utterly fail. I've never played rugby. I've read an autobiography of a famous rugby player, saw Leatherheads, and have watched a good number of American football games, so maybe it won't be so terrible. I also won't be having French math for about another week, since the teacher is busy with his new....kid I guess.

English math exams soon... we have to listen to some tape and answer stuff quickly or something. Sigh. Sometimes I get very annoyed with this system.

I've revived my idea on doing a documentary, except it would be maybe a bit more Michael Moore-ish. I mean, there's no way you could even try comparing what I would make to his stuff, but just I'd list some facts, show stuff... I dunno. Imagining. Fantasizing.

Oh. And I've also been pretty interested in radio now. Like, being a DJ and stuff. In fact, ever since I was a kid I've sort of always wanted to do a radio thing. My dad would always play NPR in the mornings while he did the dishes, and I'd hear it before going off to school. We listened to A Prairie Home Companion on Saturdays ocassionally, laughing with our ears turned slightly towards the speakers. I don't know if I'd be able to not stutter and say stuff clearly, but I can try. One of my friends' dad is a DJ apparently for the U of M station WCBN 88.3 FM. So that's cool.

Me: So Claire... I might be on the radio sometime 'cause like-
Claire: Oh yeah! You told me about that! That's cool!
Valentine (other English friend): What station?
Me: 'Cause yeah. It's in the States. A college one-
Claire: So is that another one of the things you wanna do when you grow up? Be on the radio?
Me: Uh well sort of-
Valentine: When Amelia grows up, she's going to change the world.

51 days left. You know, the world can be pretty fricking awesome sometimes.

Chili Pepper French Toast

Today was success. We woke up latish, had a breakfast of homemade French toast, socialized with real people, had an unofficial Easter egg hunt and climbed the Saleve. The Easter egg hunt involved Allen (son/brother), Evelyn and I, the first two of which are Jewish. But you know, I actually have a few Jewish friends so I'm used to celebrating Christian holidays with Jews, or Jewish holidays as a Christian. I think it's rather cool, and as I've said, I'm not even hardly religious at all. Hence my plan/dream to become a Unitarian Universalist when I get back. But anyway, so yeah we found the chocolate eggs and stuff.


Zach decided to stay home (he was "tired") and so we jumped in the two cars and proceeded to repeat one of my favorite hikes. We had done the Saleve a few months ago, and you can get the full story (like, more than you want really) by clicking on this ancient post. It was hard and I was definitely out of shape, but it was rather fun, really. We had the 4 photographers again, so a few extra stops. It was nice weather, not too cold or hot and of course came with a complimentary lunch with bread, cheese and chocolate. Good stuff, you know. The bread was sort of soft though, the kind that's still hard so it makes your teeth uncomfortable.

When we got back, all tired and sweating in our mostly made-in-some-Asian-country shirts, we played cards, took turns messing around on the guitar and even caught some of the Detroit Red Wings vs. Chicago Blackhawks game. Anne (mom's friend/mom/wife) is actually an enthusiastic hockey player, so that's cool. Paul has an awesome camera that I am envious of, and knows some guitar.


Now I'm smelling of deoderant, tired and probably in jeopardy of too much chocolate. Wait. That was probably the wrong usage of jeopardy. But I don't feel like going back to change it.

I did my "best" at being social with Evelyn and Allen, and here it goes.

"So... do you like Harry Potter?" I of course knew the answer; who doesn't like that series, I mean seriously. There were those few people that say stuff like "Eh... I haven't read it." or like "I really need to read it!" or like "Nah." but generally I find that's rather rare. Alas, I wasn't disappointed with Evelyn's answer, who said a version of "yes".

"Yeah. I noticed you had the Twilight books in your room.. which is better- Twilight or Harry Potter?" Evelyn asked after discussing very briefly our Harry Potter opinions.

"Harry Potter, definitely." We then went on to discuss the Twilight series, luckily generally coming to the conclusion that Twilight wasn't actually all that good. She had a good point though, that if you like those kinds of books with lots of romance and stuff, it was good. Otherwise, it was eh.


I brought up the subject of Harry Potter again on the hike, but because of our ragged breathing and different paces, it was hard to socialize. They'll leave tomorrow, after we take a trip on the lake and stuff. I haven't been able to be on the computer much at all, which actually I don't mind. It's nice to take a break from the pixeled life.

You could call it being there

Saturday was pretty cool.. I went on an AWESOME hike. Zach didn't come along, as usual. He "hates hiking". Just a month or something ago he loved it. Anyway.

We drove up the Saleve, the mountain we climbed with the Levins on this post. For some reason, the car ride made me tired. Maybe I was already tired. Whatever. It was pretty cold but I adjusted. After parking our green Vee- double-ya on some gravel in an already good-viewing point, we started walking down a trail. Our boots were like teeth, the ground chewing gum; sinking in to the soft mud, but sometimes hitting the gums (rocks). My mom... had a surprising amount of energy considering her apparent ear infection. She ran ahead of me and my dad while I asked him about the music he listened to when he was my age, and screamed at the trees. She wasn't mad, no, just... alive. Yeah. I had to admit, walking in this forest on a mountain with a pleasing lump of white stuff through the trees with refreshing air was... quite pleasant. Made you feel alive, really.

