Renzo - CS #9 | Ballenberg

After cleaning up our dishes, vacuuming, making the bed, taking out the trash, packing, and eating breakfast we left Simon's house nice and clean.

We went to Ballenberg today which is about half an hour away from Interlaken. I read about this thing called the Swiss Open Air Museum months ago when I was researching things to do in Switzerland and have been looking forward to this for quite some time. Actually, today was opening day for the museum for the 2010 season, and we altered our trip just slightly to make sure we would still be around the area to go to the museum today! Plus it was cloudy - so we didn't feel badly about not being in the mountains.

The museum was pretty much like what I expected. The museum is set up as a little walkable version of Switzerland that lets you explore the country's rural areas. The kinds of buildings, houses, animals, and trades that we saw were specific to the "region" of Switzerland that we were in. There were a lot of old farm houses, barns, and grain store houses, but we also got to see an herb garden, an apothecary shop, a cheese making shop, a bakery, and a pottery building. All of the buildings had signs explaining how they were made, what time period they were from, who used them, and how they were used. There were people doing the trades/crafts/activities at many of the different buildings, so we got to see fresh cheese being made, basket weaving, chemicals being mixed at the "drogerie" (pharmacy), people making metal swords, pottery bowls being spun, etc. The coolest activity going on was the chocolate making...yum! Laura and I each got some fresh made chocolate and sat on a bench eating our Swiss chocolates looking at the Swiss Alps. Later we used Laura's Swiss army knife to cut some Swiss cheese (not American "Swiss cheese", but cheese made in Switzerland) and ate lunch (also gazing up at the Swiss Alps). It was a very Swiss day...

People pretty much exclusively spoke German at the museum. Not all of the signs were in English, and the demonstrations were either people working away silently or explaining things in German. So that was a bit of a let down but we still got to see a lot of neat things. We also got to see a lot of fun animals including horses, cows, oxen, donkeys, pigs, chickens, goats, and tons of bunny rabbits!

After a full morning and afternoon of wandering, we began the commute to Luzern. Meeting up with our CS host Renzo was simple (we really are getting better at this), and soon he was making dinner for us at his humongous apartment. Seriously people in Europe live in way bigger/nicer apartments than people in the U District! One of the first things that Renzo told us was essentially that he didn't like Americans and was planning on never hosting them again. He also said that we were his last American CouchSurfers, and he only took us in because he liked our profiles. He said one of the main things he looked at was where we have already traveled, and was impressed that we had been to South Africa and Panama, and also that we were planning on going to central Europe and Scandinavia. So yay for being travel-holics. It was my goal by the end of our stay to make sure Renzo liked at least two Americans. Not that I did anything differently, I always want to get to know my hosts and leave them with a good impression, but it was, admittedly, a bit strange feeling like we automatically had negative points just for being from the US. I think it is valuable to know what that feels like though so that I can learn from it and try not to hold stereotypes and prejudices against others.

After dinner (which included a delicious salad - I love fresh vegetables!) Roman had to go to Russian class. He is planning this crazy awesome trip through Scandinavia to get to Russia where he'll be for a few months. Eventually he'll land in New Zealand to work as a computer programmer.

I just think it is so funny what all of the CouchSurfers do during the "normal life". It makes me feel like we all have a secret life revolving around CouchSurfing. We've stayed with an engineer, an investment banker, a sports journalist, a study abroad trip coordinator, a ship industry person, an artist, a student, a tourist excursion business owner, and now a computer programmer. Isn't that crazy?! Traveling and being willing to open your home and your mind to foreigners is such an amazing bond that pulls people in from all over the place. If you put the group of us in a room, I think an outsider would be extremely confused how we all knew each other and/or got along. It really blows my mind. I don't think you would look at these people at their jobs and be like, "yeah, you're totally into letting strangers sleep in your living room, aren't you?" Haha I just think it's very amusing and awesome. Love it.

While Renzo was at Russian class, Laura and I worked on his partially completed 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. Apparently other CSers had also tried to complete it but hadn't really gotten close. Laura and I both like puzzles so we were quite content sitting on the floor trying to put together the tiny pieces. Then we washed the dishes and went to go meet Renzo after his class. From there we went to his favorite bar, an Irish pub called Gracie Kelley's (which I think is a cute name for a pub). Because our timing is awesome, there was live Irish music going on that was a lot of fun! I love Irish music. We each got a ridiculously expensive beer (9 CHF!) that wasn't that good - but in reality, beer in general is probably ruined for me after being in Belgium :( One of Renzo's rugby friends joined up with us named Dave, who wasted very little time in beginning to hit on me. I don't handle those situations very well. I am really awkward so I just tried to avoid him and scooted closer to Laura. Besides that, I figured he must have been a little crazy since I hadn't showered in a few days and felt quite unattractive. Anyway, soon we were out of the bar and the boys were teaching Laura and I how to throw a rugby ball in the middle of the street. We probably tossed the thing around for about half an hour - it was very spontaneous and a lot of fun. Though it should be noted for the record that I am positively terrible and throwing a rugby ball. Dave was overly helpful in trying to teach me, which didn't help matters since I was so bad at it.

Renzo, Laura and I got back to Renzo's flat, where I was excited to show him our progress on the puzzle. He took a quick look at it and announced that he wasn't impressed, and couldn't even really tell what we'd done. Fail. We spent hours on that thing!

The way timing worked out, tomorrow is our only full day in Luzern so we got some sleep with good intentions of getting up early...


Quotes:
"I'm mad at my boss so I'm taking tomorrow off." - Renzo

Accomplishments:
Made it to the opening day of the Swiss Open Air Museum.
Learned how to throw a rugby ball.

Travel Tip:
You're always a diplomat when you're traveling.