Hiking in the Alps...

I spent today hiking in the most beautiful mountain ever. Zach and I took off on a train this morning and arrived in Sierre after an hour and hopped on a bus for a small town that starts with a V (can't remember). On the bus ride up the mountain a bunch of French kids were singing some really pretty songs in the back. After the pretty French songs they started singing Maroon 5 and the singing all went downhill from there. Once we got to the little town we headed off on a random trail toward St. Luc. Little did we know that the hike we were about to take would last for hours because of detours, but it was sooooooo worth it.

At one point along the trail we came to a little meadow where it sounded like there were sprinklers and we were a little perplexed. The "sprinklers" were actually thousands of crickets that covered the entire ground and leapt up as we walked. We could literally put our hands out and grab them. After walking through the forest for a while we suddenly came across this enormous meadow with a little wooden shack in the middle and when we turned around, our mouths literally dropped at the view of the Swiss Alps. It was so beautiful. We took millions of pictures and Zach took a video of me running in circles like Maria in "The Sound of Music."

After about three hours we started getting worried because our hike was only supposed to last an hour and we had nothing to eat or drink. We began to hear a tiny tinkling of bells ahead of us, which we hoped meant that a village was near. As we wandered forward we realized that it was a group of cows with cowbells around their necks.....they were so cute! The sound of the bells reminded me of reading Heidi when I was 11 and dreaming of living on a farm in Switzerland. It is funny because everything that happens here is like a story book.

Once we passed the cows we heard the sound of water and got excited to cool off from the heat of the hike. The river turned out to be absolutely freezing so we only put our feet in, but it felt good nevertheless. Finally after TONS of walking, we came upon St. Luc and stumbled into the first restaurant we could find. The food there was SO good! I don't know if it was that good because I was starving or because hiking makes you feel like you've earned it or what, but it was sooooooo delicious. We had warm goat cheese on toast and ham and pepperoni and salad.....yum yum yum.

With full stomachs we wandered over to the bus stop and lay out in a field as we waited for the bus to come. What an amazing day. I am the luckiest girl on the planet. I am smiling as I type this because I am still excited by these adventures. Wow. With that, I think I will go to sleep. Love you all! Goodnight.