the title of my post is meant to weakly disguise my inefficiency at blogging...

ho hum derpy dum

SO now the problem remains i can not for the life of me remember all the details of what was going on in the following pictures. do not worry, ill making something up if i cant remember. thats ok because no matter how outlandish and improbably the things i will describe sound, something just as if not incredibly more so awesome was happening.

so the second part of out trip was the switzerland italy chapter.

so we pile into the car in germanland steeling ourselves for the probably grueling and extensive road trip to a WHOLE NOTHER COUNTRY!! that this would be intense we were absolutely certain, i just hope well make it.

so as we pull out of the driveway we are contemplating our certain impending discomfort...
...
oh was that the border?! yay! first time we have driven over a border! no lines, not even a guard to wave us through!
...
oh is that the city!? yay we are here!

see what i mean folks? this place is tiny as beans. so it took basically 20 minutes, ok thats a slight exaggeration. we had a little stoppy at würzburg just to stretch our legs and have ice cream. apparently this place was important in the year 1337 for the production of wine to keep the peasants drunk and submissive. sadly no pictures!

♪so over this river♪ (the Rhine)

♪and through these woods♪ (shwarzwald, the black forest)

 ♪to grandmothers house we went!♪

pssst between you and me im pretty sure there are some ents up to some stuff in there, know what im saying...

while we were in winterthur we had nice and relaxing times, but didnt take pictures :( we took franz, eyþórs dad, to the ferry and that was a sad time, we really enjoyed our time traveling with him! then we were off again! 

eyþór pretending to fall in a river, crazy dude!

 lungerersee

this place!! one of those times, we werent really in a rush to get anywhere. we were totally winging it, which was possibly because we rented a can. so there was no real reason to be so freaking annoyed to have taken the wrong turn an hour back that would take us the long way round to gotthard tunnel, nonetheless annoyed i was! but then we got to see this lovely place and drive on some crazy mountain highways!    

                                                   

(by the way gotthard tunnel is one of the longest tunnels in the world at almost 17 km, it was kind of awful, we had to seal the air supply, and i was getting all car sick. the temperature outside the car was always more than 30 and i was terrified one of the cars in front of us would explode, seal us in, subsequently eat up all the oxygen, and suffocate us. not pleasant.)

also swiss people get their garbage collected by helicopters, like a boss!  

Bellinzona! the bane of my life¨!

not much going on here, except for the vexation of course! so we were just looking for a place to stay the night, and because we got to the tourist office at 5:45, which closed at 5:30, (we didnt see the sign just the wide open doors) the lady literally shooed us out while talking on her cellphone. i thought that was pretty dang rude. but we got a hotel directory and tried to find something. got a "map" but because this is a mountain side town it was basically a mess of piled up squiggles. finally found a dodgy as, but cheap place to stay. budget people!! (in switzerland, so that means two thousand times more expensive.) 

so we had seen a really awesome looking castle on the way into town and some signs pointing where it was supposed to be. so the next morning we decided to go see!! but of course all the signs were contradictory and given that there were three different parts of the castle quite far away from each other, there was no way we were going to find any of them. so with a curse that their soil would become fruitless we left That Place. 

side note: switzerland is a pretty bizarre place. i consider myself pretty open minded when it comes to other peoples cultural junk, but apparently im absolutely not. what the heck is with having a tiny as country and having THREE (or four but no one counts that hahahaha) official languages, and i dont even really have a problem with that mess, my problem is that you have literally NO language that ever one speaks!! so insane! totally bizarre and frustrating experience. 

doot doot doo

on to more cheerful things! 

Locarno

so this place was pretty fancycool! we had no idea but there was a bigole famousy film festival going the heck on! this was in the town center of locarno. its hard to tell but this is a huge movie screen, see the eight story building on the right? huge! and the projector was pretty crazy too. it looked  like a small house had been eaten by a flying saucer.the town was pretty over insano commercialised to the max. EVERYTHING had yellow leopard print on it, even the dogs! we even had fancy film festival soda with our yummy pizzas. we saw harrison ford, the end.

centovalli

 locarno was too insano expensive to stay there for the night so we went up the valley! this place was so beautiful! it was so awesome to get to some nature after the crowds and selling mentality of locarno. the mountains were majestic, the rivers cold and SO clear, and the stones warm.

this part of the trip was a little bittersweet. we went down to this river by our hotel to play and enjoy the nature. so while looking for a good spot to have a sit we found a perfect big boulder in the middle of the river. it wasn't so deep, to the thigh at the deepest parts, mostly around the knees, but it was quite swift. so we take off our shoes and get ready to get in there. i put mine in eyþórs backpack and he held onto his. so i go across first carefully. then eyþór is coming after me and needs his hands free to balance ( he doesnt have great balance, or feral child feet like me) so he throws me his shoes and im nonononononno dont do it , but hes throwing them so i say OK! and ready myself. and in a combinations of not great throw and awful catching of course the shoe goes into the river!! so i jump in after it, like a boss. bad idea! sosososososo cold, took my breath away, so i make my way to the bank to run along and try to catch up to it! hurry fast!! its getting away!!! but of course the bank is made of variously sized boulders which make the going slow and cause me to lose track of the sandal as im looking where im going to leap next and not break my shins and face. so off it goes into the sunset or something. so then eyþór  has no shoes!! and the sun goes away! so bummed we walk home, i without my shoes to show camaraderie. still the most beautiful place of the trip! and best breakfast holy cow!