Heaven forbid our family have a hike without bickering. That would be too pleasant. Nah, it wasn't that bad but it gets old. I didn't join in really. Mostly just parental-type. But it worked out ok. Everyone came out alive, if not covered in mud.

It was weird at one point, though, because there was some snow up there, which ok sure it's a mountain but, then the trees had ice on them and they melted or whatever so it'd be like snowing ice. Very cool. The snow was in a little patch. Very crunchy. I took lots of pictures.

We eventually got to the "top", and had a breathless view. It seriously looked like an ocean on one side, with the clouds a peaceful jumle of white fluff, though the color was sometimes undefinable. The mountains were partially hidden, almost like huge lumbering whales. To the other side were a whole landscape of mountains. White with black, klondike bars amid the ocean. And here we stood, on a grassy bridge between utter void with wings and crunchy chocolate.

It was at times like these that you really wished you were Maximum Ride. To be enveloped in white, forget the concept of feet and float among the air you breathed.

My dad, as though he heard my thoughts, said, "Doesn't it just make you wish you could fly?" I was silent for a few moments, mouth open. Then I said, "Yeah." It was a great hike. We got hot chocolate afterward and watched the epic glimmering of Mount Blanc sink away as the sun set.

Writing a play > staying in house

My mom is writing a play. And today she claimed she needed space. I didn't blame her. So me, my dad and Zach went on a hike. But not without Zach triggering a major nerve (or several) in my mom. And me. Zach can be such a... such a... well fine I'll refrain from saying it, but lets just say he can be really un-nice/un-smart. He ALWAYS CONSTANTLY argues if we're going to do something. I mean, I just had to intervene with his second wave of argumentation with my dad and say SHUT UP. I didn't yell, even though I wanted to. I mean, GOD, ZACH, just PLEASE STOP THAT. Anyway. The hike was eh. It looks like Thanksgiving on the mountains. That means the trees remind me of like.. fall colors. Because they are fall colors. Exploding poofs on the side. I didn't mind the hike at first but then sort of started complaining because I was tired. I had woken up at 12:20. Which sucked. I wanted to get my homework done. So yeah.

And then I've been thinking about doing a documentary. About this trip. Should be fun. I could interview teachers and stuff. So yeah... yeah.

OH AND this is the 100th day!!!!!!!!!!! So only like 266 more!!!!!!!!!!! I'm about a third of the way done with this heck.

Aujourd'hui c'est le centieme jour!!!! And like 300 hits!!!! After like 19 days.

Day Three

August 20, 2008, around 9 a.m. "Waking up with my head in the clouds" (this is the typed up journal entry)

Holy crap- I woke up at 9 and want to my listen to my iPod. I also want to go outside, both I am doing. But see, outside it's like...freaky. When I was opening the door, I could see white through the crack. I thought, it can't be that bleak. But it is. Everything is white. White. I can see a little bit of the cabin in front of us, but otherwise it is just a white void. Kind of awesome. I still hear cowbells and someone like cutting grass. It's almost...painful, I dunno...to look out-it's like you can't see anything and my brain doesn't like that. I've never experienced this. Mountain fog. There was a big rainstorm last night. It's also kinda cold. There's wisps of...of white air? The cloud blowing around and it reminds me of like...Harry Potter and the pensive. This is kind of cool. White is one of my favorite colors. I like this because it's like...just a void. You can see anything, or not see. It's almost like I'm not in the mountains right now. I couldn't tell. Ah, yes- I inhaled and smelled that fresh, crisp mountain air. Towards the ground is a more grayish color. I can see the grass well near our house. It's so weird. But insanely AWESOME. You guys, if you haven't already, should try to see a glacier in real life and experience this white void. I love that word-void. Nothingness. Non-existing? Ha ha! Life is goosd. Zach isn't up yet. Neither are my parents. I'm wearing my Slauson shirt. We're going home today. Probably leave at like 4. I can't wait to put this all in my blog and facebook! This is/was a really cool trip. I'm glad we did it. I'm going to take pictures of the whiteness now. You know, this would be a cool time and place to draw on the air like I saw in that one old Disney commercial thing. Anyway. I'm getting cold. I miss my friends- of course. But I'm going to stay out here because "touching the void" is like experiencing a complicated, not necessarily bliss. (Good movie.)

Later:

Well ok, now the void is receding. i can see more mountain houses and like another cloud or something. It's 9:25. I have goosebumps. The sky is still white, ground is gray. But the void will probably be all gone in a few minutes. I should like get my parents. (Later) Eh. My dad just woke up.

-----------------

That day I had yogurt for breakfast and the same stuff I had yesterday. Zach said his knee was too sore to walk and my mom was tired. So they stayed home, while me and my dad went on a small hike to the Bettmerhorn. My socks got wet from walking in the boot-room but I survived. It was a cool hike. The white void did not in fact disappear, and we went in and out it all along the hike. It was so frickin' awesome! You couldn't see a few feet in front of you, but then you'd walk a little farther and break out. It was fun. My dad read the signs along the trail about marmots, which were like mountain ground hogs. They seemed cool. The trail wasn't too hard, sort of steep at times, but fun. We talked about hockey, getting fit, marmots and other stuff. I took a few pictures. There were a few other people on the trail too.

