A happy birthday

the view from our hotel in Grindelwald. click to enlarge!

E moved most of our luggage over to the apartment's storage area on Thursday night.  But since we couldn't move in until Sunday, we decided to leave the Männedorf hotel and spend a couple of days in Grindelwald.

The plan had been for me to go down early with the kids (since we had to check out) and hike somewhere until it was time to check into our new hotel.  That didn't happen due to: rain and the logistics of hiking with a 3 year old and a 1 year old in the rain, my complete misjudgment of how close Grinelwald is to the stroller friendly hike I wanted to do in Lauterbrunnen, and crankiness caused by train

So out went my idea of having a gorgeous fortieth birthday high up on a sunny mountain.  But it was still a fun day.  The kids got so antsy on the train ride to Bern that we decided to get off and get lunch at the market and see a bit of old town.  There was a lot of construction, but we did see things and the girls had a lot of fun playing on the big chess board next to the market.  T was in charge of moving pieces, and L amused a park drunk by chasing pigeons.  We looked out over the river, checked out the capitol building, and made it back to the station just as it started to pour.

Then it was down to Interlaken where we had to change trains.  Even though I was warned and on my guard, I made the rookie mistake of getting off at Interlaken west rather than east.  It wasn't a translation error.  I just had east and west completely confused in my mind for some reason.  That used to happen all the time in California.  If I was ever supposed to head west on a highway I would immediately turn away from the ocean.  But there is no ocean here, so I don't know what is wrong with me.  We made the best of our mistake by picking up groceries for dinner, since we'd only get breakfast at the hostel.

Finally we made it to Grindelwald, where we had to wait for our bus.  With nothing else to do we went shopping yet again for trail mix for hiking and a couple other things.  S wanted to browse the chocolate, since she and I went in and left the others outside the very crowded store.  When R and S are both with me, S tends to give in to R.

the room without bees

Then it was up up up to the hostel on a narrow, winding road.  We got there, checked in, and went to our beautiful room with a balcony and view.  Almost immediately T stepped on a bee and we realized there were about a dozen bees in the room. We got them all out, but fifteen minutes later there were a dozen more.  There was a huge nest on the balcony and they were getting in somehow.  So we changed rooms to a long dark narrow room with a row of 6 bunks under the eaves, which was cozy.  E arrived, we ate dinner (yogurt, bread, cheese, fruit) not knowing it was against the rules to have food in the room, and the kids played in the playroom for a while.  I also had a birthday surprise - luxemburgli from Sprungli in place of a cake and the family declared it a birthday weekend.

my tiny birthday cakes