stealthy cat is stealthy

we went on a drive up the valley to explore the place, so pretty!! we almost went to italy in this direction but decided to turn around.

centovalli

 this was the highest up we went, pretty high!! after i took this picture we were attacked by these unnatural and disgusting huge black bugs!!

lugano

guess where we are. here's a clue ♔. dont you judge me! so many bizarro world things about this advertisement i had to take a picture. i went in a paddle boat here, for the first time in my memory. so fun and scary what with the ferries wooshing about!

 this was eyþórs birthday treat! we decided since we were so close that we would go to italy for the day! it was fun, we stayed in a fancy hotel which was the same price as the simple b&b in switzerland, so cool! and the AC was beautiful :) 

us taking a picture in front of george clooney's house

bellinzona part two

 so we were on our way back to winterthur and decided to give it another chance, cuz i still hadnt been in a castle at this point and this was the freaking castley-est thing you ever did see. so we went and finally finally found our way!

side note we are not just sinners, this was after the aforementioned paddle boating and there was nowhere to change hahahaha!

eyþór was so impressed with the lawn that he wanted to roll around on it, but couldnt on account of his allergy, being the lovely wife that i am, i volunteered to roll around on the grass in his place, some quality lawn right there.

 interesting tidbit, this is the actual castle that the rook from the game of chess is based on.

SO i achieved my goal!! we went in side and saw some cool weapons.

pretty sure this is middle earth

back at grandmas!

 while in winterthur the second time it was a little more exciting, grossmama had her 85th birthday, and we had our 1st anniversary! marlies made us a cake it was very nice. oh but before that eyþór got sick!! pretty bad! 24 hour stomach flu, poor thing! on the day before our anniversary! he was drinking a lot of peppermint tea so it was green!! enjoy your tmi!!! hahahha seriously it was awesome, like in the movies! the end, but it was just so cool.

dun dun nun-nun my birsday present from eyþór! he is pretty great! we were in the shoe store and he said i could pick any, he is so smart :D of course i got a good deal!

its hard

to take pictures

of ones

own

feet

there we are

thanks for watching friends and fiends, until next time when i tell the happenings that happened.

easy, tiger.

what?... huh?... oh sorry, were you sitting here?... i think that zombie took my sandwich...

DISORIENTATION TO THE MAx!

i dont really know what day it is or where i am or whats going on, except that its miriams birthday and im going to make a cake later! 

psst she's the one on the left...

happy birthday miriam! you are my favorite sister who's two years and thirty days older than me :þ i hope you have a great day!!!!

so, onward!!

the reasons for my masterful confusion are as follows....

          

(im going to be putting in random lyrics to what im listening to for awesomes, cuz thats how i roll)

i have been learning german everyday for the past 30 years, yeah im pretty sure thats an accurate number. it does weird things to your brain man... bonamana bonamana bonamana... 

i have a tiny tiny summer vacation, ok one month but it felt really tiny and like i said, my brain...

which brings me to the next reason, i had an epic and amazing giant trip in that tiny window of time! we spent time in 3 different countries! so wild, europe is a funny funny place! everything is so close! makes me feel a little claustrophobic if i think about it too much..... oh yeah! blahblahblahblah little cup blahblahblahblah fill it up 

reason # 72 i started my new, harder, extended version, german class 1 week after we got home 

sorry sorry sorry sorry  negga negga negga mongcho hmmhmmhmhmhmhhmmhmhm baby!

so because of all of that i have no idea where to begin and am dreading the thought, ok not dreading that was dramatic, but i cant seem to get my brain to run in any sort of coherent order, babo babo babo babo. (i love this song!)

so i will begin at the beginning, wait no i already began at the beginning, so ill begin in the part after the beginning and before the middle, the begiddle if you will.

lovaholic lovatronic lovaholic lovatronic!

so it was my birthday! i had a yummy cake made by the menfolks mentioned in the previous post. it was chocolate and i was looking forward to eat the heck of it, but we forgot it at áö's house! that made me real real sad! but life goes on! 

!!!사진의!!!

this is bad wimpfen. really sad story, apparently the town was attacked by nuclear monsters and these houses have mutated into each other - there were no survivors.

go us!

fá (eyþórs dad) likes pudding!

runs in the family?

i think pudding is tasting...