At one point we weren't really on the trail. We could see the gondola but not the trail. So we just sort of walked straight up. But then we did get on the right trail and went up. There were lots of people at the top. I was tired. We rested a little bit and went up the Bettmerhorn, which was a slightly harder peak. More rock and climbing and it was steep. At some points we had to use a wire to climb up. It was somewhat freaky. Reminded me of Howell. Man, Howell was SO FUN. That was just great. I had to climb on these wooden bridge things and on one side would be a sheer drop. Eek. I wasn't like, "Omigod-omigod I'm going to die I'm going to die!!!!1" but I was still a little...you know. I just kept moving up, not letting myself get scared. It wasn't even that bad. For some reason I seemed to clear my throat whenever I went on one of those freaky wooden platforms. Whatever. So we had a great view of the glacier...again. And could see lots of clouds. I said to my dad one time, "It sort of makes you feel like you could just jump and it'd be pillowed," he didn't seem to agree with me though. I did feel like that sort of.

All we could see at some points were just white clouds surrounding us. And then we made it to the top, or at least the top I wanted to be at. There was still another peak to climb but for some reason I just didn't feel like doing it. Besides, we were already at around 2,858 meters or something. We had a great view of everything. It was at times like this that you wish you were Maximum Ride. Seriously. I would love to just snapping out my wings and jump off the mountain, flying through the clouds. She did say flying in a cloud wasn't that fun, though. But whatever. There were clouds everywhere. Covering most of the mountains. It smelled nice, was sort of cold. I had some white chocolate. Looked through the binocs, took pictures. Then we went down. It was sort of freaky, but I got used to it. A lot like Howell. So then we took one last look at the glacier and took the cable car down.

We just sort of jumped on one, seeing as there wasn't anyone there to like sell a ticket. They were small-ish, could hold about 8 people. I took a short video, which will be put on facebook. And some pictures. It was a fun ride. Like 10 minutes. It was freaky sometimes (but cool) because sometimes we wouldn't see the rest of the cable in front of us through the fog. So it was like that movie "The Mist". But it was awesome. Then we met up with my mom and Zach and had lunch. We watched some Olympics, which was really fun. Then we rode the cable cars down and took the trains.

On the second train to Geneva, I mostly sat by myself but some people did share the seats. This lady rode a few stops and then got off. And then these two French/Swiss guys came and asked me something like, "can we sit here?" and I just nodded my head. One of them sat across from me and the other next. I caught the distinct whiff of cigarettes. Ugh. And then the guy across from me grabbed out two Heineken beers from this bag and gave one to his friend. They started talking and drinking. My music was pretty loud so I couldn't really tell what they were talking about, but they laughed a lot. And again, I had to sort of hide my lip-synching or not do it at all. Then the guy finished one beer and grabbed out another. He managed to drink two beers (they were big, too, mind you) in one sitting. Gross. Luckily they got off before Geneva and I didn't have to listen them anymore. They were ok, I mean, just sort of...drunk. Luckily I had Melvin with me. I was tired.

When we got the Geneva Cornavin, I put on Tally Hall. We waited for the bus and rode it home. I sat with my dad on those fold-able seats. No one had to give up our seats this time. I was tired. There were lots of people on the bus. Ugh. But eventually we got home. I had to walk over to a post box to drop off a postcard though, which was annoying because of my tiredness. But then I got in the apartment and jumped on the computer.

It was a great trip. I'm really glad we did it. Especially since school is really soon. Somehow, I don't really know how it happened, I have like a week till school. Ugh. But actually I'm looking forward to it because I'll meet friends and learn stuff. And it's something to do. Because I got like nothing done this summer. Ugh. Almost a complete waste. Sigh. But two months have gone by! So only 10 months left . Awesome! I'll add the pictures in the next post. I know they're long posts, and sorry, but they were long days. Hope you enjoy(ed). Oh and, my mom found her wallet. It was in some hidden pocket. So yay! And the Levins come back today. So we'll see them one FINAL time today. For like an hour. Yay. I guess.

Thanks for reading. Comments are appreciated, even bowed upon. Pictures in the next post.

Day Two

A bright light, resembling what I thought was yellow, banged on my eyelids. I was forced to get up, finding the window and door open and my dad standing near them. We all got up and after a little bit of delay, including watching some Olympics, went down to have breakfast. I had plain yogurt with muesli and corn flakes. And some bread with strawberry jam and a hard-boiled egg. After that we went outside with our boots. I inhaled through my nose, and the scent immediately made me happy. A cool, crisp, fresh whiff. So goosd. One of the best smells ever. Mountain air at 9:45 a.m. Just wonderful.

