Beatenberg--where the sun always shines

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Originally uploaded by wahartung

So my friend E was telling me about her trip to Beatenberg, which is somewhere on the Lake Thun near Interlaken. She said, it's always sunny and above the fog and there are some great views of the Jungfrau, Eiger, and Mönch. So we, (KK, a Singaporean guy from work, KC, an American who's visiting work for a month, and I) decided to go Sunday for the day.

Well, E was half right. Although the weather was gorgeous as we reached Beatenberg, but as we took the funicular up to the highest point, Niederhorn, huge clouds began to roll through the area. We sat for a while, hoping it would blow over, but although it cleared up slightly at the Niederhorn, there were too many clouds over on the Jungfrau side to see the mountains.

Still, this did not spoil the fun. We impatiently watched a paraglider wait ages for the right "thermal" and finally throw himself off the mountain, and we had a nice walk down to Vorsass through a very interesting part of the forest. We eventually took the boat on the Thunersee all the way to Interlaken, watched the paragliders land, eat some pizza, and go back to Züri. It was a very, very nice day.


For some more pics, check out KC's Picasa pages or my flickr page.

Independence Day!!!

My friend T had a really amazing 4th of July party yesterday. Even though it was raining and cold, but it didn't matter--it was the first 4th of July party I'd been to since 2001! Chicken wings, margaritas, brownies, an amazing pecan pie (actually, it was Kentucky Derby pie, which is of course all the better)...it was as much like home as a cold rainy Zurich day could be!

I brought along, of course, my (Swiss) friend D, along with her good friend (and my future roommate) K. D was impressed how un-patriotic we all were--complaining about the government, the war. And they both had a great time. E raved about how cool D is and asked if it would be possible to have two favorite Swiss people, D and K!