Must Stop Eating Chocolate!! Must Stop Eating Cheese!!
It does not matter to the swiss who made the milk, the goat or the cow, they will turn it into cheese!!!
Something about fondue over an open fire, compliments Mr. Beat Wicki, C.E.O and Academic Dean at IMI, for this special treat. The familiar sounds of bells will soon be silent as the farmers will shortly move their herds up into the alpine to graze in natural pastures while their fields produce feed for winter storage. The milk the cows and goats produce is then sold to alpine cheese makers. The alpine distance is too far away for the milk to be transported without going bad so as a way to preserve the supply, they turn it into cheese, and this is how the Swiss became famous for cheese.
Learning here has been an amazing opportunity and a wonderful experience but it is made a little harder when this is the view from the classroom window.
There is no better way to work off a Berliner and coffee breakfast or some cheese fondue than to trek out to the mountain and visit a dragon. This particular dragon is guardian of the castle and resides in Mount Pilatus.
Unfortunately today was a little cloudy around the summit so you will have to check out one of my future posts to see what will no doubt be a collection of awe inspiring pictures from there.
Having missed out on my alpine adventure today, I decided to walk back instead of taking the bus. What was cloudy on top today was not the same by the lake, clear and 28 degrees. I sure felt every one of the 13 kilometers I travelled but was a beautiful afternoon.
Pilatus can be summited by the oldest and steepest cogwheel railway in the world. This mighty train has been taking people up and down one side of the mountain since 1889 at a gradient of up to 48 percent. There is also a gondola system available for those that perhaps don't trust the mighty train that knows it can, and operates on the other side of the mountain. You can even ride the longest mountain luge in Switzerland, located at 1350 meter elevation. Once you get to the bottom, you can travel back into Luzern by bus, boat or train. I am looking forward to my welcoming my partner Kim who will join me here when my studies are complete. I sure hope we get good weather so we can visit Pilatus together and race down the luge track. I am sure she will win, (and I will probably let her :-)
If you time your day right you might make it back in time to be treated to a spectacular sunset and spend the rest of your night watching the lights dance off the surface of the lake.
Switzerland... A fairytale land indeed!!!