Willy Wonka

Today. We toured the Cailler Chocolate Factory. AHHHMAZING! We got a briefing from one of the company operators about the history of the brand and it's marketing strategy, and then we got an assignment to re-brand one of their lines of chocolate, "Femina". SO STOKED for this project, I can't even tell you! Then we went on a tour of the factory, but lets be honest, this was not a tour-it was more like the Tower of Terror ride at Disneyland but for chocolate! there were sweet sets describing historical events, lights, special effects, even an elevator floor that stretched the room we were in! Some pictures had crazy spinning eyes and mouths and there were moving parts everywhere. THEN! We got to sample ALL the types of chocolate, it was amazing!!! I definitely had multiple pieces of each kind and everyone else was feeling sick and I felt GREAT. Excellent little bus ride up the windiest tiniest roads you've ever seen. OH. yesterday I bought Harem pants. They look great on me, don't even worry I'm not sending the MC Hammer vibe at all.

That's all for tonight,

Love you all

Ali

time flies...

So it's been a week since I posted. I sincerely cannot believe that time is going SO quickly. I've been so caught up in all the fun and crazy things that have happened that there are a few items of not-so-fun things I have been meaning to share. First, my flat iron got fried. so that is why my hair looks curly in all the pics....it's a shower at night, a bun and curls in the morning...jealous much that my hair does that? That's what I thought ;) but really. I'm sad and still mourning the death of my dear pink flat iron. Number two: A lot of places don't take credit cards. Odd, but lucky I can use an ATM. (Quick shout out to my wonderful mama who loves me and also loves depositing dollars in there) Three: I have a cold again. And that's just sad. But it hasn't affected my ability to participate at all which I am grateful for. Four: I pretty much WAY underpacked on the contact solution situation. But don't worry I'm amazing and have gotten it all figured out. Five: We only have a week left. Since it has been a week since I last posted I'll just give you a run-down on what we've been doing on each day.

Monday: Dornach to visit the Goetheanum-described by our professors as the "closest to Hogwarts you will ever see" but I beg to differ. It felt more like being on a fluffy zonked-out pink cloud-I seriously felt so relaxed it was bizarre. They study Anthroposophy there, check out this site if you want more info. The architecture is STUNNING I know you will enjoy it. P.S. It's NOTHING like Hogwarts.

Tuesday:Fribourg and the Funiculaire aka the "Poo Choo"...a train that is essentially and completely powered by POOP. You read correctly. It was nasty smelling. We also did a BAREFOOT pilgrimage on St. James all the way to the Cathedral where we climbed the debated 372/364/387 stairs up a gigantic spiral staircase to an INCREDIBLE view of the city. Also here we shopped at H&M where I got a skirt, swimsuit and a dress and two headbands. I think I may return the skirt though I haven't decided yet.

Wednesday: We were supposed to visit Lauterbrunnen Valley but it was raining so we went to the Vitra Interior Design Museum which I fell in love with, I want a pretty design house!!!!! I loved the pretty clocks, the amazing pillows, the statues, interestingly shaped couches and chairs and tables, it was beautiful. Pictures to follow on FB. Regrettably most of you will probably see them in person before they are on the web, because we found out that uploading pictures and skype makes the internet crash horribly and then everyone gets angry. So be patient! Also this was another exciting adventure this day; I actually bought my H&M dress here and had a bag that I had bought a book from the museum in. So when I went to the register to pay, I accidentally left the museum bag (which had my book, also my camera and my umbrella in it) at the cash register. So we continued on and walked the streets, met the group back at the bus stop, hopped on the bus, and as we were riding I saw this SWEET poster I wanted to take a picture of when I realized I don't have my camera! AHHHHH! So upon this realization I turn to Bob and told him the bag had my camera to which he says "go". Immediately I pushed the stop button on the bus, hopped off turned and gave Karlie a "come with me pleeeeaase" face, she hopped off, and we set off on our quest. We had 20 minutes to go back, find the bag, and race back to the train platform from where we had a 3 hour train ride home. We literally sprinted 8 blocks back to H&M where I ran to the cash register and asked in out of breath broken German but mostly sign language, if they had my bag WHICH THEY DID. Long story short, grabbed bag, shouted "Danka" a thousand times, sprinted full out with our backpacks unibomber-style strapped and clipped onto our backs through the city, onto the bus where an extremely nice man helped us find our train station and platform on his iphone, booked it through the station neatly hurdling 5-6 trailing suitcases and onto the train with 4 minutes to spare. BOOM.

