Hot air ballooning in Cappadocia

Cappadocia is an amazing place.  I've heard it described as a lunar or Martian landscape and, I agree, it's not too far from that.  But, for us, we both felt as if we had stepped into a fantasy novel --- perhaps Frank Herbert's Dune or the Aiel Waste in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series --- because it didn't feel possible.  The rocks grew in strange shapes, caverns undulated and rippled, and houses and churches peeked out in arches and entryways in the yellow rocks.

There's no better way to see this landscape than on a hot air balloon.  We floated into the air, gently and smoothly, rising higher and higher as the sun rose over Cappadocia.  Within twenty minutes, there were eighty or more hot air balloons swimming through the air, rising and dipping across the blue skies and into the rocky crevices of the earth.  The ten of us on the balloon spoke softly in whispers, as if afraid to disturb the peace of the morning (though the honeymooning couple next to me carried on a furious argument in low whispers for the first half of the flight which cannot bode well for their marriage because all fears, worries, and anger disappeared for me as soon as we got into the air.)

We wanted to stay, forever, in that way, floating above beauty.

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F1 race at the Circuit de Catalunya

If you're not into amazing food or crazy architecture, I still think you should consider a trip to Barcelona because the city delivers on adventure.  You can be a spectator at some of the coolest arenas in the world, or, if you'd rather get your proverbial hands dirty, you can do that, too.  Check out this picture post of amazing adventuring in Barcelona:

Watch the F1 races at the Circuit de Catalunya:

Drive an antique car through the streets of Barcelona with PummBarcelona:

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 Scenes near Brienz Lake

My one and only skiing experience began and ended with me flat on my butt.  I don't know why I expected anything less: nine years of detested gym classes (as soon as I got into high school, I figured out a way to avoid gym altogether) plus two years of abhorred gymnastics revealed a complete lack of balance and athleticism.  Patrick is never surprised when I trip over my own feet in the middle of a flat, unmarked street.  It's just my way.

Chewy in the snow

Anyhow, so, we had this plan to go skiing in Switzerland.  Why?  Well, it's the thing you do when you go to Switzerland . . . you ski, eat cheese fondue, and drink hot chocolate.  But, we had to cut our time in Switzerland to a very short three days which meant that we wouldn't have time to take ski classes and ski while there.  Which, in the long run, was probably a good thing for me, my body, and the rest of the Swiss population, because I can only imagine that they would have been mortified by me constantly falling flat on my butt.  (As a side note, the Swiss literally begin learning how to ski as soon as they are taught how to walk.  We talked to a ski instructor at the resort who said that she recently had a 22-month-old in her ski class and that the 5-year-olds were practically experts.)

Views of Meiringen and Sherlock Holmes statue

We reached the Bernese Oberland region, most famous as the scene of Sherlock Holmes' "death" while battling Moriarty, and I started thumbing through the brochures, wondering if there was a way to enjoy the stunning winter wonderland without skiing.  And, there was.

Sleds stacked

I always thought that sledding was a kid's activity and a relatively tedious activity at that: trudge up a hill, slide down, trudge back up, and so on.  But, in Switzerland, sledding (or what they call sledging) is no child's game.  In Switzerland, you take ski lifts to the top of a mountain, sled down a specially groomed run for about three kilometers (about a mile and a half), reach the bottom and head back up the ski lift again.  And again.  And again.

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