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