Well, that was puzzling

For reasons unknown, Lindsey took an empty cardboard toilet paper roll on the school bus with her yesterday and asked everyone on the bus to sign it for her mom. Then she proudly presented it to Stace with all of the signatures.

Some things just can't be explained.

Happy Labor Day, slackers

Yes, I'm sitting here at the office working my third Labor Day in a row. Someone's got to keep the world's economy afloat, right? Anyway, you all go enjoy your picnics and whatever while I keep working to make sure things don't fall apart.

The last of the pictures

Here are some pictures from the two Saturday trips I took within Switzerland after I got back from Norway. The first five are from Mt. Titlis, and the last three are from St. Moritz. (You can see that I now know where to park my sleigh if I'm ever again in St. Moritz.)

Life's been busy

Whew! We're starting to feel like Americans with all the running around we've been doing lately. Tanner has joined a baseball league. He's got practices two nights a week, and his Saturdays are usually spent playing a couple of games somewhere in Switzerland. Today, his games were in St. Gallen, about an hour and a half away from Zug. Boy, public transportation is sure nice. Stace and Tanner got up first thing this morning and drove to the ballpark, and then Lindsey and I took the train a couple of hours later to watch Tanner's second game. I'll sure miss being able to hop a train or a bus to get wherever I want to go.

We've also had back-to-school nights, and I now go down to Lucerne on Thursday nights to help out with the youth in our church, so things have gotten a bit crazy. We're not used to living like that.

Oh, yeah: report on upgrade

Gretchen reminded me that I had failed to report back as to what an "upgrade" means at the Bear Lake Lodge. The story just got crazier and crazier. Stace didn't make the trip to Bear Lake with us that day because she had a headache, so it was just the kids and me (and Jed and Zoe, but they already knew where they were sleeping).

My upgrade consisted of a two-bedroom apartment complete with living room and kitchenette. I couldn't believe it. So the end result was that the kids slept at the cabin with everyone else and I slept all alone in my two-bedroom apartment at the Bear Lake Lodge. I had a hard time choosing which bedroom to use all by myself. I finally chose the bigger one, not that it really mattered. I had plenty of room. What an odd experience.

Norway, day 4 (Tromsø)

When I first got to Tromsø, I panicked. I had just come from Oslo, a vibrant, modern, bustling city. As I walked the block to my hotel in Tromsø, I felt like I'd been dropped in a small town that could have been called Hickville. I was worried because I didn't have enough books with me to read for the entire 48 hours I'd be in town, and I knew I wouldn't be leaving my hotel room because there wasn't anything worth seeing.

Well, first impressions can be deceiving, and it didn't take me long to settle into life in Tromsø. It wasn't a bad town; it just had the characteristics that almost all small towns have, like plenty of gravel roads, older storefronts, and that sort of thing, and I needed to work through some cultural whiplash. I was fine after that.

Lest you think that Ethan Wood, World Traveler, always stays in luxury hotels, here's a picture of my hotel room in Tromsø:

I'm standing by the bathroom door to take the picture, but that's pretty much my whole room.

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I did manage to eat lots of seafood, see lots of cool things, and take in some more goregous scenery. The first night I was there, I went to a midnight concert at the catheral. Here are some pictures of the catheral from different angles:

The next day, I went to a couple of museums. It was most gratifying to see a display confirming what I'd been telling Stace for 20 years now about making the bed:

And here are some other sights:

All things end . . . .

Well, we've officially decided to move back to Minnesota next summer. I'll miss the mild winters, the chocolate, the cheese, the Alps, the opportunity to travel Europe, the quirkiness of the Swiss, the fantastic public transportation, the lack of tornadoes, the colorful money, and a health care system that actually works efficiently for everyone.

My life is now focused on two things: finding a job back in Minnesota and seeing as much of the rest of Europe as I can. Very tentative plans for us include an eastern Mediterranean cruise (which will include Italy, Croatia, Greece, and Turkey), London, Egypt, and Disneyland Paris again (I could skip the last one, but we promised the kids we'd go one more time before leaving Switzerland). But alas, there's so much more we won't be able to see!

What does this mean to you, my faithful readers? It means that both of you need to get your cabooses over here for a visit, pronto. After all, how often do you have a free place to stay in Switzerland? The clock is ticking. Switzerland won't be here forever, you know.