Arrived in Switzerland yesterday, but not before we had a great time in Paris.
My flight arrived Thursday morning and I took the train into the city, and was happy to see our hotel was close to the Eiffel Tower and the Champs l'elysée. Dan and Terri wouldn't arrive for a few hours so I found a great little French bistro near our hotel and sat outside and drank some great wine and ate some cheese and bread.
My server didn't know a lick of English so we communicated through hand gestures and me pointing at the menu.
At this point I had been up for over 24 hours and the jet lag was creeping in, so I went and slept for a few hours until I heard Dan and Terri knock on the hotel room door. After big hugs all around, everyone unpacked and we were off to see Paris. However, before we ventured too far we explored the neighborhoods near our hotel and hopped into several street side cafe's and enjoyed more wine, laughter, and bread.
Our first point of interest was the Eiffel Tower, which was a short walk. It's bigger than I thought and simply a stunning piece of architecture. It was crowded, and we had no chance to go to the top so we took lots of photos and people watched, and the weather could not have been better.
Then, we hopped on a rickshaw and headed over to the Champs l'elysee, which we absolutely loved! We walked pretty much the whole length and explored the area thoroughly until ... You guessed it... We sat at a street side bistro and ordered another bottle of Bordeaux!
Afterwards, we hopped on another rickshaw and the driver took us back by the Eiffel Tower just in time to see it light up (darkness was setting in) and blink with thousands of lights! It was amazing.
Before we turned in we had a snack near our hotel and met some students from the US who were there studying abroad, and had a great time laughing and talking with them.
The next morning we grabbed some coffee and croissants and made our way to the train station for our high-speed train to Switzerland, but not before having a bite outside the station (we got there two hours early) and a cold beer at yet another street cafe.
Our train ride was awesome, mainly because we sat next to a 55 year old special forces commander from the Austrian military named Freddy. He was this bigger than life personality who has been stationed everywhere from the Golan Heights, Damascus (Syria), Afghanistan, and most recently Kosovo. He bought us a round of Heinekens and shared some great combat stories from his peace keeping missions and showed Dan and I some hand to hand combat moves! This was no poser, and he gave us his card and asked that we keep in touch. A gregarious man who laughed with us the whole 4 hour train ride and pointed out some great points of interest along the route, including Dijon, France (yes, where the mustard comes from) as we passed by. We will never forget Freddy, and meeting people like him around the world is why I love to travel.
We arrived early to Thun, Switzerland after changing trains in Basel (home of Rodger Federer). Pascal and Adriana greeted us with big bear hugs upon arrival, and I have to say it a bit emotional for all of us to be in Thun! Pascal had dinner ready for us, and Adriana looked beautiful! She has recently lost 40 lbs and looked great. We were joined at dinner by Adriana's sister and her boyfriend, and I was happy to realize my Swiss-German came back pretty fast.
After dinner we walked into downtown Thun, and the warm evening ensured the platz was full of young people sitting on the outside bars and we chatted away over drinks outside until after midnight.
This morning we leave for Geneva with Pascal's cousin Thomas and his wife Erika to see the Swiss national soccer team play Cyprus in a World Cup qualifier. I am so excited, and wait for some special costumes we'll all be wearing! Photos coming tomorrow!!!!
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