Buenas Dias

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It´s been awhile since an update. We are coming down to the last few days of our trip. I´ll
try and fill you in on what has transpired.

Leaving Paris this past Saturday morning -- thanks very, very much to my friend Jeff there for putting us up, and putting up with us, for 4 nights. Sorry about breaking your sleeper sofa. Long story... -- we traveled to Switzerland by train to visit with Novit and Bianca. They live in a small village just outside Bern and it was really lovely. Sherry and I ate a nice meal of 'game' in the local restaurant, or as they call it, 'wild'. Sherry partook in all of the tasty sides that are typical of autumn fare, as did I, plus of course some delicious venison, which could have been bred in New Zealand(?). The next day, Sunday, was unfortunately pretty dismal, one of the few really groggy days that Sherry and I have had the whole trip. But, we didn´t let that stop us from visiting an open air museum showcasing historical homes and other buildings from the various regions of Switzerland. As you may or not know, 'Die Schweiz' is a country of several languages, including French, German, and Italian, and the architecture of homes from these various regions is quite varied, especially considering the size of the country. Perhaps a geographer would postulate that this has something to do with the mountains and the central location of the country.

So, Monday was a fantastic weather day and we hiked a short hike to an area called 'siebenbrunnen' I believe. This I´m told means seven fountains. It´s a meadow up against these cliffs where the glacier runnoff just appears and flows out of the middle of the rock, some ways down from the top.

Using mainly color to describe the scenery on a bright Autumn day in this part of Switzerland, in the Bernese Alps: start below eye level with green, the really dark green of the meadows and fields. Then you have reds and yellows. These are the autumn leaves in perfect form. Then, above this you have grey and mostly white, the early Autumn snow on the high country. Finally, above, you have a deep hue of blue, the nearly cloudless sky. What can I say, it was great.

So much thanks to Novit and Bianca for hosting us. We ate some delicious food, including this very, very yummy braised veal, and both were so nice to tour us around with our car. Many thanks!

From Bern we took a short detour to Munich. Here I payed a visit to an old friend, okay, this is a building, an establishment really, but who can resist having a bier and a few wurst at the famous Hofbrauhaus? Sherry and I enjoyed it. I can report from wretching sounds overheard in the toilet that at least one youngish, anglo looking bloke enjoyed it a bit too much. In the same vein as previous gastrointestinal stories, I can also report that this is probably the last time that I scrape every last bit of sauerkraut from my plate. Moral of the story, don´t eat all the ´kraut. If you´re still hungry, order a pretzel or something.

So, here I sit in Grenada, Spain, in the Andalucia region. We are in SW Spain, it is nice and sunny and we will spend about 5 days in the region, 2 in Madrid, and then our trip is done.

We have photos...but alas, no cd drive for me to ´show´ them to you.

I have lists too! Yes, we´vé had a lot of train time, and for me, this means filling my little travel notebook with lots of interesting and not so interesting tidbits. I will stop short of typing for you, in alpha order, all 9 songs currently stored in our ipod that begin with the letter Q. You´ll have to just visualize for yourself the two of us, tired of the shuffle setting, and also tired of the so called ´straight through album listening´. This lead me to the idea of listening to the songs in alpha order, Q seemed a manageable letter to start with.

We have also drawn up a list of items gained, lost, mailed, or my favorite category ´gained then mailed´. It´s interesting, I think, to see just how many things we´ve purchased for ourselves (not including gifts, meds, anything you can wipe your butt with, postcards, food, meals. Theres been quite a turnover too. There are stories behind some of the losses... look for this in a coming entry, can you contain your excitement about this?...

Observations:

• It´s pretty easy to drawn a short, straight line, but pretty difficult to draw a long one.
  
• People that work at art museums that just sit in the rooms to keep you from touching the art, well, they never, ever look like they´re enjoying themselves in the least.
  
• Swiss cows look pretty happy.
  
• When one´s family name is Eicher, and one is making a dinner reservation in central Switzerland, one doesn´t even need to think about spelling one´s name for the restaurant employee taking the reservation. It´s any easy one for them!
  
• My little orange, collapsible backpack, though very rarely collapsed on this trip, and though often complained about between both Sherry and I, has proven to be durable and worked well enough. Particularly useful is the ´secret pocket´. Don´t tell anyone about it!
  
• After visiting Elin and Fred, quite a number of songs appeared on our ipod. It´s a bit of a mystery. Perhaps this is the work of Fred? Perhaps this is the result of this special software Fred used to get songs of our ipod onto his laptop? Neither Sherry nor I are sure, each of us initially accused the other of putting these unknown songs and artists on there...Anyway, as a tie in observation, I´d say that if I had to, and I mean absolutely _had_ to, listen to a song by the Carpenters, I´d pick ´top of the world´. Yes, this is my first choice. It has a surprisingly good twang to it with little country beat that keeps it rolling along quite nicely...
  

Books read on this trip:

• Under the banner of heaven by John Krakauer. Sherry and Cory.
  
• The White City by ?. Sherry and Cory.
  
• Harry Potter by Rowling. Sherry
  
• My Sisters Keeper by Sherry and Cory.
  
• A Year at the Movies by ? Sherry and Cory.
  
• Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance by Pirsig. Cory (in progress)
  
• Year of the Intern by ?. Sherry.
  
• Wild Swans by Jung Chang. Sherry.
  
• Lucky by Alice Seebold. Sherry.
  

Sherry wins the contest!


Ok, a really nice evening awaits us. Hopefully, likely, we´ll see the Alhambra palace here tomorrow. It is supposed to be the sight of Andalucia, if not Spain, if not our entire trip! You get the picture, it´s going to be cool.

-Cory

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