Even though it rained while in this gorgeous Alpen town, smiles of contentment burst forth like sunshine during our entire stay here. I must have heard a dozen students remark how rested they felt. "The beds!" they said over and over. Those down pillows and comforters do indeed help one get the feel of the old-fashioned "kur," or "R & R" from the pressures of our daily lives.
Our first night included a visit to the Stadtkeller, a traditional Swiss restaurant, complete with participatory entertainment. Our first course, naturally, had to be Swiss fondue, the cheese kind made with aromatic Emmenthaler and Gruyere and a dash of kirsch and nutmeg, served with chunks of heavy, dry cottage bread. That was followed by salad, wiener schnitzel, rösti potatoes and vegetables. Fruit flavored ice cream ended the meal but not the evening. The rather touristy but (we all agreed) very entertaining show was filled with music on a wide variety of traditional Swiss instruments (including saws, brooms, bowls and coins and cow bells), dancing, and, of course, yodeling.
Members of our group and others were brought up on stage to try everything from the long, long, long Swiss Alpen horns to yodeling. Jae, one of our group, was clearly the champion yodeler in the entire program. I asked my students if they were as impressed as I was with the MC, a woman who moved easily from one language to another during the program: German, English, French, Italian, even Chinese.
What a delightful introduction to Swiss hospitality!
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