At 10:15 we started out on the big hike. We had to bring two backpacks, one of which me and Zach switched off carrying every hour or so. I started out with it. It wasn't too heavy. The trail didn't have hardly any steep parts at first and was mostly flat. Some Swiss Army jets passed us, which caused us to stop and look up. We stopped an awful lot on this hike to drink water and take pictures and whatnot. We talked about Italy, the science of clouds, and other assorted topics. We passed lots of German/Swiss people, and I maybe muttered a small "Guten Tag" once or twice. We saw a steep bike trail or two, which I would never want to do. There were lots of cows. And we also smelled that wonderful scent.

After a few hours the trail got a little more challenging. More rocky, more of a climb. It zig-zagged up the grassy mountain, allowing us a great view. There were lots of cliffs too, which were sort of freaky. We saw part of a glacier far away after a little bit. We also found some blueberries before lunch. They were goosd. We also used the binoculars and saw this one mountain house like right next to a cliff. Geez. After lunch, which consisted of yogurt, blueberries, bread, cheese and chocolate, we continued on the trail. There were some small shrines or whatever on the trail and also little plaques for people that died. Depressing stuff.

Then we finally got to see the main attraction.

It was like a bunch of dirty cream poured over rocks, making a smooth platform. With lots of dirt and brown. There was a small river flowing towards it, and some chunks of ice farther away from the main glacier. We walked down, getting closer to it. As I got closer, something made me say "woah". At first I just saw the white and brown-ish color. But then there was this blue-ish tint at the end, and it looked like a sponge. It looked like a blue-raspberry snow-cone. I took a ton of pictures and got to touch it. It was cold. Felt like a weird form of ice. This one guy had gone really close to it, like almost in it, but we didn't go quite that close. There were little caves and stuff. It was so cool! The air around it was chilly, but not that much. There was this water that was reddish (looked like cow blood) that flowed down the rocks. It was really slippery.

As my dad put it, we could see "global warming in action,". It was dripping, that's for sure. Dripping a lot. But it was still there. It was Europe's biggest glacier. Al Gore was right. I never doubted him, but this just proved it. Humans are stupid. We're smart in a way, but our decisions are mostly from emotion. This is stupid. What we're doing right now. What we're not doing, really. We eventually continued on the trail, leaving the glacier behind. I couldn't really figure out how I felt after seeing the glacier. It was cool, but I felt mad. I was sad. I was mad as heck. I could go on and on about how stupid we are. But I won't. Maybe in another post. But seriously.

Anyway. So after seeing the glacier up close, we could see more views of it from up high. The next trail we were on had mountain goats. At first my mom thought they were dangerous because they had horns, but then Zach was just like, "I don't think they'd let dangerous animals on this trail," so we just walked past. They looked kinda freaky though.

I walked pretty far ahead of my family because they were slow and I wanted to get home fast because it was supposed to rain. And this way I could stop to take pictures more. Then something interesting happened. I was walking ahead as usual, and saw two mountain goats a little bit ahead of me on the trail. I said hi to them (I say hi to mountain goats a lot) and tried to walk past. The bigger one (probably like the mom because there was this other smaller one) stopped and sort of bumped into me. I was sort of scared for a second, because I thought, this guy could push me over the mountain easily with those strong horns, but nothing bad happened. Instead, it started licking my jacket. It was somewhat weird. It just started randomely licking it. I said out loud, "Yeah, ok....um yeah...ok," somewhat loud. I looked over at the goat and noticed it's eyes. They were black and looked sort of happy. I started smiling and tried to push away the goat. "Um yeah ok, how about you go eat grass now?" the goat then like rubbed me with it's leg. My mom and Zach walked past, sort of laughing. It kept licking me. Then my dad came over on the trail and had some sense. He pushed the mountain goat away and said, "Go, go- he'll start eating your-" so I walked past the goat, hearing it baa-ing. My dad said that the goats probably got food from people, so that's why it was like eating me. Well, licking my jacket. That was funny.

So we just kept walking. I was ahead of the rest of my family still, stopping occasionally to wait for them. We passed some cows. Cows have very intimidating stares. I just give them my teeth smile and walk along. Finally we got to the town. It was getting dark and stormy sort of. We went to the restaurant where we got drinks the other day. It was goosd. I was hungry, but not as much as day one. I sort of fell asleep waiting for the food. I ordered a salad and Spetzla (I spelled that wrong). It's a german dish- sort of like eggy, batter-y, and bread-y. You normally have it with meat. It wasn't as goosd as how Omi (my dad's step mom who's German) makes it. But it was still goosd. I didn't finish all of it, and tried some of my family's dishes. I tried a chesnut from Zach's meal, and it tasted weird. Not sure I liked it. I also noticed on the menu that the horse meat came from USA. Weird. During the meal, we could see it getting darker outside and the storm coming in. When we walked outside, it was raining pretty hard. But the drops were small. It still was very wet.

