Last But Not Least!

Here we are Moms and Dads...at the final entry to the blog and our final 2014 CAK European Adventure day.  I can hardly even remember London and Paris as they seem such a blur now.  We've had SOOOOO many adventures every day more and more until the mind finally gives up and succumbs to exhaustion :-) in a good way, of course!  I don't like this particular day because it means saying goodbye to Murren, to Denise and our little Chalet Fontana, to Lydia at the Stager Stubli, to Eddy at the Knife Shop.  But we have SOOOOO many memories to hang onto, so many adventures, so many cultural experiences, so many ACCOMPLISHMENTS - it's a good way to end :-)

But our journey must continue on and so this morning at 7:30 we took our bags to the the little train station before breakfast and shipped them ahead to our final destination to Zurich Main Train Station.  That's because we have a slow and leisurely ride today to Zurich via Lucerne which is just an absolutely beautiful city.  How can one country have so many drop dead gorgeous destinations???  Don't know the answer to that - but the Swiss certainly do a fantastic job with it!

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The plans for this day are just fun - let's celebrate our journey and our friendships and our last day on this picture perfect day and just enjoy the sites of Lucerne.  We have lunch reservations at a little pizzeria outdoors on the cobblestone pedestrian shopping area.  Most of the students order pizza margheritas and some even venture to spaghetti with lobster (thought he would get lobster chunks but ended up with a scarey looking WHOLE lobster on top)!

And of course we must visit the Jesuit Church which sits directly on the beautiful River Reuss which you see just above with Emily P. and Angie and Haley standing in the foreground.  It's stunning and those are your students sitting way down on the front row.  Guess what...they CAN be quiet AFTER all ;-)

Mr. Margene had planned to take us on a hike around the old medieval city fortress towers, but we opted for a change of plans, decided we were too tired and instead we spent the afternoon just exploring the old city pedestrian center and picked up a few last minute souvenirs.  Mr. Margene really enjoyed the "Sherpa Store"!  Those outdoorsy people - they're just so...well...outdoorsy!

Wrapping up our time in Lucerne we hopped back on the train in our reserved compartment and continued on the short jaunt to Zurich which is another stunningly beautiful city...maybe helped out by the fact that most of the world's refined gold is stored under the Bahnhofstrasse here in Zurich!  The city is clean, punctual (of course), and exudes wealth beyond belief.  Miss Haley spotted a complete ensemble in the Prada Window for a mere 5000 Swiss Francs...

We had our final group dinner at the famous Zeughauskellar Restaurant with the "Steak on a Sword" which Emily P. said was delicious.

We all enjoyed our last dinner and our final stroll down to the beautiful Zurich lakefront.  We snapped a group picture not intending it to be our final one...the the skies opened and the rains came and we sprinted back to our hotel for devotions and preparation packing time.

We've had an absolutely fantastic time with your students!  To think I was worried about "learning their names" is so far behind me now - I feel like they're my own.  Angie, Jere, Haley and I hope that your students will remember their time with us and their friends and the hundreds of people and cultures that we've been a part of and experienced first hand.  They are a precious bunch of young adults and I know they are missing you...that's a GOOD thing!  We'll be heading out early in the morning to catch our train and our reserved carriage to the airport.  We're going to try our darndest to ship Joseph's extra extra extra large Venetian Sword home with us...the little Murren Post Office said "No, too dangerous" even though we tried to convince them multiple times.  I'm always anxious as we land in Knoxville and gather at the gate as we deplane.  We have a brief word of prayer and preparation and then we round the corner and see ALL OF YOU!  How exciting! Thank you for letting us be a part of this grand tour with your students...we love them everyone!

Good night from Zurich.  See you tomorrow evening in Hot & Humid Knoxville!

A New CAK High

This morning started with those magnificent Swiss Alps being shrouded in a thick mist and grey skies.  I thought to myself how thankful I was for yesterday's sunshine and fun in the snow.  But as I got dressed and prepared for breakfast and the day's agenda the skies cleared and the sun shone brightly.  Yeah - because THIS day was another outdoors day.  It began slowly as we formed two groups for two very different activities.  Fourteen of the students opted for a leisurely walk down to sleepy little Gimmelwald and taking in all of the sights and sounds and "tastes" along the way with Mr. & Mrs. Mynatt.  The other 3 students strolled over to the Stager Sports Center and prepared themselves for a day of bravery on the giant granite cliffs of the Lauterbrunnen Valley on the via Ferrata in Murren.  Let's start this story at the beginning...WAAAYYYYYY before we arrived at this point the students were introduced to the possibility of participating on a "special excursion" with Mr. Margene to scale the walls and traverse the gorges of the Lauterbrunnen Valley.  Following their own interests Emme, Caroline and Joseph chose to take part in this rather heroic activity.