áö likes life!!

or something.... he's really an awesome dude though, it was really cool to meet him!

PEPPAH!!

up on the totally shakey jakey tower... it was... unsettling 

this is my "it's my birthday, i dont want to die!!" face

eyþór took this one, what an artist guy :D

this is áö's house/apartment basically the top floor of that house up to the three windows! 

we were at the top of this crazy tower with crazy creaky stairs and ridiculously narrow walk ways at the top , the end

this is the emergency evacuation shoot from the old days... if you know what i mean... evacuation of the bowels ;o 

fýlu... poki? púki? one of those i cant remember which

this guy is my new best friend

or this guy, oh man! 어떻게해야!

if you can guess why i took this picture you get a prize! the prize is mental superiority!
hint: my dream job!

eyþór being a mega tourist

the siemsen men! on adventures and kicking most butts!

ok so thats the end of part one, stay tuned for part zwei 

next time on Dont Blog the Toilette: lots of mountains, switzerland, frustration, water, commerce, italy and much much less.

bis bald!

love!

i am ashamed

we have been on adventures, but ive been so busy having adventures that i havent taken any pictures of them.

we rented a car cuz we thought it would be more comfortable and free! which has been the case for the most part, eythor was a little rusty at first, he hadnt driven since we got married, almost a year ago! but he has been doing a great job and loves driving on the autobahn hahaha. arg the map to reality ratio isnt the best though, we've gotten lost a few times but nothing extreme :D adventures adventures!!

lets see where the heck did we go? oh going back a little we went to the temple the weekend before sometime and went to dresden (that place is a flipping castle yo! some fancy as people were having some sort of event there with all the touristas hanging out walking in and out of wha ever the heck they were up to) as well! it ws so pretty, but because it was a saturday it was filled with all manner of tourists! i mean for serious, it was like 17. juni or sumin. it was pretty gross but still really old and pretty, and as far as i know still being rebuilt from being bombed the crap of from the poms.

back to this part or whatever, first we went to a place called weimar it was nice there, a little goethe obsessed, as was a lot of that area, there were very few tourists there and the old part of town was almost deserted seeing as how we got there late (meaning after 6)

then we went on to the next little town called arnstadt that place was pretty weird, they had this way old wall around the place which was kind of awesome, then there was this bell tower that was not conected to anything, just sticking up out of nowheres for funnzies. but the most awesome part of this place was the castle ruin (s?) it was a huga and glorious back in the day, but just some rocks now and the built tons of minatures amoungst the ruins i felt like a giant stomping about the place. there wa this tall as towere there as well but it looked pretty shakey jakey and costed money so we skipped that :) then was this blasphenmous church called bachkircke, basicall the church of bach, did i hear lightning in the vicinity? it was not pretty but had an interesting interioir. we staed the night there in a hotel that was like 500 years old or something, i felt like i was at the prancing pony.

then we went to wurzburg, famoous for a massive fort on the top of the hill, again we were late so everything was closing but we got to walk around the grouds this place was huge! the walls were like a meter and a half thick on the top and got wider and wider, it was pretty crazy and really impressive. we basically just went straight through the city but there were so many things there that i would want to come back and see, like this place so princessy!

then we got to where we are right now, bad wimpfen, a famously pretty little village with virtually no tourists and an australian themed pub down the road ;) so far we have been doin a lot of manly manly things, (side note: ive never been so outnumbered in all my life, three dudes and little old me) yesterday we went to the audi factory (oh did i forget to mention, eythors uncle works there, an engineer, he works on designing customizations, putting a fridge in somehwere for example, why one should have a fridge in a car, i dont know [also he has a sweet sweet a5 {and a motorbike and something called a triumph but those are several other stories}]) and took the tour, it was crazy, loud and amazing, modern industry go figure. and we got to sit in a R8, we decided they are not half bad. then today we went for a drive in the country, that is to say we went to see hockenheimring (some famousy racetrack? anyways there were some crazy cars outside of it, ferrari, a few audi R8s and the like) and then eythor got to drive the triumph a very little bit, he likes modern cars better, hahahaa. and then we drove by the hoffenheim stadium, were this icelandic dude plays. needless to say eythor has been very chuffed :D and i have had a constant headache from the heat and humidity, so sticky! :p

tomorrow is my birthday, it doesnt really feel like it, eythor got me a lovely present before we went on our trip, and i will absolutely take a picture of them soon.

so here i am blogging at a table that belonged to eythors grandfather, while the men watch fußball (some league or other has just begun)

my goal for this trip has been to actually go inside a castle, so far it hasnt happened but im confident it will!

and im gonna take pictures starting right now!! but ill post them at a later time

til then, wonderful friends!

oh and this happened

once it was spring

and then it was sommer!

thats a cherry tree in our flippin yard why not!?

this is my mystery plant, it grows like nothing, anyone know what it is?

here are some lame canadians

it was melanies birfday it was so much fun!