Day 16

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Amber's Journal:
So I've decided that either we have really good timing or Heavenly Father really loves us because we have really lucked out on this trip when it comes to the weather. Before we left for Venice we saw a forecast that said it would rain everywhere we went for the next week. It rained on our drive to Venice but was perfect the whole time we were there. Yesterday was amazing weather, perfect for us to enjoy the beauty and splendor of the Alps, and when we woke up this morning to leave it was gloomy, cloudy and rainy. We drove to another town named Grindelwald which is in a wider valley and is bigger and more touristy (and even more expensive!) than Lauterbrunnen. We walked the town for about half an hour then drove through Interlaken to the far side of Lake Tunersee and drove along the lake to get to Bern. Just North of Bern we stopped to see the Swiss Temple. It was prettier than I'd imagined from pictures and there was a cute little Mormon Home Shop across the street. We planned to eat at the McDonalds down the street was it was so expensive-almost $12 for a Big Mac Meal. We decided to skip it. So we drove to Freiburg, Germany. We were excited because on the map it looked like the highway was right next to the Rhine River the whole time but to our disappointment there were so many trees we never really got to see the river. Our hotel is just outside a little town in the Black Forest called St. Margen, and apparently it is some sort of Spa. Our room is huge! The bed is the biggest one we have slept in our whole trip and it has a couch, chair, coffee table, desk, flat screen tv and balcony with a beautiful view of the Black Forest. We drove into town and walked around St. Margen a bit which is really cute. As it turns out, this area is very touristy...for Germans. There are a ton of tourists but they are all German. I guess the Black Forest is their weekend getaway spot. We haven't been able to find anything (brochures, menus, hotel info, etc) that is translated into English. Everywhere else we have been it has been easy to find those things. We have been pretty spoiled on this trip in that regard. Almost everyone has spoken at least a little bit of English...until here. We are actually enjoying getting to be a little more immersed in another culture. We ate at this little restaurant where no one spoke English and the cute old guy who owned it had to pull an english menu out of a cupboard for us. Our salads were very good...lettuce in the middle with great dressing then around the edges were heaps of shredded carrots, cucumbers, saurkraut and something else that we couldn't identify. I got cordon bleu (which here is made of pork, not chicken) and Preston got a rumpsteak. It was a ton of food but it was very good. After dinner we walked through the cemetery at the main church in town. They had a small memorial of all the Germany soldiers who were killed or missing in action in WWII. It was a large number for how tiny the town is. It was so weird when I stopped and realized that the men on this memorial were the "bad guys" to us. It made it so much more real. All of the graves in the cemetery had a bowl of water with an evergreen branch in it. After our walk we came back to the hotel. A thunder/lightning storm rolled in and Preston enjoyed watching the lightning from our balcony. Hopefully the rain will let up for tomorrow! It's not the Alps but it's very beautiful here in a different way. There are large hills covered with very thick, dense forests. I am so grateful for Preston and his enthusiasm. He is so great!

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