Thursday: BERN! THE MOST AMAZING MUSEUM EVER EVER EVER EVER. The Museum of Natural History. Designed by Claude Khun. Website here. He is my idol guys, his work at the museum was amazing! He actually literally designs THE MUSEUM, as in the displays etc, as well as the posters, advertisements, brochures, etc. Guys I loved this. I bought a book of his work because I love it so much. One more time: I REALLY LOVED THIS DAY. OH. Also we saw the National Weaponry Museum, and the ALBERT EINSTEIN MUSEUM. It was sweet.

Friday: Lauterbrunnen!!! THE PRETTIEST PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WISH YOU COULD SEE PICTURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Over 72 waterfalls in this gorgeous, lush, green, flower-filled, cow-filled beautiful incredible valley/canyon/mountains. Oh man, I loved it. I sat in a field and enjoyed the sunny weather and did my assignment for the day. P.S. we took a crazy cool Gondola to get up there. Actually this is our methods for transportation to get there. 10 Minute walk, Cog Train, Train, Train, Bus, Bus, Tram, Gondola, Hike. WHOOOO. We do a lot of riding on trains, just FYI. We have been teaching our friend Ryan (who didn't grow up in Utah) a lot of games which he finds totally fascinating. It's pretty awesome.

Saturday: COW FIGHTING. This was insane. we hiked up to what is essentially the boonies of Switzerland (which of course is gorgeous) to a field where 60 plus pregnant cows were herded into an area roped off with what is actually just twine on stakes where they moan and hoof the ground, and snort and FIGHT. Yes they actually smack heads with their horns and push each other down the hill and fight and yeah. It was wicked cold that day. We BBQ'd in the mountains and had Fondue for dinner which was YUCKY. I didn't like it.

Sunday: We went to this sweeeet Stefan Sagmeister show, it was AWESOME! He is a fantastic world-renound designer who I very much like. Any of you who know me well know I have a sweet book of his (the one where his face is a die-cut and has booklets that can be placed behind his face to change the appearance) and the show was sweet. Then we went to Geneva and hit up the boardwalk where we jumped an Olympic height platform (like 10 meters/33 feet), played beach volleyball and jumped off island docks. ALSO Geneva is having this music festival in a while and to advertise they have placed 20 pianos around the city for people to play and I played one! Then all these people came and were taking pictures and videos and stuff and then apparently I'm going to be on this website/facebook, SWEET! We hauled back to Au Bel Air and ate dinner and started watching Sound of Music.

Today: We went to Yvoire, France, I went to France!!! Here we did a group project evaluating Customer Experience which was interesting, layed on the grass, I had a French Crepe and Gelato, and then boated home. And now I'm blogging.

Guys this is crazy awesome, I'm sorry I've been a bad blogger and I love you all.

Ali

Sunday Funday

Hey just a quick post tonight and no pictures, sorry. We've been doing a lot and I haven't had time to upload my pics.

