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A Pleasant Turn of Events

  I just arrived to what seems like a dream. But before I can get to it, I'll catch you up on the rest of my Sunday.
 On my way back from chilling at the botanical garden, I passed so many amazing houses. One of which I stopped and stared at in amazement and asked a passer-by if it was really someone's house. This simple remark turned into a long walk and conversation with this lovely Swiss lady who ended up recommending my place for dinner.
  I headed back to Pascal's for the night where we watched the epic jump of that Felix guy. I arrived to his house JUST in time to catch it. I hardly even knew about it before. But anyway, we caught up on our weekends and then looked into the idea of me hitchhiking to Luzern. So we set up a plan and spot to go and were excited to see how it would work out.
  So this morning I woke up and was off to begin my first REAL hitchhiking experience. Cardboard sign and all. I started out at one spot for about an hour with no luck until someone stopped and advised me to move to a better spot. So I relocated to this spot and after just about 15 minutes, a nice old man stopped for me. He brought me all the way to Luzern. He didn't speak much English, but we tried our best to have some conversation. We were able to share about our hometowns, family, and jobs. He trains people for marathons and has ran 6 himself. Pretty impressive. I was so so grateful for this man's kindness and trust in me to give a stranger a ride.
  Gosh I still am in disbelief of the following events. Or this whole trip really. But this man, who sadly I can't remember his name, dropped me off at the main train station where I was to meet Erwin, a New Zealander from couchsurfing, living just outside of Luzern. We had just planned to tour the city for the day and then I was going to stay in a hostel here. So we went off and he took me to some memorial thing that was supposed to be for some soldiers killed in the French Revolution? Heck don't look to this blog for a history lesson. But it was cool... A big stone with a sculpture of a poor lion getting stabbed in the back. We did a quick walk and saw the pretty flowery bridge, then went and tried to go to an art museum that was closed on Mondays, and drove around for a while trying to find a mountain to ascend... Pilatas was too foggy and Rigi was too expensive. So instead, he took me up this other mountain which I think was a far better one anyway. It was a trail I think only locals would really know. We came to some gate that I thought hindered the rest of our trek but he proceeded to just climb right around it. We went up some pretty slippery hills, met all these sweet little cows, and eventually came to see snow. At the top you could see the snowy mountains in the background, trees changing colors AND snow, and fog rolling through the mountains. It was an incredible sight. One of the best or THE best I've seen on this trip. It did cross my mind, while going up this secluded mountain, that it was entirely possible this stranger could've been leading me to the top and proceeding to murder me or other terrible things. But, I thought I could trust him, and figured they'd at least have a link to him from my couchsurfing site if something did happen.
  We went for quite a slippery downhill trek where I thought I was a goner several times. But we made it down safe and got to admire a quaint little church with the coolest door.
  We had decided to ditch the hostel idea as he invited me to stay at his grandma's house in the country. They're all dairy farmers right outside the city. (Right... let's go stay with your grandma on a dairy farm... that certainly could've been another ploy to murder me, but since he passed up the first opportunity, I thought it'd be ok.)
             We drove through such a green, hilly area to finally make it to this little country home. It's seriously like a dream... From their house is a view of beautiful green hills with snow-cap mountains in the distance. Now I'm just enjoying some coffee and "farmers' schnapps" with him and his grandma after a meal she made us of pasta, white brotwurst, and delicious tomatoes from their garden.
  In the morning I'll be helping his precious grandma milk cows before heading off on my next adventure.
            And I guess to make it even more like a novel and keep you in suspense, I'll keep my next plans a surprise. :)
So stay tuned!

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