Greutzi, Quark, and a beard

I went on a church retreat to Beatenberg, Switzerland this past June. Beatenberg is in the German-speaking region of the country, directly above Interlochen, which is a pretty big vacation spot. I say German-speaking, but similar to Bavaria, Germany, the language is somewhat different. One example, "Greutzi", is a greeting, in place of "hallo".

The food was great, although there are those who would disagree regarding the tunafish pizza. As some of you may know, quark is a german thing. Especially on bread and jam in the morning for breakfast. Which is how I ate it, mostly. Y'all should try it. Appel Farms makes it. Haggen sells it. My Grandma makes some great homemade bread.

Anyway, it was indeed a blessed time to spend with my church family. The morning and evening messages on Job were given by Dr. Derek Thomas from Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi. The man himself is originally from Wales, while his wife is from Dublin, Ireland.

Of course there were alot of things to do during the day. In fact, there was too much to do and not enough time. We went hiking; some white-water rafted; one went paragliding; we went to see Trummelbach Falls; I grew a beard... One evening, there was a local, small-town, open air type of concert involving a brass band, a drum group(?), alphorns, and of course, yodelling. I got the opportunity to try the alphorn, and yes, I did get pictures of alot of stuff.

The ride home was somewhat of an adventure. Except an extremely tedious one. There were STAUs. For those of you who don't know, a stau is the european form of a traffic jam. They can stretch for upwards of 5-10 kilometers. Fun stuff. Sometimes it takes up to half the day to clear.

Even so, everything happened way too fast...except for my beard. Although it was an 8-9 day beard, it really wasn't that impressive.

I'll try to post some pictures soon.

Oh, and thanks for the addition, Mark. I like it.