Yesterday, (Saturday) we went to an old witches castle where they would keep "confirmed" witches and torture them...pretty sweet! Then to the Tourbillon Castle ruins which is also the home of the world's oldest and still functioning organ where we received a private organ concert featuring a piece from every major period throughout history. Guys, it was amazing! Don't worry, I got video and plan on sharing soon. We also spent a lot of time climbing on the castle ruins...and anyone who actually knows me would immediately infer that I was totally JAZZED about that. The manners of people and the actual level of intelligence in Europe is astounding compared to the states. For instance, the trails leading to the castle was placed alongside the sheer edge of a cliff...in the good ol' US of A people would use that as an excuse for a law suit. Along that same note, not only did we climb on the cliffs, but we were actually ALLOWED to. At least we didn't get any sort of reprimand for doing so anyways...Later that day we went to an arts festival in downtown Sion which was pretty dang sweet. Aside from the atmosphere, aka being surrounded by incredibly old architecture and beautiful design, interesting people, etc. It was a lot like Sunday festivals in NYC but with WAYYYYYY less shopping opportunities...darn. There were some odd street performers though, like the two dudes in spandex suits doing almost nothing besides hopping about and doing bad ballet moves, or the mimes who inappropriately "danced" with our friend Laura. Anyways, that evening we had a WONDERFUL dinner of RACLETTE...a Swiss delicacy that consists of a block of cheese being cut in two and mounted on this object that melts the top of the cheese where it can be scraped onto a serving of baked potato, or incredibly expensive meat. The meat we sampled cost about 80 francs per pound. BOOJJJJ right? Apparently it is the earliest form of fondue which I totally approve of, and found especially delicious despite it's frightfully smelly stench.

Today was Sunday which was amazing, we got up and went to church which, awesomely enough, was Fast Sunday. In French. Luckily the missionaries were behind us and translating into our ears. Guys, the church is the same all throughout the world. I'm not only talking from a gospel perspective right now, as in I believe that I am a member of a worldwide church with the fullness of truths revealed and being revealed to us today, but the types of messages delivered was uncannily similar to those borne at home. This little old French lady got up and started telling us about her lasik eye surgery and this is what the missionary's translation sounded like. Keep in mind he has only been out about 5 months.

Missionary:"Uhhhh and then it was like a miracle! I could See!"

*Laughing, giggling, silence, more snickering*

Us: "What is she saying??!"

Missionary: "She's talking about the shower...and how she could see the soap..."

US: Laughing

Missionary: "Now she's talking about a Jew...?"

Haha it was pretty funny. But I got up and bore my testimony and had a guy who actually served in the Paris mission translate for me. Karlie and another guy on the trip Chris bore testimonies too, it was very sweet and an amazing experience to hear my testimony translated into French! AWESOME!

So...after all of this, we traveled to the place where the St. Bernard dogs are actually kept during the winter, checked them out, saw an ancient roman ruin which was totally sweet, and took the train back down to Lausanne where we enjoyed another farmer's market type street fair. There was this Harbio tent full of CRAZY AWESOME AMAZING candy like I've never seen before, giant marshmallow bananas and strawberries, huge sour patch ropes filled with marshmallow, sour cherries, jalepeno gummies, those tasty candy raspberries/blackberries with sprinkles on the outside...well it cost 5.90 franc per 100 kilograms so I was like, guys lets all pick a treat and i'll buy since Karlie bought churros and i'd eaten some snacks others had shared earlier...anyways I ended up kinda going a little crazy and when I handed the lady the bag to be weighed she rang it up to 44 FRANC! WHAAAAA? Luckily she let us put some back and then it came down to 35 kilo but she gave it to us for 30...Karlie and Jenn pitched in and we all enjoyed a bizarre 30 franc bag of the best candy in the universe. After all of this we got to the main attraction of the day...we have been waiting since last Tuesday to go back to lake Geneva and rent paddle boats with SLIDES on them. Seriously this was sooo fun. The water was soo cold though! The kind of cold where your body doesn't feel to chilly but you can't breathe. After a little while though it warmed up and we were slippin and sliding and jumping and diving like the crazy Americans we are. After a while we looked around and realized NOBODY ELSE WAS SWIMMING. Which was pretty hilarious in all actuality. After making a successful series of train rides home just in time for dinner and a little campfire I am totally exhausted and ready for bed. Perfect Day?? I definitely think so. So much for this being a short post right? Haha, I love you all my dear family and friends. Ali

Weekend

Hey just a quick post tonight and no pictures, sorry. We've been doing a lot and I haven't had time to upload my pics.

