Continued...

Part two of my Swiss cheese adventure
We found the hotel after driving around confused for a bit, and stopping to eat our picnic dinner in the car because it was raining outside. The directions to the hotel were very vague, something like, "Turn right after the first forest beyond this town." So that really confused us for a while, and then Maryse just found it, through her instinctive bed-finding ability. It was a small hotel and restaurant on an organic farm, and the whole thing was beautiful and hilariously Waldorf-y looking, with doors frames without any right angles at the top, the distinctive Waldorf font used for the sign, and typical Waldorfian clothes, books, and toys being sold at the hotel's gift shop. Our room was beautiful, green, and had a balcony and just felt so peaceful overall. In the morning we got up fairly early, and Maryse and I went to a little indoor gardening area where we sat and read or wrote until the breakfast was available. The breakfast was amazingly good, with much of it produced from the farm. There was coffee and tea, croissants, bread, many different cheeses (including a very good carrot one), jelly, yogurt, granola, cereal, juice, and fruit. It felt like the perfect breakfast. Afterward we went with Michael to the farm's cheesemaker, who very kindly offered to give us a little tour and explanation of how he managed the farm and the cheese-making. This was the first time I had experienced a Swiss-German area of Switzerland, but the cheese-maker spoke very good English with us. After that, we walked around the farm a little bit, checked out the bee hives, the cows, and two adorable kittens, which made me think of the two that my family will be getting soon at home. Maryse saw some rocks that she was interested in getting for her garden, so we drove the car down, loaded up the trunk with rocks, and set out the second part of our great cheese adventure. We drove through a lot of incredibly picturesque farmland, and through Vully (I think), and Montreux. The mountains towering over the lake looked incredible, and it made me feel very surrounded and shut in, in a way. We passed into France, and there was a policeman checking each car as it passed through, but he let us go right away, because of Maryse's smile as we drove up. She got teased about that for a bit as we continued on to Evian, home of the Evian bottled water company. It was a bizarre place, because it is a casino town, which contrasted weirdly with a feeling of quaintness at the same time, but it was really hot and expensive there, and most things were closed because it was a holiday, so we didn't stay for long. We eventually got to our next destination of Abondance, a small village in the French mountains known for a type of cheese that is illegal in the U.S.. Michael got some, and we walked around for a bit. While walking past a group of kids, one of the boys who was probably around 13 years old, asked Maryse where she was from. She told him, and then Michael said he was from California, and then I said I was from New York, but the kid didn't believe me and asked if I spoke English, but I didn't understand him. Then Maryse explained, and I said "Yes," very emphatically, I guess, and the kid looked really surprised and walked away, and Maryse started laughing. It must be surprising to find two people from different parts of America, and one from Switzerland walking through your small village, while the only tourist draw is during the winter for skiing. So that was our last stop before heading back to Geneva, where Maryse and Michael dropped me off at Kim's house.

Overall, I had a really great time, saw some amazing things, ate really good food, won the navigating contest between me and Michael, and learned a lot about cheese-making.