Happy 4th of July!!!

We've had a fantastic weekend (and, as a result, this will be a very long entry).

We were a little worried that the weekend would be a non-starter since I was a bit clingy and running a low-grade fever on Friday so Mommy and Daddy thought I was teething. It turns out that I probably had just a little crud and I felt better by Saturday morning.

We started off by heading to base to have some Euros changed into Swiss Franks since we knew we'd need them. We plugged the "Lion Monument" in Lucern into the navigator and off we went. Almost instantly we passed straight over the French border (we only live about 30 minutes from France if you can belive that). So, I bagged my third country (1. United States 2. Germany and 3. France). Unfortunately, the directions from the navigator can sometimes be a little vague so we ended up going the wrong way at one point. I got hungry on our little detour so we pulled off at a parking area. Mommy ran to the bathroon and experienced her first "squat toilet" (pictured below). The irony is that when Daddy when to the men's room there was an actual sit-down toilet in there (and, yes, they're both sure they were in the right place).



The drive through the French countryside was beautiful. We saw plenty of signs for the "Tour de France" - so we were obviously tracing part of the route it will take. We had originally intended to spend two days in Lucern and one day in Basel. Life has a funny way of intervening. Luckily, I slept like a champ (obviously, sleeping off whatever germs I was fighting) throughout the whole trip. The drive should have taken 3.5 hours - and our detour in the wrong direction only took us 15 km out of the way. Almost everywhere we went in France a road was closed for repairs - we spent at least an hour just finding new roads. The construction continued all the way to Basel (the Switzerland border crossing point). At that point we were stuck in a major stau (traffic jam) and realized that we were finally crossing the border to get my 4th country!! We happily pulled out our passports (which were not required to get into France - there was little fanfare there, we barely knew we were entering the country except for a little tiny sign and the language on the road signs changed) and waited as patiently as we could (the adults in the car were a little cross from the delays up to this point). We finally got to the front and the customs agent (zoll) signaled us out of the line. It turns out that we needed to pay a Swiss federal road tax - they didn't want to see our passports at all. After that long delay we were faced with MORE construction and were stuck UNDER Basel (Switzerland has a lot of tunnels) for a very long time. We decided that we never wanted to come back to Basel again and amended out itenerary for the weekend.

Almost 6 hours later we finally made it to Lucern - and it was worth the wait! We started off on a walk of the waterfront with a view of the mountains (the pictures do no justice).





It turns out that Saturday was "Alstadt fest" (All city festival) for Lucern and the surrounding cities (many of them touch). We wandered through tiny, winding cobblestoned streets with revelers from all over the world and live bands at every turn. We stopped and ate some carnival food and enjoyed the atmosphere.



As it started to get closer to evening, Mommy and Daddy realized that finding a hotel for the night might suddenly need to be a priority. We headed back to the car just in time to see 3 or 4 busloads of revelers in medieval costume loading off of busses and singing at the top of their lungs. They were obviously heading off to reenact something and we were missing out on the fun.



We drove around for a while looking for a hotel in our price range. When we found one it turned out to be better than any of the hotels we had seen that were twice the price (we'll definitely be staying again next time we head to Lucern). The only silly thing (and this is true of most hotels in Europe) is that the beds were just two twin beds pushed together. This is as close as we could come to a panorama view from our balcony (the three pictures should match up somewhat to give you a full picture - right to left).









Mommy and Daddy put me to bed for the night and went to the restaraunt downstairs to enjoy dinner as adults, together, for once (they hadn't had dinner alone since before Daddy left for Iraq). Of course, they had brought my baby monitor along so that they could listen and make sure that I wasn't up to any monkey business while they were out (plus, they chose a table right under our room - the outdoor part of the restaraunt was DIRECTLY below our balcony). They say that dinner and dessert were excellent (there was some odd, but very good fruit in both of their desserts that neither can recognize).

The next morning we headed back down to Lucern because Mommy really wanted to see the Lion Monument. It was incredibly moving and she knows that the pictures will never convey what she saw.





After that we attempted to go to the glacier museum but it didn't seem very stroller friendly so we moved on. We went to find and trace the original fortifications of the city.



We had to climb a lot of stairs (have we mentioned lately how much we all love the jogging stroller for days like this?).



We had a pleasant walk along the original city fortifications.





We saw some of the strangest cows - they were long-haired. It was an interesting juxtiposition to see cows in the middle of a city.



At one of the tourrets, Mommy noticed that there were stairs. Since I was in the stroller, Daddy goaded Mommy into exploring alone. This is what she climbed.



