The Other Komps in Dagmersellen

Andrew, Soo, Mitchell and Sam arrived from Cinque Terre in Italy to the Dagmersellen train station on Thursday evening, the 16th October. We let them settle in and caught up with each other. On Friday we went for a walk around the village of Dagmersellen and bought a pumpkin from the local pumpkin farm. Mitchell was interested to see the Wurst-O-Mat, a vending machine for packaged meat. The weather looked clear on Saturday, so we took the gondolbahn to the top of Mt. Pilatus, where we viewed the wonderful Swiss Alps while enjoying a beer, soft drink and chips. On our way down the mountain we stopped at the halfway point and all of us had a ride on Switzerland's longest Summer toboggan run. We had a walk through Sursee on Sunday and met up with Monika, Todd and Lilian (friends of Marianne and Mark) at a cafe. We took the kids to the park, where the Autumn leaves were piled up, tempting everyone to become buried under them, which was great fun.
The following morning, after picking up a hire car from Luzern, Andrew, Soo and the boys drove up to Glessen to see our relatives there.
When they got back to Dagmersellen on Friday we all made our way to the Sorenberg chalet. Soo lit an open fire which set the scene for a relaxing time, with a gorgeous mountain scene outside the full-length windows. Early on Saturday, Mark led Soo and I on an exhausting, though scenic run along the river. As Brienzer-Rothorn, the highest peak in this area, was bathed in sunshine, we took the steep gondola ride up. While we looked out towards the valleys between the enormous peaks, we saw a magical fog sea. We took a mini-hike to get other views from this high platform, and so deserved a hot Swiss lunch at the restaurant. Mark and Andrew took the kids to the local toboggan run after that. On Sunday we set off on a hike up the mountain across the way from the chalet, where we had a view of the Sorenberg town.
A visit to see Emma and Dolf (Marianne's parents) started our tour of the city of Luzern on Monday. Our walk included the Chapel Bridge, Water Tower, the Lion of Luzern, the Library, Lake Luzern and McDonalds for lunch. Andrew and Soo drove off for a night away in Interlaken, so the boys and I caught the train back to Dagmersellen.
An unusual event occurred on Tuesday night - it snowed in October! We all went out into the backyard to see. Krista (my German tutor) invited us over for a coffee on Wednesday morning to take in the wonderful view of the Alps from her patio, but after the continuing snow the only view was of the snow falling, which for us was beautiful. Soo and I took an opportunity for a girls' day out on Thursday, in the capital city, Bern. We wandered through the covered footpaths, ate a delicious lunch and walked up a short path to the Rose Garden where we looked out over the whole of this picturesque town. While we were there Andrew and the boys got busy making a fantastic snowman.On Friday we drove north-west to the Rheinfall and Schaffhausen. Unfortunately, the boats weren't operating (it is now off-season), but we were able to experience the loud, large volume of the waterfall from the many vantage points. At Shaffhausen, a lovely old town close-by, we walked around and drank coffee and hot chocolates. That evening Alexandra and her friend, Moni, dressed Mitchell and Sam up for Halloween, then took them 'Trick-or-Treating' around Dagmersellen. Late on Saturday afternoon we walked to the Lowen Inn and spent an hour playing in the Kagelbahn (a nine-pin bowling alley), where I was the winner. A delicious Raclette was the final meal that we shared together on this visit, a meal that we all enjoyed.
In the time that we spent with Andrew, Soo, Mitchell and Sam we had plenty of music, card games, hair straightening and laughs. Mitchell was a great help at the Co-Op, wheeling the shopping cart around and Sam made lots of creations with the Lego set that we have here. We are so glad that they came to visit us and share in our experience.

The Time with Hetty

Here are the Girls' accounts of the week with Hetty (30th September - 9th October).

Time With Hetty in Dagmersellen

Mum and Dad were going to Santorini in the Greek Islands for a week so we decided to invite Hetty down to stay with us for that time. She arrived in Luzern on the 30^th of September by train. We took her back to our house, gave her the grand tour and let her settle in. Mum and Dad left that night at about 10pm and Hetty, Alex, Zoe and I got settled in for a good week of eating chocolate and watching way too many movies.

For one day while Hetty was here we took a trip into Luzern. Hetty drove us in and we got ready to show her around. To tell you the truth, we didn’t really do much sight seeing, it was just shopping, shopping and more shopping for us. Alex bought some boots, Zoe bought some tank tops and I bought some novelty earrings. We had a really good day and had Maccas for lunch.

Other activities we enjoyed while Hetty was here were Europa Park, watching Friends, playing Monopoly and playing ping pong. We had some really good competitions with ping pong, it was quite funny.

Overall it was a good week and we really enjoyed having Hetty down here with us.

-- Madeleine

Time with Tante Netty and Bernd in Dagmersellen

They arrived in Switzerland on Monday the 6^th of August. I had already baked a nice chocolate cake for them for when they arrived. We all sat together and caught up on everything. On Tuesday we all went into Lucerne to show them around. They (Hetty, Bernd and Tante Netty) went on a boat cruise and we (Zoe, Mad and I) walked around the town and had a lot of fun. It was a nice sunny day and no one wanted to go home in the evening. We played a couple of games together and just had a really nice time. I think they enjoyed their stay in Switzerland.

-- Alexandra

Our Trip To Europa Park

Ok, well, I’m going to be giving a short summary of when Hetty, Madeleine, Alexandra and I went to Europa Park. We all set our alarms for 5.30am on Thursday morning as the train we were taking left at 6.32am. We had already packed our bags the night before so all we had to do was have breakfast, get dressed and do all of our normal morning activities. At about 6.00, all 4 of us headed out into the cold and complete darkness towards the train station of Dagmersellen. (Which is about a 15 minute walk).

It was 3 hours on the train to get to Europa Park which is placed in Germany and we stopped off 2 times to swap trains. When we finally got there, of course, we went on the first ride we saw! This ride happened to be named ‘Silver Star’ and it was so scary! When you went down the big decline, all the breath left you until you got back down! I don’t want to bore you and tell you every little detail about all the rides we went on so I’ll just say that we went on HEAPS of rides which were all really fun! We bought some hot chips and Coke for lunch. (of course!). By the end of the day, we were all EXHAUSTED!! It didn’t help that we missed one of our trains to get back to Dagmersellen either! We had to wait another hour and a half until the next train came and it was already 8.30. But we took advantage of the delayed train and walked into the town and got some pizza which was expensive, but yummy! So, when we finally got back home, we all went straight to bed and slept-in very late the next morning!

--Zoe