Switzerland recap

15 February 2010- Greetings from Montreux. Okay I am lying, we are home and furiously turning luggage around to pack for our trip to Houston. 9H00 flight time, ouch. Needed to use the coin-op laundry for their dryer. Mine takes FOOOORRRREVER.
Montreux is located almost all the way around the top of Lake Geneva (Lac Leman to the locals) from Geneva. Still the french speaking part of Switzerland. Of course Switzerland's official languages are French, Swiss Deutsch (way different than the Hochdeutsch the Germans speak), Italian, and Romansch (a dialect known only to a few). English is all over the place, the common bond language!

Me and Montreux's most beloved resident, Freddie Mercury of Queen. He had a home there, and placed a record studio there as well. Lots of musicians regarded well in Montreux. The centre for Music was next to our hotel and busts of Ray Charles, BB King and Quincy Jones were staged around. Charlie Chaplin lived out his "exile" in the next village, Vevey. We didn't make it there.
Chad went to Spain right before this trip. He started feeling the sore throat then. By Friday, he was lucky to make it on the train, to lunch and then crashed in the lovely hotel room I had booked for us. He is coughing again, so I hope this is not a repeat of the bug of 2008 he got in Spain that turned into walking pneumonia and lasted for months on end. No more Spain for Chad until we can get our hands on a Z pack or some other black market strength anti-biotic. These old world germs are killers!
We did make out Saturday to Chateau Chillon. Documented as existing at the edge of the lake as a gateway to Italy, France and Austria (back when they were huge). Since 1150. Still amazing to this western American girl who has an "old" house in Phoenix that dates from 1954. Huge giantness of a castle. Over 40 rooms they let you tromp around in. But still a cold, unheated stone structure, so we kind of boogied at the end. Needed to get Chad out of the cold. We got a bit of Mexican food in Montreux. I know, you all are laughing but a good try for a Swiss mountain town. I had the Chilaquiles with green sauce and Chad had the enchiladas with red sauce. Not Chad-chiladas by any stretch but kudos to offering a choice of sauce. No chips and salsa were offered so just a thumbs up, not way up.

We spent our Valentine's afternoon going up into the mountains. The lake was really foggy so I figured we wouldn't see much from a boat cruise. Better to take the train up to 2000m. Rochers de Naye at approximately Boulder city altitude but still higher than us in Paris. We got my MUST DO, fondue for lunch up there. So good. Don't tell Tony, I totally cheated on my carb-light diet.

So sunny and lovely up above the clouds. There was several ski slopes along the train's path but all were snowy with low visibility. Finally at La Perche, we popped right through the clouds. Ah, the sun. We got a bit of natural vitamin D, shot some photos and then came down. Happy Valentines to my sickhead. He got me some pearl jewelry from Spain. I got him a bottle of his favorite champagne and italian chocolates. The champagne came back, untouched. That is how sick he has been.


Overall a good trip for us. Crazy expensive but not Norway prices. Valentine's dinner at our hotel was 125 CHF per person. CHF is about equal to a USD so not a good deal. I just had a salad purchased from the local grocery store, Chad didn't eat. Another sign of how wrecked the poor guy is. Our hotel offered free wired internet but the highlight was the free on demand movies. We finally saw Inglorious Basterds (too many languages and here all sub-titles in French), Duplicity, Up, The Proposal, stayed in the room a lot to catch Chad up on some Nyquil induced sleep. God bless the person who came up with that one room feature.
Now the negatives. Really the guy who designed the hair dryer that resembles a vacuum cleaner needs to get his wife, daughters, and all other females in his life to complain to him about the design. It blows out luke warm air but the nozzle (seriously just like a vacuum) is smoking hot. As if all the heat is conducted to where your hand needs to be. No me gusta. People caught doing graffiti should be flogged immediately. Second offense is death. Really so sad to see gorgeous mountain and lake views and then Apu from the Simpsons with blond hair on the overpass. Makes me so sad that beauty gets destroyed for someone's boredom. I had to borrow a plug adapter to fit my 2 big pin plug into the 2 small pin. Really? My camera battery played hide and seek. We had to coax the last day's photos out of it by popping in our pocket, then popping it into the camera. Rapid fire photos, then back to the pocket. I am hoping it was just cold.
Okay got to end this and get my bag packed for tomorrow. Got my list of American errands to do: mani/pedi, get camera serviced, massage, shop for friends, shop for groceries, see friends/coworkers. And eat! Warning Houston, we are on our way!