When she got to the top and yelled down to us, Daddy couldn't resist. He scooped me out of the stroller, left it parked at the bottom and away we went. It was an amazingly steep trek, (it turns out that Mommy was yelling "step back" so she could take a picture of us from up high, but Daddy and I heard, "come on up!") especially with Daddy holding me. But, it was absolutely worth it. Here's what we saw from the top of Lucerne.







When we came back down I spent some time making friends with a little Swiss boy named Marvin. We were both fascinated with each other. Here we are in a small group of Italian tourists checking out the funny cows together (You can't actually see Marvin and his Daddy, they're behind the Italians).



After that we headed back down toward the water and strolled along. We crossed both of the wooden bridges (which date back to before the 1600's) and admired the paintings that were inside toward the roof (again, dating back to pre-1600's).



We admired the swans, which were everywhere.



We also admired all of the pretty fountains that were scattered throughout the city.



After a while, we all decided that we wanted a change of pace and wanted to head to the mountains. Mommy and Daddy found a tram that went up pretty much straight behind our hotel (even the drive there was breathtaking - and scary - it was only wide enough for one car and traffic ran both directions). This is the tram car we rode up on as it came down to pick us up.



You paid at the top and had the choice of one way or round trip. Since one-way was an option, Mommy and Daddy figured that it couldn't be THAT hard to get back down. Plus, the sign said it was only about a 55 minute walk. Here's a view from the top.



It started off as a pleasant stroll. We wandered through meadows and heard a clanking noise. We discovered that there were goats right above us wearing bells and chasing after another hiker.



The view was absolutely stunning. There was actually another tram further over that would go up these peaks - we'll take that one next time.



Here's about where we ran into trouble. Apparently, Swiss hiking trails don't mess around with silly things like switchbacks. We went STRAIGHT down the mountain. Since we rode the tram up 423 meters, that means that we went over 1200 feet, pretty much straight down (after everyone had recovered their humor, Daddy joked that we went down 1200 feet on a 1500 foot hiking trail). Mommy, unfortunately, has inherited Grandpa and Papa's knees, so it was a very slow trek for her.



We did hear another collection of bells at one point and saw a collection of cows, all wearing their big, clanky bells. We did some research and it turns out that in the old days the bells were on the livestock so that the farmers could locate them when they'd wandered away. The tradition has just remained.



It was very pretty everywhere. This was about 50 feet from our car.



We were relieved to get down off the mountain (Daddy's famous last words about half way down were "Hmm, maybe this was a little bit too ambitious with a baby along" - and it was). We drove back to the hotel and all collapsed to take a long nap.

After naptime was over, Mommy and Daddy decided that they wanted to have dinner along the river in Lucerne. We found a nice restaraunt with a waterfront table available. Here's our view from the table.





I'm really getting very excited about trying to eat - every time Mommy or Daddy take a bite I open my mouth.



I became bored with adult dinner pretty quickly, so Daddy and I moved over and sat on the waterfront and fed fries (pomme frites) to the birds, ducks and swans. I was the most photographed thing on the waterfront for a while because I had a swarm of birds. Ironically, Mommy was on the wrong side and didn't get a great photo.



The next morning we packed up and waved goodbye to Lucerne to head toward Zurich. Zurich was very pretty and very ritzy. Think Fifth Avenue in New York or Rodeo Drive in California. We wandered up and down the shopping district and felt very poor. We did go into a neat toy store where Mommy and Daddy bought me my first soccer ball and four books in German. They bought me "Schwimm, Kleiner Wombat, Schwimm" (Swim, little wombat, swim), The Hungry Little Caterpillar, Guess How Much I Love You, and the Adventures of Peter Rabbit. The last three are translations of English books, so they know what they say. Daddy is working on translating "Schwimm, Kleiner Wombat, Schwimm" so we know what it's about. We figure we'll all learn some German this way.

Unfortunately, we were all worn out so we didn't spend much time in Zurich. We did see some beautiful churches before we headed out.







The drive home took a bit longer than we anticipated (but not the 6 hours it took us to get there) and for some reason, much to our dismay, the navigator routed us through Basel, again (we started singing "Hotel California" - you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave...). We were VERY glad to make it home..

As soon as we made it home, Mommy set me down on the floor and rolled me onto my tummy (she does that a lot, much to my annoyance). I decided that I'd had enough and rolled myself back onto my back again. I have officially figured out how to roll over on my own! I don't LIKE to do it, but I will now. A very exciting end to a long day.

We had a wonderful trip and are looking forward to our next big one (although, we'll be glad to stick close to home for the next few weeks).