Minot Schloss in Schaffhausen; Rheinfalls near Schaffhausen; Rheinfalls in the background.

SEPTEMBER 28, 2009 MONDAY

Well, we managed to save one piece of pie for each of us and the rest went to Charlotte and Elders Nilsson and Harris. Details come later in the blog.

We hadn’t decided by last night what we wanted to do today on P-day except we had an appointment with Ruth Diethelm to come by this afternoon to wish her husband, Bruno happy birthday. We also had our normal home evening with our usual group, this time at the Bolt home. We had talked about going to the Gotthard Pass, but decided against that because it was too far away and we had the early appointment with the Diethelms. We decided, eventually, to go to the Rhein Falls near Schaffhausen. That was a good choice because it was only an hour away by train and fairly easy to get to. We met Charlotte at 9:00 and traveled to Schaffhausen, found our bus, and then traveled to where we needed to get off to walk down to the Falls. It was fairly steep going, but all downhill, so we arrived in good shape. As we got close to the Rhein River, we had to follow a walkway clear around to where we could buy a ticket to ride the boat. We bought tickets to go to a big rock close to the falls where we got out and climbed some very steep narrow stairs to the top where we could look over the falls. There were at least four or five times as many people wanting to stand in the very limited space on top than there was room. Many had to wait on the stairs for others to leave so they could go up. The only trouble was, there was hardly room for those on top to go back down the stairs with the others waiting on them to go up. Whoever thought this system up must of been one of Obama’s czars, because it didn’t work very well. When compared to the Niagra Falls, the Rhein Falls we mere baby falls, but these are the biggest river falls in all of Europe, we’re told, so the Swiss are very proud of them.

We were lucky to be some of the first ones up. We ooo’d and aaah’d and took our photos, caught our breath and then, with difficulty, made our way back down to the landing. We waited in the mist from the falls until the boat came back to get us. We got on and it ferried us back to the original starting point and then took us across to the other side so we could climb to the castle which sat on the cliff overlooking the Rhein Falls. Diana and Charlotte didn’t want to climb all the way up to the Castle, so I quickly climbed the thousand steps to discover the castle was closed for the rest of the year to get renovated. Just great! I found a little kiosk, however, and bought each of us a chocolate gipfeli (chocolate filled croissant) and went back down. In the meantime, Diana and Charlotte had climbed halfway up where the train station was and were waiting there for me. I was behind some older slower people coming back down and couldn’t get around them and ended up being about thirty seconds late to catch the train. We had to wait another half hour for the next train to come so we could get back to the Schaffhausen Bahnhof.

Once we were in Schaffhausen, as we were getting on our bus to go to the Minot Schloss (Castle), Elders West & Knight, who work in Schaffhausen, surprised us when they said hello. We talked to them a few minutes, told them where we were going, and then climbed on the bus. The bus wasn’t scheduled to leave for a few minutes, but just when it was ready to take off, Elder Knight, out of breath, jumped on the bus and told us we were on the right bus, #4 , but going opposite of where we wanted to go. We should have got on the #4 bus across the street so we hurried and got off. These Elders are great to look out after us old folks! We thanked him, went across and got on the bus going the right direction. We rode to the castle, got off and went through it. It was interesting and we took a lot of photos. The castle overlooks the town and Rhein River and we took a lot of photos that will remind us how beautiful and picturesque these quaint old towns are. After that we walked down the long stairway to the river to find out if we had time to take a boat ride down the Rhein. No such luck. There wasn’t enough time so we slowly walked back to the bahnhof through the old town. Before we did, we found out the boat goes clear to Konstanz, a six hour ride, and we decided we want to do this and scheduled it for P-day in two weeks. We took our time looking into the various shops and stores along the way to the bahnhof..

On the way back to Zurich we found out Charlotte had never been to the Schoggihuesli, an outlet shop where they sell chocolate. Diana insisted on showing Charlotte where it was, so we took a bus from Oerlikon, switched to another bus at Zentrum Glatt and ended up at Schoggihuesli. We ended up buying some different kinds of chocolate things for gifts and then went on our way towards home. We had an appointment with the Diethelms and we were running too late to go all the way home and back so we left Charlotte on the tram and got off at Diethelms stop. It took us a few minutes to walk to their home, but we were right on time. When Bruno opened the door, we sang happy birthday to his surprised face. They invited us in and Ruth had prepared a light supper for us. We talked about this and that, but mostly we talked of older less-active people we visit. This was very helpful because, Bruno being a former bishop, was able to give us some background information that may be of help when we visit these people again.

The time went quickly, but we had to leave to get to our family home evening. We ended up being fifteen minutes late although we tried to be on time. During the day we mentioned to Charlotte about our pumpkin pie. They don’t have pumpkin pies here so we wanted her to try it. We cut a piece and took it to FHE with us to give to her. We had a great lesson on Chapter one of Ephesians given us by Fabian. After the meeting was over, we just couldn’t not offer a piece of pie to Elders Harris & Nilsson, so they came home with us. They were duly impressed. They could only stay long enough to eat the pie and then they had to leave because of curfew.

Besides writing this entry, Roxsan called us on skype and it was good to talk to her for a bit. We got to see Nathan too, which is always a thrill.

Bruno told us a couple of stories that we need to write down, but not tonight. One about enduring to the end and one why men usually die sooner than their wives.