Yesterday, (Saturday) we went to an old witches castle where they would keep "confirmed" witches and torture them...pretty sweet! Then to the Tourbillon Castle ruins which is also the home of the world's oldest and still functioning organ where we received a private organ concert featuring a piece from every major period throughout history. Guys, it was amazing! Don't worry, I got video and plan on sharing soon. We also spent a lot of time climbing on the castle ruins...and anyone who actually knows me would immediately infer that I was totally JAZZED about that. The manners of people and the actual level of intelligence in Europe is astounding compared to the states. For instance, the trails leading to the castle was placed alongside the sheer edge of a cliff...in the good ol' US of A people would use that as an excuse for a law suit. Along that same note, not only did we climb on the cliffs, but we were actually ALLOWED to. At least we didn't get any sort of reprimand for doing so anyways...Later that day we went to an arts festival in downtown Sion which was pretty dang sweet. Aside from the atmosphere, aka being surrounded by incredibly old architecture and beautiful design, interesting people, etc. It was a lot like Sunday festivals in NYC but with WAYYYYYY less shopping opportunities...darn. There were some odd street performers though, like the two dudes in spandex suits doing almost nothing besides hopping about and doing bad ballet moves, or the mimes who inappropriately "danced" with our friend Laura. Anyways, that evening we had a WONDERFUL dinner of RACLETTE...a Swiss delicacy that consists of a block of cheese being cut in two and mounted on this object that melts the top of the cheese where it can be scraped onto a serving of baked potato, or incredibly expensive meat. The meat we sampled cost about 80 francs per pound. BOOJJJJ right? Apparently it is the earliest form of fondue which I totally approve of, and found especially delicious despite it's frightfully smelly stench.

Today was Sunday which was amazing, we got up and went to church which, awesomely enough, was Fast Sunday. In French. Luckily the missionaries were behind us and translating into our ears. Guys, the church is the same all throughout the world. I'm not only talking from a gospel perspective right now, as in I believe that I am a member of a worldwide church with the fullness of truths revealed and being revealed to us today, but the types of messages delivered was uncannily similar to those borne at home. This little old French lady got up and started telling us about her lasik eye surgery and this is what the missionary's translation sounded like. Keep in mind he has only been out about 5 months.

Missionary:"Uhhhh and then it was like a miracle! I could See!"

*Laughing, giggling, silence, more snickering*

Us: "What is she saying??!"

Missionary: "She's talking about the shower...and how she could see the soap..."

US: Laughing

Missionary: "Now she's talking about a Jew...?"

Haha it was pretty funny. But I got up and bore my testimony and had a guy who actually served in the Paris mission translate for me. Karlie and another guy on the trip Chris bore testimonies too, it was very sweet and an amazing experience to hear my testimony translated into French! AWESOME!

So...after all of this, we traveled to the place where the St. Bernard dogs are actually kept during the winter, checked them out, saw an ancient roman ruin which was totally sweet, and took the train back down to Lausanne where we enjoyed another farmer's market type street fair. There was this Harbio tent full of CRAZY AWESOME AMAZING candy like I've never seen before, giant marshmallow bananas and strawberries, huge sour patch ropes filled with marshmallow, sour cherries, jalepeno gummies, those tasty candy raspberries/blackberries with sprinkles on the outside...well it cost 5.90 franc per 100 kilograms so I was like, guys lets all pick a treat and i'll buy since Karlie bought churros and i'd eaten some snacks others had shared earlier...anyways I ended up kinda going a little crazy and when I handed the lady the bag to be weighed she rang it up to 44 FRANC! WHAAAAA? Luckily she let us put some back and then it came down to 35 kilo but she gave it to us for 30...Karlie and Jenn pitched in and we all enjoyed a bizarre 30 franc bag of the best candy in the universe. After all of this we got to the main attraction of the day...we have been waiting since last Tuesday to go back to lake Geneva and rent paddle boats with SLIDES on them. Seriously this was sooo fun. The water was soo cold though! The kind of cold where your body doesn't feel to chilly but you can't breathe. After a little while though it warmed up and we were slippin and sliding and jumping and diving like the crazy Americans we are. After a while we looked around and realized NOBODY ELSE WAS SWIMMING. Which was pretty hilarious in all actuality. After making a successful series of train rides home just in time for dinner and a little campfire I am totally exhausted and ready for bed. So much for this being a short post right? Haha, I love you all my dear family and friends. Ali