A few feet down the road from the restaurant, I saw a dark shape near my dad's foot. I recognized it after a few seconds and shouted out in a strange voice that didn't sound like mine, "FROG!!! FROG!!! It's a frog!!!" Then we watched as the big amphibian jumped it's way towards the restaurant. I looked over at my dad and we laughed. It was a big frog. Then my mom said, "'A see of frogs,'" quoting what Michelle said once, trying to say "fog". It was funny. So we kept walking towards our mountain house, getting wet. Then I saw another frog and yelled, "It's another FROG!!!!" It was so funny. Ha! Those were big frogs. We couldn't see the mountains at all that night because of the fog. It was cool. My shorts were really wet when I took off my boots. I took a shower and watched some Mr. Bean on the German TV. It was so funny.

It was dark outside, raining. That hike took us 9 hours when it was supposed to take like 6. Heh. So then I went to bed, sleeping happily.

Day One - "This is better than any movie"

We woke up at 7:30, and I maybe got enough sleep. I had some Special-K-like ceral; the box said something about a bikini. Then we had to rush out to catch our bus. We each brought a backpack and also brought a cooler and briefcase. I had packed the night before-clothes, iPod, notebook, camera, etc. My backpack was sort of heavy. We got on the bus, already with a few people. Zach and I sat on those fold-able seats in the wheel-chair section. Our parents were just behind us, sitting on the normal seats. But then this woman with a baby stroller came on the bus and my mom wanted Zach to give up the seat for her. Eventually he did get up, but this other woman sat down. I listened to my iPod on the bus. Some of the new songs I found on that site. It was cool. So then we got to the Gare Cornavin and bought train tickets.

Then our feet were pounding gently up the stairs and we got on the train. This ride was going to be about 2 in a half hours. I was sort of tired but didn't sleep. There weren't a lot of seats open but I did get a window seat. My dad was sitting across from me, talking about stuff. I did listen but then listened to my iPod a little. A Swiss/French couple, looking around grandpa/grandma age, got on the train and hovered near our seats. Then we realized they were supposed to sit where we were. So we had to move. Zach could stay but I think he moved. I then sat with my parents a little farther up, again getting the window seat. So I basically just sat there listening to music. I have a...habit, persay, to lip synch lyrics. It's like an instinct. I have pretty much all of the Beatles songs memorized, and lots others. But I didn't want to look like an odd teenager with a mouth-spazzing disease so I didn't. I did do it occasionally when I just couldn't resist the song, but I had to cover up my mouth with my hand. Anyway.

So we got off that train after a few hours and arrived in this Swiss town. They spoke German there. We got on another train, which was smaller I think and louder. I didn't even get to sit down on one of the normal seats. I sat down next to Zach on one of those fold-able seats. Listened to more iPod. We only rode 3 stops and then immediately got on a cable car up a mountain. The scenery majorly changed. Instead of Mont Blanc, we could see other snow-topped mountains. There was the Matterhorn here and stuff.

The first cable car had a dog in it. They were also bringing up supplies in it. My ears popped as I looked out the window. After that one we got on another cable car. This one had a bench so I sat down. Next to these two little girls. And I bet you can guess what they did, too. Sigh. One of them did stare a little, but then sort of stopped. Thank goodness. That is one of my major pet-peeves. So anyway. This one also had some dogs and supplies.

After being dragged up a mountain in rectangular prism-shaped pieces of metal, we arrived in our town. It was called Bettmeralp. Their slogan was: "Bettmeralp...the better alp." I could have thought that one up. But anyway. They translated almost everything in German, French, English and Italian. And the welcome sign also had some Asian language on it. So then we walked down the street, trying to find our mountain chalet. I saw lots of tourist-looking houses and stores but not a lot of people. There was even a co-op. I guess you can't go anywhere in Switzerland without seeing one of those.

Our mountain chalet was called Garni Slalom. It was pretty big. The receptionist person knew like 4 languages. Pretty much everyone here did that worked somewhere. She told us our room would be ready at around 2. It was like 1. So we had lunch outside, with a great view of the mountains. Yogurt, bread, cheese, crackers and peanut butter. I hadn't had peanut butter for a while. It was so good. It reminded me of when we did that peanut butter quality rating unit in math in 7th grade. That was fun. Sort of.

After chewing various foodly items and swallowing, we checked in to our room. It was number 31, the very last one. We had to climb up 3 staircases which weren't that bad. The room was sort of smallish. The first door on the right was the bathroom, then it was me and Zach's room. We had separate beds and a TV. Then our parent's room also had a TV. It was cool. Then there was also a small deck. Small as in: could fit our whole family, but that's pretty much it. It was cool. There were some Olympics on; soccer with Brazil and Germany. We watched a little and then took a small hike. The trail was well-paved and several small trucks passed us. Some other people were also walking.

We passed lots of restaurants, mountain chalets, and had a great view. We were going to do this loop-route which would take "a few hours," says my dad. He says that for pretty much any hike, so it meant nothing. But yeah so it was fun. There were a few more people farther down the trail. It switched to a more grassy and mountain-y kind of trail. We got a great whiff of some cow cologne. Made me put my nose under my shirt and say ew a few times. My sweat smelled better, amazingly.

