New Adventures in Switzerland
I just put our weekend guests on the train yesterday morning so things are quiet once again in our apartment...Alli's cousin Tina and her husband Kevin visited us on the front end of their European trip which gave us an opportunity to catch up with them, as well as see a few things in the area we haven't yet been able to see. On Saturday, we all braved the cool Spring rain to go to a chocolate festival near Geneva in Versoix. 
Local artisan chocolatiers were handing out samples, as well as showing off their chocolate skills by making various Easter shaped chocolate treats such as eggs and bunnies. If you like chocolate, this was the place to be...we also enjoyed a nice pork sausage and fries lunch under the tent, rode on the the chocolate train, and admired chocolate art. The entire tent smelled of chocolate, which is either bad or good depending on your mood...thankfully we already consumed lunch so it was appropriate for us to sample (our favorite was a lime flavored chocolate that only came in 6-inch bunny size, even though I asked in French for something smaller).
We also drove up to La Gruyère to check out their castle, as well as have lunch at the only open restaurant on Sunday (McDonald's...fountain Coke always tastes sooooooo good). The castle wasn't as spectacular as some of the others we have visited, although at this point of the adventure most of the things we see tend to rank much lower than they should due to Europe fatigue (it's not that we don't think things are cool or unique anymore, it's just that after a while everything starts to look the same...our visitors on the other hand loved the experience...). We drove up into the Pre-Alps to give our guests a sense of how much it has snowed this winter, and then spent the afternoon along the lake visiting a food museum and wishing for the sun to make an appearance. The weekend seemed to pass by quickly, which speaks to the fun we experienced with each other. 
The last adventure took us back to Lausanne where I surprised everyone with a trip to a zoo in the city with farm animals...none of us really knew what to expect but the highlight was seeing the baby pigs causing all kinds of trouble. I didn't realize pigs could get so hairy (I thought they were dogs from a distance, perhaps you can tell why). Nevertheless, it is always nice to have visitors but sadly our time here is fading and our last few visitors arrive in the middle of next month.
April 10, 2009 at 10:32 PM
Anne absolutely loves fountain beverages too, coke being her favorite. I can certain understand your European fatigue, our Asian fatigue has set in to.
-Bill
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