It's Friday! (YES we've annoyingly been singing Rebecca Black all day...)

HELLO! I have rejoined the world after a three day-two night excursion to the St. Bernard Monastery in the Alps. I got up at 4:30 AM (here…. In Utah that would be 8:30 PM) on Wednesday morning showered, ate breakfast and proceeded to take a 10 minute hike up the mountain, three train rides,

two bus rides to the base of the Alps where we strapped on snowshoes during a surprise blizzard and began our ascent.

It was so snowy that the border patrol didn’t want us to go up, but our amazing host, Dominique, convinced them that we would try to be safe and not cause any Avalanches and so we began our trek! It was so cold and snowy and we actually didn’t end up having to snowshoe that far because a giant plow came over and cleared the road pretty well, but after three miles the monastery was a VERY welcome sight J.

Our host there, Father Jose was such a sweetheart. We ate soup, soup, and more soup there, with plenty of accompanying MSG, pasta, and CHOCOLATE!!! Woooo! Guys, the chocolate here is amazing. I am eating so much, but thankfully I am also walking a BUNCH so it’s all good. At the monastery we got to go to Catholic Mass, which was a first time experience for me. It was quite intriguing in French first of all, but Father Jose and Bob helped translate. The rituals however, I was completely lost on. Luckily our friend Ryan is Catholic so we just watched him and copied him. On Wednesday morning, it was a catholic holiday, the day of Ascension, so we got to go into the chapel for a bigger mass in which one of the girls in our group, Amore (said Ahh-more-ee) sang “Abide with me” and “How Great Thou Art”…she was on American Idol the same season as Carrie Underwood hence it was amazing, and also the acoustics were wonderful. (The night before we had mass in the little chapel downstairs seen here).

Later that day we got to clean the chapel…SO COOL! Guys, catholic chapels are scary. There are so many priests and figures stepping on demon babies with chains around their necks…we got to clean them! Beautiful woodwork, relief carvings, statues, ancient crypts…everything in there was handmade during the 17^th century. I really can’t believe we got to be so hands on. Stay tuned for pictures on that, my friends Jen and Mark had the camera duty that day so I’ll need to rip them off before you can see. But here is a picture of the chapel in general, ooh la la right??

So I’m gonna back it up for a sec here. On Tuesday we traveled to a place called Ouchy (pronounced oo-shee) where we saw this wonderful little establishment (this is for you Liz J)

We went to the Olympic Museum because the Olympic headquarters is in the bigger city Leysaunne, which was WAY cool! Super old Olympic…artifacts I guess you could say? We got to see all the torches from every Olympic games since like 1934 I think was the first ‘official’ modern-day Olympics. That was way cool! But we couldn’t take pictures in there so sorry. Then we went to the Chateau Chillon castle, the place that inspired Lord Byron’s poem, “The Prisoner of Chillon”…and got to see where he actually carved his name into one of the pillars that prisoners were chained to. The castle was beautiful, we climbed to the top of the tower and the view was great!

Outside the castle...awesome!

Karlie and I on an ancient Potty. It's a hole in this board that goes directly to the river. YUMMY!

A lovely view of Swiss-Land from the Train. SO PRETTY!

Anyways, love you all, and wishing you all could be here to see all this amazing stuff!

Ali