I jumped on a mountain

Last week on Wednesday afternoon, we packed up the car and went to Flawil. There we visited the Schoggi Fabrik, or chocolate factory. It was a nice attempt at a tour, with a movie and real live tour guide to show us the process. However, there wasn't much going on down on the packing floor and we were left to imagine thousands of bars of chocolate going down many conveyor belts. I still found some cheap chocolate in the scratch and dent store at the end of the tour.



That night as it was nearing time to go to bed, I had a sick feeling. I was really tired and had a sore throat. I knew that I would be sick in the morning. I woke up and came downstairs in the morning to work the stall, but Maya stopped me and took my temperature. It was 39C, or about 102F. She told me to go back to bed where I stayed until about 2 pm. That's when Dirk knocked on my door and asked me if I wanted to eat anything, which I did. Then I rolled back over and went back to sleep.

You may recall that I was sick around Christmas time, when my parents visited. It seems that my body likes getting sick at the most inopportune moments. Fortunately, I was better on Friday, because that's when my I went to pick my mom up from the train station. Earlier in the day my older brother, Tim, put her on a train in Mannheim. We had helped her find cheap airfare for her spring break. That was two days before she was to leave Wichita, bound for Europe.

She won the award of "First Visitor" that I've had in Hemberg. That also meant that I hadn't really gone anywhere and didn't know where to take anyone. We ended up following our noses on Saturday morning and headed up to St. Gallen for the day. We mainly walked around and peaked into little shops, though we also went into a church or two. For lunch, we went to the market in the square and got different things for a picnic.



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Short story:
I emailed a Huber cousin, Gene, because I remember getting an email awhile ago in 2006 that had Huber information in it. It ends up that between 1300 and 1600, Huber's that I'm related to occupied at least three towns in Switzerland, near Bern, Basel, and Zurich. That said, the Huber name is all over things, the most prominent being on the side of silos. But here's a picture of a Huber Fenster (Huber Window) company.



I do plan to make a 'pilgrimage' or two to some of these towns and see what kind of Huber dirt I can dig up.
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We walked a lot and this made me realize how in shape I will be by the time I get home in early August. It's a 10-20 minute walk from the house to the bus stop in Hemberg. Here's our driveway:





Mom got to see where it is that I live and work. She got to see the sheep:



My house (on the left, silly):



The cows and milking equipment:





The family:



Sunday was a relatively lazy day. We went to church and then came back and had lunch. The rainy/cloudy day didn't make us want to go up a mountain, so we hung around the house and napped in the afternoon.

Monday was a beautiful day with not many clouds in the sky, thus making it a good day to go up a mountain. We chose the one that I can see out my window, the Säntis. Here's a live camera link from the top of the 8,200 foot peak.

At the top of the gondola ride was an area of mannequin's dressed as Swiss people.



It was a good day to go up a mountain, even if a little cold:







(I could think of a better looking girl to stand next to.):







From there, we used our day tickets and went to the city of Appenzell, 'capital' of the canton of Appenzell. They are famous for their cheese and bitter liquor. We wandered their streets for an hour or two.



The mountain we went up earlier in the day, from Hemberg:



I was glad she came! We woke up early this morning and went to the Zurich Airport, where she got on a flight to Frankfurt. Right now she is on a plane bound for Chicago. Eventually she'll get to Wichita later tonight.

Until next time,
Jon