Things have been a bit busy, so I am delayed in writing this entry. I have a lot to share, but I will try to keep my descriptions brief so I don’t write five pages about the past two weeks.
Two weeks ago was a week of visitors. We got the opportunity to spend time with three friends from home (Michele and Scott on Monday through Wednesday and then Jeff on Friday through Monday). It was non-stop craziness with tours of Brussels and Mons. I have become an awesome Mons tour guide. Those of you coming in the future will be impressed with the vast knowledge I have of this town. I also now know where both peeing children are in Brussels (thanks Scott). With Michele and Scott, Andrew, Mai and I ventured up to Gent for the first time. It was a beautiful city with a fair amount of stuff to do. Our favorite was a creepy castle with a torture museum. That was actually the selling point in deciding which city we were going to visit. Thank you Frommer’s Belgium Guide. The visit with Jeff mostly consisted of an on-going cribbage tournament, a so-called “American Night” with Belgian beer, and a trip to Brussels. That would sum up the week with a little bit of home.
Then Wednesday (the 7th), Andrew and I embarked on another adventure. Andrew’s grandfather requested that Andrew do some family history research in Switzerland, so he funded a trip for the two of us. The ultimate goal was to find the town where Andrew’s great, great grandfather was from in the county of Bern. Believe or not, but this was not an easy task.
To get to Switzerland, we took a Ryan Air flight into the closest city we could get to, Milan Italy. We reached Milan Central Station at about 10:30pm after an hour bus ride. Our Lonely Planet book had suggested some hotels, so we went for our hotel hunt. We went to 6 different hotels before we were informed that all the hotels within 45km of Milan were booked because of the soccer match between the Scots and Milan. One of the hotel staff people even called 5 other hotels for us. Nothing.
So back to Central Station we went. We were sitting outside, freezing, as it approached midnight. A taxicab driver came up to us and asked if we needed a cab. Then he suggested that we ask the police officers if they would let us stay in the station. So in we went, we told the police officers that we were taking a train tomorrow morning to BernSwitzerland. They were very friendly and in a great mood, so they directed us to the waiting room. The waiting room was guarded by three police officers and a rotweiler. In we went. It was heated, bonus. It was not a pleasant evening. It was extremely uncomfortable and at some point a guy was yelling in Italian for an hour. But as Drew said, at least we saved money.
The next morning, we took the earliest train to Bern, getting there at 10:30am. We found our hotel (I booked this one ahead). It was located next to a fountain of an ogre eating small children (not kidding). We spent the rest of the day checking out Bern. We went to the History Museum where there was an extensive exhibit about Einstein. We also went to the Bear pits (Bern is named after bear because it is the first thing the duke-creator of the town-killed on the spot of the town). Bern was a very pretty city.
The next day our adventure continued. Andrew had asked at the tourist office where the towns of Ursenbach and Weinstegen were, since neither is on any map. The woman at the tourism office was able to explain to us how to find Ursenbach, but she couldn’t find any information on the other town (which according to a 70-year-old letter was a half a mile from Ursenbach).
So off to Ursenbach we went. The suggested route was two trains and a bus. We caught the two trains, but when we reached Kleindietwil, we discovered the bus wasn’t coming for another two hours. There was a sign pointing and saying that Ursenbach was a 55-minute walk, so we were off. We trustingly followed these signs up into the Swiss countryside. The road we were directed to take winded upwards where the pavement eventually ended, becoming a road created by tractor tires. I strongly recommend looking at my pictures (www.manderhill.shutterfly.com) if you want to get a general idea of our trek. Once we reached the top of the hill, we saw Ursenbach. We went down into the town, seeing only animals and kindergartners. We stopped to eat lunch in the only restaurant, a pizzeria. The staff did not speak French or English and we don’t speak German, which made for an interesting lunch. At the end of lunch, I asked our waiter if he had heard of Weinstegen. He had. He communicated to us that he would give us a ride there with the few French words that he knew and the few German words that I knew. We got in his car for the most awkward three minutes. Think about this. Try explaining to someone with whom you don’t share a common language that you don’t have an address or phone number and you’re just looking for the town because it is where your ancestors come from. Yea, not easy.
The nice waiter got us there. It was about a half mile down the road from the restaurant. There we found what we believe to be the two houses that Drew’s great, great grandfather built (Weinstegen had about 10 houses, so it was easy to narrow it down). We decided instead of walking back to the train, we would take the bus (we found a bus stop sign). Since we had about a half an hour to kill, we wandered towards a house that Drew thought was interesting looking, and what do you know, we were suddenly in Kleindeitwil, where the train station was. In summary, by following the signs, we took a difficult, scenic road to get to a place that was only a 20-minute walk the other direction.
On Saturday, we took the train back to Milan, where we had an afternoon to check out the city. We checked into our hotel (after Wednesday’s incident, we made a reservation) and then ventured towards the Duomo. We saw the Duomo and an old fortress. We also had our fair share of gelato (stopping three times). The following morning, we were out of our hotel by 5:30am to catch our bus to the airport.
That is the summary of the past couple weeks. Again, check out the pictures for a better idea of the adventures. To end the adventure filled weekend, Sunday night, in celebration of my 25th Bday, Drew and I went out with my friends Mai and Viktoria for hot chocolate. Happy Birthday was sung to me in Estonian, German and Russian. I thought that was a good end to a Birthday weekend of Belgians, Italians, and Swiss.