Anyway. So we just continued hiking, passing cows and people and a golf course. Then, something exciting happened. A couple was coming down the trail and we were going up it. So we got to the side to let them pass, and it worked. But then my mom was like really close to the woman, trying to move out of the way. But her camera case came off her shoulder and rolled down the small hill towards the golf course. It rolled for a few feet, but my mom just stood there watching it. We all sort of just watched. The couple we passed stopped and stared too. It rolled all the way down into the golf course. It was only like 10 feet down. Then Zach went down to get it. And later my mom checked it and the camera still worked. It was like a 500 dollar camera, but the case was terrible.

I took a video of part of that and will probably upload it to facebook. Anyway. It was funny, sort of. We kept hiking. Passed a group of like school kids on a field trip or something. They reminded me of some of the people back at Slauson sort of. At this point, we could see part of Europe's largest glacier. The real hike for that was tomorrow. I was looking forward to it, I guess. But back to this one, Zach really wanted to go on a cable car but my mom felt strongly about him not. So there was a huge argument, and my mom just blew up. Perhaps I shouldn't mention this, but she used very colorful language. She said one word about 10 times in the span of about 5 minutes. Then she walked ahead of us and avoided us for pretty much the rest of the hike. Sucked.

We got back to our town, passing this lake that was really cold but still had some people in it. My dad, brother and I went to this place to get a drink. I got a coke, which was just gorgeous. We got sort of lost trying to find our mountain chalet but found it somehow. I was super hungry. And tired. We met up with my mom and tried to find a restaurant. The first one was closed, the other one too expensive, and then we found one that had pizza, pasta and crepes. The guy spoke some English too, but he mixed some French when talking.

My stomach felt so empty, the grumbles feeling like little inpatient pokes. We ordered, me getting salad and this pasta dish that I hadn't had before. I finished a plate of salad in about a minute, everything tasting good. I also had a piece of bread and drank lots of water. Eventually our food came, hot and ready to be digested. My dish was like a bowl of lasagna with spinach, cheese and something that tasted like potato. It was sooo goooosd. I just kept eating, my teeth happily biting down and throat swallowing with glee. It all just tasted so goosd, and I cleaned that bowl clean. All that was left was a little bit of tomato sauce on the edges. I was tired, getting hypnotized easily. I got some ice cream for dessert and my stomach still didn't have that feeling of complete, utter fullness. But that was good.

After we all finished, we stepped outside and started walking home. Outside was a perfect blue, the air coolish and warm. Calm. We could see some stars, not much. We walked over to this church on a hill and watched the moon rise. We had missed the sunset, but this was almost better. The white-yellow coin in the sky floated up quite fast, while we watched on a bench. We were all silent, appreciating this awesome moment. I said out loud after a bit, "This is better than any movie," Something clicked then. I realized something, had something then. I discovered something but I don't know what.

I felt contentment, happiness when I got back. We had to take off our boots before we went inside the mountain chalet and could put on slippers. I didn't though. At our room, I had fun brushing my teeth and went to bed. This was a good trip.

Overnight hiking trip

Tomorrow we have to wake up at 7:30, ride the train somewhere and stay at this place and hike. We'll be back Wednesday night, so I'll be gone like 3 days. I'll write about it when I come back and add the many pictures I will take. We'll see Europe's largest glacier. Wow. I think we'll take a total of like 3-4 hikes. Lots of cable-cars. The train ride should be like the best part because I'll get to listen to music. Ha. No but seriously. I'm sort of looking forward to this trip, because it's something to DO, but it's going to be hard/tiring/boring at times. Probably Becca's blog will have like 50 posts by the time I come back. I'll have to catch-up quickly. So yeah.

Ah, and let's see... my last 8 posts have gotten no comments. A record! Sigh...

Seriously, guys...

Hike No. 3.5

"I wonder how painful barb wire really is," I pondered out loud while climbing over the little bridge alongside the fence blocking cows, with barb wire on the edge of the trail.

"Well, here's your chance to find out," My dad said back.

We then advanced to yet another muddy part of the trail, getting our boots almost completely covered in bligadesh and eugerewf (a new word).

That was just one small part of our 6-hour hike today. Veeerryy long and tiring. We drove up part of the Jura with our new car (bright green VW Golf) while listening to our new radio. Then started walking on what seemed to be a non-long hike. It was complete with several cow pies, mud piles to squelch through, intimidating cows/bulls that stare at you and moo, a parental quibble, cliffs that make you almost faint, me having songs stuck in my head and complaining about having no iPod, being able to see a spectacular view pretty much throughout the whole hike, us meeting this French couple and talking to them a little bit at the end, a relaxing lunch and plenty of pictures taken. As I always say, I'll add those later. It was quite a hike. I'm really tired right now. But it was fun, I suppose. We followed this huge U trail that looped around and brought us to this steep edge on the top of the mountain, providing the name of the hike (the Balcony Hike, or something like that). We saw tons of cows and had to go through these huge, deep mud "episodes". I started a conversation by asking my dad what music he listened to when he was my age. He liked pretty much the same stuff as I did. He also told me he went to a Rolling Stones concert, which totally wow-ed me. That would be awesome. But he said it was really really loud and you could hardly even tell what they were playing because of all the loudness. But whatever. He wants to bike up the road trail next time.

