Rheinfall

Today was our first really warm day since we left Virginia.  I finally broke out a short-sleeved shirt and left the umberellas at home.  Hooray!

Originally, I was planning on going in to the city of St Gallen where Ryan works.  I couldn't figure out exactly what I wanted to do, and I have found that not having a really solid plan on where I'm parking and what we're doing once I get there is a recipe for disaster when I am the tour guide.

I remembered about some waterfalls nearby, and we headed that direction once I had figured out my plan.  It's the biggest waterfall in Europe (by volume)--but it's no Niagara.  Even so, there are places you can walk to where you can get right up close to the waterfall and it is pretty spectacular to be that close.  My pictures don't really do it justice.

Overlooking the falls

After that, we went into the historical diplays in the castle above the falls, which was entertaining for the kids.  They made some strange choices in how to portray things: a fancy dining table that was set up nicely for 6 people had voices playing in the room as if they were eating at the table.  For some reason that I didn't understand--since the conversation between the ghosts was in German--the plates moved around on the table (did they like to swap dishes because they didn't like what they ordered?) And one ghost must have been hot, because there was a fan rigged to move up and down to cool her off and a bottle that tipped over a poured her a drink.  The whole thing was a little creepy, but Andrew was entranced.

And although I don't think creepy was what they were going for, they definitely achieved it in the portrait room where all of the paintings had the eyes that were layered (the top of the painting was cut out where the eyes were, and had a second layer of paper underneath that had the eyes on them).  Think Scooby Doo style where the eyes start following them as they cross the room.  I never saw these move, but my niece swears they did.  I kept waiting for one of them to start laughing maniacally as we went through the room--which I'm glad never happened, since children with nightmares do not rank high on my list of favorite things.  I wish I had gotten a better closeup of the eyes--but as I was afraid they were going to suddenly move, I  just headed out and had to hunt down this photo off the internet.

Afterward, we headed to a playground that was made out of long logs strategically attached to each other.  It wasn't clear at first that it was a playground, since it looks suspiciously like a pile of leftover wood--but any playground is better than no playground and we left splinter-free.

We stopped in the souvenir store afterward, and I let them each buy some chocolate.  Megan used it as a lure to get them to go to the car.  What I didn't get a picture of was when Chloe smacked her head into one of the signs because she was so focused on the bag of chocolate.

Once we got home, I had a new problem to deal with.  Last night I had noticed some sort of bite on my leg that was feeling a little painful--but not too bad. By the time we got back from the waterfall, whatever it was had become a whole lot worse--my lower shin/calf area was red, puffy and hurt.  And it was getting progressively worse over the day.  I would have taken a picture of it...but I'll just let you use your imagination.  And lets just imagine I had recently gotten a pedicure and shaved my legs as long as we're at it.

I texted Ryan something like "my leg looks infected...could you ask around about a doctor in case I need to see someone?"  He translated that text into something much more serious than I had intended ("Ryan...I think I might need to amputate my leg") judging from the way he texted/called me 5 or 6 times trying to let me know he had found a doctor and they could see me right away.  But I'm glad he did, because I ended up going in to get it looked at and came home with a $40 pack of penicillin (really? I swear it's $5 at home).  But it was a well-spent $40, since my throbbing shin is completely on the mend and I will not be admitted to the hospital with systemic infection any time soon.

And I need to give credit to Ryan's officemate, a Polish PhD student who made phone calls to track down a doctor for me.  When you are in a foreign country and have no idea how to figure things out, people who step in and make it easier are invaluable.  He told Ryan that when he was a grad student in Cambridge, no one had helped him out--so he resolved that he would never leave others to feel that way.  And he has definitely done that in many ways during this past week for Ryan.

In the end, my aching leg gave me an excuse to elevate my leg for the evening and work on learning the guitar chords for Ricky Gervais and Elmo's "Celebrity Lullabies", thanks to my niece's recommendation.  It was a well-spent evening.