Day 9 - Alps, Lake Geneva, and Concert - 6.29.12

Today was a very fun day! I know I have probably been saying that a lot, but it is true of everything! Switzerland is definitely my favorite place so far. It is pretty hot, but it is so relaxed and chill, we are just hanging out and doing a little more of what we want which is lots of fun. We started off this morning after breakfast (with that amazing view again!) with some free time. We could choose between hiking, riding a cable car, paddle boating on the lake, shopping, or anything else could imagine! Some friends and I chose to go ride the cable car up to the top of the mountain at Crans-Montana. It was so beautiful! We could see all of the mountains around us and was very breathtaking. We decided to hike down the mountain from there. It was a very nice (and a true Swiss adventure) hike down, using some paths and doing a fair amount of bushwhacking as well. It is very nice and we really were wishing that we could ride down it all on our mountain bikes. There were some very fun looking trails, but I guess I will have to reserve that idea for another trip here...

After walking about 3 or 4 miles down the mountain, we arrived back into the small town of Crans-Montana. We had only about 30 minutes before we had to load the busses to hear for Montreux and the Castle de Chillon, so I decided to do it like a local and go to the local grocery store and buy some fresh bread, delicious Swiss gruyere cheese, ham, and an apple (and of course a little bit of swiss chocolate to nibble on!). I snarfed down this delicious meal quickly while hurrying to make the bus in time!

We had a very nice relaxing bus ride to Montreux, which is about an hour or so. We stopped at the Castle de Chillon for our tour, and again, the few words I can use to describe what I saw is simply indescribable. The castle is situated on the lake overlooking the gorgeous body of water, and it was fun to explore what was lived in over 900 years ago! We learned about some of the history of the castle as well as the culture and how peopled lived there. Things like that it was an honor to be invited to bathe with the lord of the castle, as well as the bathroom situation (simply a hole situated over the lake) was very fun to learn about. From here, we had a nice walk along the edge of the lake to the center of Montreux where we had a little bit of time to shop. After having some of the most delicious ice cream I have ever had to cool off, we came upon a dock where some people in our group had decided to swim! It was about 90 degrees there (I was starting to wonder if we were in Switzerland or Costa Rica!) and man did swimming sound good! Very bummed that I didn’t bring my swimming suit, I decided just to jump right in in my shorts. I put my shirt and shoes with my backpack on the dock with everybody else’s and hopped right in. It was the perfect temperature. A mix between warm and quite cool water was extremely refreshing and felt very good for the couple of minutes we had in there. But, our time was limited because we had to dry off in time to get back on the bus for it to take us back to Crans-Montaa for dinner and our concert.

After making it back to the village, we ran into our rooms to change and get our things for the concert. We had a delicious dinner of salad, pizza, beef with mushroom sauce, mashed potatoes, and a fruit tart for dessert. It was all delicious (as everything has been) and left me very ready for the concert!

Our concert was in a giant tent set up for the ambassador groups, one of which comes through each city every three days. It was by far the most energetic and craziest of concerts so far! There were hundreds (probably the entire town) of people there to see our concert, and it was very crazy! They asked for three encores of stars and stripes forever and simply loved everything that we played. It was a great night!

Now, after our very long and late concert I am back in our hotel for a few minutes just before I go to bed before tomorrow’s adventures to the Matterhorn...