weekend fun

today is monday, the start of our first full second week. it already feels like we have been here longer than that. is it christmas time yet? as i mentioned in my last update we were experiencing car problems...on thursday our car problems turned into somewhat of a blessing. we found out it would cost a lot to fix our little car that probably wouldn't even pass the next car inspection anyway...so when discussing this to jachen's mom she offered to us to buy their second car they were wanting to sell. this made us happy because we had the chance to get a nicer and bigger car (will post about our car later, i dont have a picture yet) while not having to pay interest on a loan nor having to pay for the car all at once. we knew our prayers were answered. we had already planned on visiting them this weekend so we made the plan to take a train there and then to drive that car back home.

thursday evening i was invited to spend the following day with daniela and her family(this is the family of the girl Claudia who picked us up from the airport...and daniela was in the usa during our wedding). friday morning i was picked up by daniela and we went to her flat which is downtown st. gallen...like literally in the city. sooo cool. they walk out and have stores, markets and city life. so great. i helped daniela prepare lunch for us, her family and a few lunch guests. we pealed cooked potatoes for a potato salad. she makes potato salad from scratch...dressings and all. (she makes the dressing out of coffee powder cream, oil, mustard, milk and a few other ingredients.) so for lunch we had a first course of green salad and cold corn salad. then we had this meat...we don't have an equivalent to it in the usa...maybe a cross btwn ham and spam...i actually like it and i think it is best dipped in mustard. then we ate the potato salad with that...it was just potato and a dressing. very delicious as well. besides myself, the lunch guests were the sister missionaries who are both from germany as well as the senior couple missionaries, the cramers who are from olympia washington. it was an enjoyable lunch and company and afterwards daniela headed to an appt so i spent the rest of the afternoon with claudia until jachen picked me up after work. claudia and i did some shopping in the city and then she asked me if i wanted to go inside the cathedral right there in town. i said yes, of course, i love cathedrals. little did i know how amazing it was going to be inside. see pictures and video below. after all my gawking inside the cathedral we got a cold drink at starbucks and then jachen was ready to pick me up. they were great company for the day.

jachen and i drove home to pack up our bags for the weekend and then drove to the car shop to return the car he borrowed from the shop owner while his car was left there to be checked out. jachen's brother flurin was there and i finally got to meet him and then jachen's dad drove us to the train station then we were on our way to solothurn for that night and saturday day. solothurn is where jachen's mom and sisters live now with jachens newest dad. it was SUCH a beautiful area and i regret not taking a picture. i will have to snap several when we go there next. their house is by these beautiful mountains with a patch of forest next to their house. it was gorgeous.

saturday morning we went to a flea market where i found a few treasures(one super amazing treasure) that i will tell you about another time. after the flea market we went into "downtown" solothurn. SOOO beautiful. pictures below as well. we walked around in the shopping streets bought me some awesome socks from H&M and then we went to lunch. after we did more walking around. jachen and i seperated from the group and went down to the bridge on the river, then jachen climbed the cathedral(you can see it HERE. jachen climbed that tower which is peaking out of your back left side with the green top and that is where he took the videos of the view. this cathedral is closed for renovations because some crazy man came in and burnt the altar) jachen has this to say about climbing the tower in the cathedral...

"It was a big cathedral I think at least it is. And yes I did literally climb it, look and see, the stairs where stone until 70% the rest was wooden and partially only let space for one person to pass through. You had to first climb up into the tower and then pass the bells, finally above the bells, there was a central spiral staircase for another 3-4 feet height to finally arrive in the top. At the top out of breath awaits you a nice person smiling, asking for 3 Dollars to step outside to enjoy the view you so desperately breathed more than 90% of your lung capacity out for, ;)"

luckily i didn't go up...i was starting to get blisters. after the cathedral climbing, jachen suggested we go to the old military museum...i knew it was something he really wanted to do so i agreed to it, but it turned out that i really enjoyed it myself. it was for realllls old time military gear...old guns....old swords...old armor...old uniforms...old everything and also showed how it changed throughout the centuries. i was enthralled...anything history related does that to me. jachen knew a lot to tell me as we went along. he is so smart. it was so amazing to see these things in real life, to experience it more than just in a movie or in a picture. jachen was happy i enjoyed it. 

did i mention how HOT it was that day? most likely 80degrees...too hot for what i was wearing that is for sure. down in solothurn that saturday was "bike day". so a lot of events going on and biking going on. while jachen and i were off on our own his family went to the festivities. you can see all the biking tents and biking areas from one of the videos of jachen up on the tower. that evening back at their home, we sat on the porch and ate fondue. i never had cheese fondue before this...(that i can remember)...but i have to say it wasn't my favorite. but i enjoyed the experience. after dinner jachen and i took our new car home(it is a 2 hour drive), stopped for ice cream and then arrived home just in time to skype my family(as mentioned in the previous post). it was a great weekend and this weekend also confirmed how truly great jachen is.  

that was our weekend fun. enjoy the pics!

what a delicious breakfast. swiss bread, chocolate spread(not nutella, but like it) and bananas. yum.

the cathedral in st. gallen i went to with claudia on friday. so beautiful, i WILL go back with my nice camera and take a lot more photos.

Solothurn

went into a cathedral, not the same one is i told you about though because like i said, that one is closed for renovations. this one from the outside just looks like any building then you walk in and this marvel is inside. 

here is the cathedral i was referring to that is closed for renovations, it is so beautiful. below are the video jachen took from on top. 

jachen telling me about these swords

showing me which gun he has

it is amazing how much detail went into everything.

that helmet was already heavy, but not as heavy as other helmets were. i can't imagine how they could wear such heavy armor into battle.

i spent FOREVER trying to get the spacing right btwn photos but everytime i fixed one thing, more spacing problems occurred. i hate not having even spacing bwtn photos, but i need to stop trying to fix it before i have to start breathing in a paper bag.