The others chose to follow the Mynatts on a different excursion down the path to sleepy little Gimmelwald.  Each path contained its own excitement and fun.  The Gimmelwald path began like this:

 There are many friends we make along the way as we journey down to Gimmelwald including a cat, a horse, several HUMONGOUS snails and a few sheep which we think were German speaking sheep because they didn't come when Mrs. Mynatt tried to call them over ;-)

Gimmelwald holds the one room school for both the villages of Murren and Gimmelwald where all the students learn simultaneously.  I'm sure any teachers reading this cringe at the thought of preparing lessons plans for 10 grades all at once every day!  These alpine villages all have one thing in common and that's the production of cheese and butter from their cows who graze in the high alpine pastures during the summer so the farmers can harvest the thick green grass and wildflowers for food during the long hard winters.  Each villager contributes a share of the milk from their cows.  The milk is used to make some of the best Alp Cheese and Alp Butter any where around.  After the cheese is aged and ready each villager is given a portion of the cheese based on the amount of milk they contributed.  It's a wonderful "teamwork" kind of concept and today we totally benefit from that teamwork as Mrs. Mynatt hands out the cheese slices!

As we wander through the village and the family farms and chalets we encounter a homemade simple sign affixed to the outside of one of them.  It reads "AlpKase" - Alp Cheese!  Please Ring the bell.  So a few of my cohorts and I bravely approach the door and ring the little bell wondering to ourselves who might appear...maybe actually hoping that NOBODY would appear ;-)

As the door opens we are greeted by a very nice lady who says hello in several different languages (refer to that 1-room schoolhouse education) and takes our order for 20 slices of cheese please.  She smiles and disappears for a few minutes and returns with a package containing 20 precisely cut sticks of THE absolute best cheese I've ever tasted.  I had exactly 1/2 of a piece.  Angie had the other 1/2, and the rest of the 19 pieces were instantly inhaled by our 14 students!  They all loved it!

We ate cheese as we played at the Gimmelwald playground and waited for the via Ferrata people to appear as their trail ended where OUR Gimmelwald trail ended.  A few txts and phone calls later we discover they're going to be just a little later than expected so we journey on down to the valley floor in Stechelberg via the Schilthornbahn Gondola and lo and behold guess who we pass on our way down...

 Yes, CAK moms and dads, those are your little ones perched up there high over the gorge on probably the tamest section of the entire Murren via Ferrata.  Congratulations to them on their heroic bravery...even though they DID miss out on the cheese tasting!

Anybody needing smelling salts at home about right now???

Joseph wore the Go-Pro apparatus strapped to his helmut the entire time so there are SEVERAL video clips to give you several more rounds of heart palpitations, and I'm sure Mr. Margene will be distributing those ASAP.

There's really not a good way to continue on with this story here, is there???  But we must!  Mr. Margene's group completed their trek, hopped on the gondola and met us at the entrance to Trummelbache Falls which is contained entirely inside the mountain and the falls are powered by the melting snow and glaciers from the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau.  The water is so powerful it has drilled enormous caverns straight through the granite.  And of course the Swiss built an elevator ALSO inside the mountain that whisks us up straight to the top; straight to the beginning of the falls where we make our way down to the lower falls and finally to our ending group picture.

It's been a fun-packed adrenaline rush kind of day in many different ways.  But it's time to head back to Murren for some free time to swim, shop in the grocery store, nap, picnic whatever you want to do.  Several of the students are really watching their money closely and cooking their dinner in the Chalet this evening.   I think they've learned how to eat economically in Switzerland which is a REAL feat of strength!

Rose made a cake for the ending of a perfect day.  It was all eaten and the students said it was delicious!

Devotions are now over, kids showered and tucked in...and hopefully nearly packed up.  In the morning we're rolling our big luggage down to the train station and shipping our bags ahead to Zurich where we'll catch up with it tomorrow evening after we depart Murren :-( and stop by Lucerne for a visit on our way to Hotel St. Josef for our last night in Zurich.  Last night???  I'm really having a hard time believing it.  To think that just 15 or 16 days ago my worry was attempting to learn all of the kids' names.  Now they're just like my own!  What a time we've had exploring and working and growing closer and building friendships and finding new strengths we didn't know we had.  Thank you, parents for allowing us to spend this time with your wonderful kids.  They've been great, and I'm sure I'll get a little melancholy tomorrow night writing the final entry here.  I hope you've learned along with us as we spent each and every day with new and exciting destinations and activities.  I know your little ones will have MANY stories to share with you when they get home.

Good night from Murren.  Talk to you tomorrow from Zurich!