We are here!  After two flights, neither of which were nearly as bad as I expected, we have arrived.

We left our house at 3:30am (!!!!!) and headed to the airport.  We parked the car at a nearby lot, where we found the best rate for our three-week request.  Then we caught a shuttle to the airport where we had to wait in a long line to check in and check our bags.  We waited in this really long line to check in for our 7am flight, and then right when we got up to the front of the line, the woman started asking people behind us if they were trying to catch the 6am flight and let them all go ahead of us!  It was very frustrating.  I understand why they did it, because they didn’t want them to miss their flight, but it wasn’t fair to us because we had been waiting in line for so long and were punished by waiting longer because they were late for their own flights.  Oh well, I guess sometimes life just isn’t fair

I made S smile for a picture, because he kept complaining about the wait.

While waiting for time to board, we went to a coffee shop and I had a coffee and a chocolate croissant.

Not my usual, but it looked good and… I’m on vacation now!

When I got on the flight it was still dark and I ate a Larabar I had stashed in my bag.

I had never had this flavor of Larabar before, and I loved it!  I was starving, which probably helped.  The first flight we stayed awake and talked a lot.

It was about 5 1/2 hours, and then we landed in Newark. We had a few hours layover, so you know where I headed… straight to DUNKIN DONUTS! The best thing about being on the east coast, even if it is just in the airport for a few hours.

I also had a chicken salad from McDonalds.

By this point, we were both running on 36 hours awake with less than 2 hours of sleep, and were totally wearing our grumpy pants.  Boarded flight 2, 8 hours to Geneva.  The sun was rising when we boarded and it was really beautiful:

And when we took off, we had an awesome view of New York City – including the Statue of Liberty.

S managed to sleep for most of the flight, but I couldn’t sleep much.  I watched the movie “My Sister’s Keeper”, which I had already read the book for.  It was pretty good, but sad.  The flight was cool, everybody had their own television and also had a remote control and could play games and stuff.  For breakfast, they served us an egg, meat and cheese croissant with fruit and a little muffin.

As we got closer, I was getting very excited:

And finally… we landed!  We quickly got through customs and then got our luggage from the baggage claim (none got lost!!)

And then we were met by S’s dad and sister.  They live about 1 1/2 hrs from the airport, so it was an interesting and scenic drive.  They have these little radar boxes on the side of the road, every mile or so, that monitor your speed while you are driving.  If you go above the speed limit, they take a picture of your license plate and you get a ticket in the mail!  It was pretty crazy, you can’t get away with anything.

After driving for a while on the highways, we got off and followed many small, windy back roads until we got to his parents’ house.  It is an adorable house up in the hills, surrounded by green land.  As we drove up to the house, this was my first view of it:

It is simply adorable.

This is a picture of the back of the house, where they keep a cute little garden.

They grow vegetables (lettuce, tomatoes, etc.) as well as many fruits – they have apple trees, pear trees, fig trees, a cherry tree, etc!  I want to have a garden like this when I have a house and yard some day.

And this is the view from their front yard.

Breathtaking.

When we went inside, I fell just as in love with the interior as the exterior.  It is such a unique place, I’ve never seen a house quite like it.  Many large windows and skylights, letting in a ton of natural light that really makes the whole house feel light and warm.  His parents showed us to our room, and look what they had arranged as a surprise for me:

A huge table filled with chocolate, treats, and little gifts!  That’s right, folks, about 20 tons more swiss chocolate to add to my collection.  I am a happy girl.  They specifically got me a lot of white chocolate because that is my favorite:

But don’t worry, I am an equal opportunity chocolate lover so was equally grateful for the dark and milk chocolate they provided.

There were also cookies and other treats – my favorite being this little bag with special cookies in it.  Isn’t the heart one the cutest?

After quickly settling in (it took everything I had not to collapse in the bed… I was firing on half a cylinder by this point…) we headed up to the kitchen for breakfast/brunch.  The kitchen table is by this huge window – and my favorite part:

If you can’t tell, due to the bad lighting of the picture – those are huge, red grapes hanging all along the side of the house.  Grape vines, everywhere… enough grapes to feed a family of 10 for a year.  They are absolutely beautiful, and absolutely delicious!  I went outside with S’s father and we picked off a huge bundle for me to eat with my breakfast.  It was so great to just pick a bunch off the vine, wash them off, and pop them in my mouth!  They were so sweet and juicy.  Heaven in every bite.

Now we are relaxing while S’s dad works to prepare lunch.  Here is a sneak preview.  Look at these beauts… my mouth is watering looking at him make them before they are even put into the oven.

More on what exactly they are and the finished product later!

Adieu