Well, seeing as no one is on chat and I have some time on my hands, I'm going to finish that other post. Maybe add some pictures.

Just Like Old Times

Yesterday we spent about 10 hours with the Levins. My day began with a chocolate croissant, a plain croissant and some water. I got on the computer, being the computer-addict I am. Listened to Itunes. Studied French. Blogged maybe. And then it got interesting at around 2. We had a plan to hike the Saleve with the Levins and had to take a bus (several of them) to the bottom of the mountain. My mom told us the bus was leaving at like 2:41. We left the apartment at around 2:30. I said to my mom, "We have to run!" And that is just what I did. But running with hiking boots at least a size too large on a hot day is not...convenient. Or pleasant. So eventually I stopped. But then I just switched to my passing-time pace. My mom nor Zach were running. When we met up at a crosswalk close to the bus stop, I looked at my watch and we had like 7 minutes. I said to my mom, "We're not going to make it, we have like 5 minutes." See, I'm the type of person that says I'll be late to class even if we have like 3 more minutes and I'm practically running. I'll say we have 5 minutes when we really have 15. I'm just pessimistic like that. Anyway. We missed our bus. It actually was a wild plan, because our real bus was near the border, which was like a 20 minute walk. So we called my dad, who was biking to the mountain. We were only about 30 minutes late though. We walked to the other bus stop and waited. Waited for like 10 minutes. When the bus finally came, it was as full as the Michigan Stadium during the OSU/UM game. That was an exaggeration. But it was capital-F-you-double-ell. Naturally we had to stand up. But I was used to that. But it's still annoying with all that many germs and little kids staring at you. I tell you, there is perhaps not many other things more annoying than little kids watching you closely as if you were wearing a big sign that said some important information they really needed to know. I vow to never stare at people because that is just...so dang irksome. Anyway. So we rode a bus to the Geneva Cornavin (train/tram/bus station). Then my mom had some trouble finding the right bus, but this lady helped her. She sounded like she was American, but said she was actually French. I was surprised. My mom and her talked a little before she had to get on her bus. So then we waited a few more minutes for our bus. It was full-ish. We were going to ride it to the last stop, and then guess what happened. On one of the stops, the Levins came on! So it was a good thing we missed that bus. That was awesome. So I talked to Erez and Oren and we took some pictures. It was cool. Then eventually we got off, with the Saleve so close I felt like I could touch it. So close you could see almost all of the details of the cliffs and stuff. But we still had to walk. We met up with my dad before we got to the mountain and kept walking. But then. Ow. ... Ow. ... Ow. It felt like there was a stinging bee...or just a stingy thing in my left sock. Ow. Every few seconds, I felt the sharp sting and muttered an "Ow." My mom thought it was a stinging nettle. When we took the boot and sock off, there wasn't anything there really. But we shook out my sock and put some lotion on my foot. It seemed to help. No more sting. Yay. Then we sort of split into two groups. One group was the slow-ish/talk-ish group with Aviva (Erez and Oren's mom) and my mom. They were already far behind when we started climbing. I was the one girl in a group with 5 guys. Great. But I was confident. This was my chance to prove my...my..non-sissy-ness. I had already done one hard hike this year, I wasn't going to give up. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Constantly. And quickly. Dan had set a pace similar to my passing-time pace, but I didn't want to waste my energy so I mostly stayed towards the back. It was really hard at first. Climbing on a steep rocky trail, zig-zagging up the forest. My legs ached after a few minutes and I was always breathing heavily. Man...this...was...hard...But I kept going with my strategy, just putting one foot in front of the other. I didn't stop. I kept walking up. I kept thinking, "Do it for Chester, just do it" It was painful. It was exhausting. Oren had kinda lagged off behind, but Dan waited for him. Erez and Zach had went ahead, but my dad and I met up with them on a bench. We had to climb up some stairs, which was pretty much the worst part. The second set of stairs were like huge teeth belonging to someone who hadn't had enough dentist appointments. They were also almost too much trouble than they were worth. But I made it up. I had a few water breaks, took some pictures, which I will of course add later. Dan and Oren were behind us a little bit, and we kept going. Then at some point I was just with Erez and Zach because my dad and Dan and Oren were talking. It was quiet. I was thinking about waiting for them, but then decided it'd be better to just keep going. Eventually my dad came up behind us and we kept hiking up. Almost there. My dad started talking to Erez. Erez said he first climbed the Saleve when he was like 9 and that was when he did it in an hour and 10 minutes. He also had ran up part of it. Dang. He also told us about his shirt. It was green and said "How you 'gunna compost that?" It was from his camp he went to. Everyone was really close to each other and you just talk about deep things and all that. It actually sounded like a really cool camp. Anyway, we finally reached the top. It was so so great. It took us about an hour and 20 minutes, according to my watch. I could see the cable car that would take us down, and the great view. Ahh. And then sitting down never felt so awesome. That chair was like the best thing to have exist. And then we all got Cokes, and never have my taste buds greeted all that sugar with open arms. It was the best coke I had ever had. I finished it pretty quick too. I was really thirsty. Oren and Dan came up around 5-10 minutes after us. I was so proud of myself. Ahh. Then I went with Oren to the playground. Went down the slides. Took some videos. Pictures. Then we went to the place where para-gliders take off. There were a lot of para-gliders off the Saleve. I think Zach wants to take lessons and do it. I would want to do it too, but it'd be expensive. Yet fun. So then after a bit my mom and Aviva came up. After some more talking and admiring the view, we took the cable car down. Dan wanted to run down though, so he did. The cable car ride took like 10 minutes or less. We got another great view of the mountain. My ears popped. By the time we got down it was like 6 or 7 or something. The day was still not over. Erez wanted to listen to his iPod, and we started a game of Hooligan. Hooligan is where someone is a hooligan (normally Oren) and he (or she) tries to attack or steal something from the king (normally like Erez or Zach) and there are security guards (normally me and Zach) who try to hold back the Hooligan. It's a great game. Violent, but such great fun. We always seem to adapt English accents when talking in this game. I dunno why, it's just something we do. If you were to watch this game, you'd hear Erez scream a lot saying "SECURITY!!!" and Oren laughing, and Zach threatening Oren, and me I guess laughing. It's such a fun game. Anyway. So after a while that got sort of old. Well, tiring anyway. I was tired. We decided we'd go to this pizza place and have dinner together. Dan came down, sweat dripping off his chin. My dad was biking to the restaurant, and we all rode buses. The first one we got on didn't have anyone on it for a while, and we (me, Erez and Oren) started singing snippets of Beatles songs. We were out of key, and Erez and Oren argued a little, but it was really fun. Oren still had some energy, amazingly, and swung around on the handle, much to the annoyance of all of us. Then people got on the bus and we had to stop singing. But Oren kept swinging around. Sigh. So much energy. We got on more buses, and on one ride, I counted like 3 straight Smart cars. I was like, "Smart car!!" seconds later- "Smart car!!!" then, "Another one!!" I got like 12 that day. I'm up to about 50 total. According to Dan and Erez, I'm quite good at spotting Smart cars. Heh. So we got to Meyrin. Pretty much the whole city is going under construction to add tram/train rails so we had to go a different way to the pizza place. We got there at like 9. It was an Italian place. We ate inside because there were too many people outside. It was nice. I was really hungry. Oren showed me this huge Nutella jar, that was about 7-9 inches tall or something. *Drools... it was really fun at the restaurant. We just talked and laughed. Oren made a huge mess on the table cloth by spilling his water, and he broke way too many toothpicks. At the end, he wanted the last one, but Zach was like, "Here, Oren, let's look at the ratios- Me, 2; Erez, 2; Amelia, 1; you, 5. I think that it's only fair that Amelia gets the last one." So that's what happened. It was really funny the way Zach said it. It took some time for the waiter to come around. It was funny when all of the "kids" ordered because we all ordered Salade Vert and pizzas. The salad had this really good mustard-y dressing on it. I cleaned my plate pretty quick. But my stum-ack still wanted more food. It was a good salad. Erez had put a whole bunch of stuff on it like salt and pepper and oil. Zach tried that, but didn't quite like the mustard-y dressing. Then Oren grossed all of us out by using his fingers to wipe up the rest of the dressing. He also spilled even more water. It was so funny I'm even laughing now as I type it. Ahh. Good times. Then finally the guy came back to take our "main course" orders. I got a Pizza Margartita. Which is just a plain cheese pizza. That's what Erez and Zach got too. Oren got a spicy pepperoni-like pizza. I ate happily. We also got Sprites, which came in cool bottles. I put some "spicy" oil on my pizza, which made it really good. I ate all of but like a fourth. It was really really good. Ahh. It was like 11 by the time we finished. Oren and Erez were shooting little pieces of the table cloth at each other, (it was paper) which were followed by much laughter. Erez used his tongue and Oren just threw it. We also liked to cut up the table cloth and make holes in it. It's actually really fun. And then I took some pictures of Erez and Oren holding up the Sprite bottles with their tongues. Ah. Eventually we left the restaurant, after paying for the "aftermath". I took my Sprite bottle home, as a momento of one of the best days ever. The Levins walked home and my dad got the CERN car. But then Dan had left his cell phone in the car, so we drove to their apartment and gave it back. We said goodbye to Dan and Erez, who had come back early to retrieve the phone. They're going on a 2-day trip to somewhere in Switzerland. So then we drove home. It was around 11:30 when we finally opened the door to our apartment. By the time I had plopped down in my bed, my leg muscles were screaming quietly, my head pounding from excursion and dehydration, my armpits drenched, and my mouth sore from grinning.

Just like old times.

ARGH THIS ALWAYS HAPPENS

I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED A BLOG POST I WAS WRITING AND I REALLY DON'T FEEL LIKE RE-WRITING IT, BUT I SHOULD. UGH UGH UGH UGH THIS HAPPENED BEFORE!!! IT'S SO ANNOYING!!!! SO #*$&#%&&#%&* ANNOYING UGH UGH AND I WROTE A LOT TOO!!! UGH UGH STUPID THING