After preparing for weeks for our trip overseas, Elisa and I (or at least I; I can't really speak for Elisa) found ourselves a bit unprepared this past Sunday morning, as we loaded up our stuff into my parent's car and made the three and a half hour drive from my house in Columbia, Maryland to Newark International Airport in New Jersey. While we had gathered all the necessary items for such a trip (cold weather clothing, ear plugs, and who knows what else. Really, I've already determined that I've packed way too much), our actual plans for once we landed on European ground only extended through the first week of a two and a half month stay. As Elisa and I keep telling ourselves, "That's why it's an adventure."
Büsingen does not offer very many exciting things for one to do, but Elisa and I have been having fun exploring and relaxing anyhow. We took a walk and covered most of Büsingen within the hour. In the picture above, Elisa is enjoying a view of the beautiful Rhein river from our favorite boat dock in Büsingen. To the right, we see Elisa meeting an esteemed inhabitant of Büsingen: a hairy cow. As you can tell, Elisa finds the odor of the hairy cow albeit questionable. We also made our way up to the Bergkirche St. Michael, which is arguably my favorite building on the planet. The church was built in the 11th century and still stands upon a hill in Büsingen, lit up at night for the village to see. It is idyllic in every way, and the epitome of peacefulness.
After our short walk, Sabine took Elisa and I to Lidl, the German grocery store (we left Büsingen, crossed into Switzerland, and shortly thereafter crossed the border back in to Germany). Almost everything in Europe is more expensive than in the States, but kindly enough, groceries in Germany are cheap. Elisa and I bought a lot of bread and cheese, and another one of my favorite things in the whole world: chocolate muesli cereal!!!!! I can't begin to express my love for this product. I could eat it every day for the rest of my life. I'm highly considering throwing away everything else in my suitcase on my way back to the States in November just so that I can fill my suitcase with chocolate muesli cereal. Okay, maybe not. The point is, I love it. AFTER we got our groceries, I'm not quite sure what happened. I know that somehow Elisa and I managed to stay up until around 7:30 pm, but I wasn't exactly lucid for the majority of the three hours before I fell asleep.
On Wednesday, Elisa and I walked to Schaffhausen and back, which would be about six miles. The whole walk was along the Rhein and despite the overcast weather, it was a beautiful day. We got some coffee, people watched, and climbed up the Munot, the largest military fortress in Switzerland. My favorite part about the Munot is that, as it has long since ceased to serve any military functions, its moat has been drained and replaced with a vineyard, gardens, and a cute little deer family that just hangs out down there and is tended to by the groundskeeper or whomever. In Schaffhausen we also saw two old churches which were pretty boring because they are Protestant, and scoped out the train station, knowing that we would be needing to take the train from Schaffhausen in to Singen, another nearby German town, the next day. We needed to go to Singen for pretzel bread and gelato, first and foremost, but also because we needed to go to the Apotheke. Elisa had contracted some bug bites at some point over the night which were in need of soothing. The bug bites are unsurprising; we've had many unpleasant insect visitors in our room because it's not yet cold enough for them all to be dead, and it's wet outside, so they come inside. Elisa killed two huge spiders yesterday and I'm infinitely thankful that she is my roommate on this trip and not Diane Loughry. We shall have a great many more adventures in the coming weeks, I'm sure!
If you'd like to see more pictures from the trip, check them out on Photobucket. I will try to be as consistent about putting up pictures as I hope to be about blogging! Enjoy.
We landed at Zurich International Airport at 8:30 am the day after we flew out (I probably slept about 3 hours on the plane). Our goal for that day was to make it until at least 6 pm before we succumbed to jetlag and lack of sleep. Our hopes of succeeding were low until our friend Sabine found us at the airport and took us for some coffee in Schaffhausen, the little Swiss town next to the town in which we've been staying, Büsingen. Büsingen am Hochrhein is an interesting story. It is administratively part of Germany, but Swiss in almost every other way (monetarily, geographically, etc.) Apparently, this is because some guy, who I guess ruled Büsingen, was very proud of his German culture and swore that it might never become Swiss, despite the shifting of the border and whatever else occurred to make Büsingen a virtual German island within Swiss land. Anyways, now Büsingen is the home to European Nazarene College and the Eurasian Nazarene Regional Office. The Nazarenes probably make up half of the population of this tiny town. I lived here with my parents my senior year of highschool, when they were both working for the church here. And that is how Elisa and I have come to be in this tiny village on our current travels; it is another one of my homes.
Büsingen does not offer very many exciting things for one to do, but Elisa and I have been having fun exploring and relaxing anyhow. We took a walk and covered most of Büsingen within the hour. In the picture above, Elisa is enjoying a view of the beautiful Rhein river from our favorite boat dock in Büsingen. To the right, we see Elisa meeting an esteemed inhabitant of Büsingen: a hairy cow. As you can tell, Elisa finds the odor of the hairy cow albeit questionable. We also made our way up to the Bergkirche St. Michael, which is arguably my favorite building on the planet. The church was built in the 11th century and still stands upon a hill in Büsingen, lit up at night for the village to see. It is idyllic in every way, and the epitome of peacefulness. 
On Wednesday, Elisa and I walked to Schaffhausen and back, which would be about six miles. The whole walk was along the Rhein and despite the overcast weather, it was a beautiful day. We got some coffee, people watched, and climbed up the Munot, the largest military fortress in Switzerland. My favorite part about the Munot is that, as it has long since ceased to serve any military functions, its moat has been drained and replaced with a vineyard, gardens, and a cute little deer family that just hangs out down there and is tended to by the groundskeeper or whomever. In Schaffhausen we also saw two old churches which were pretty boring because they are Protestant, and scoped out the train station, knowing that we would be needing to take the train from Schaffhausen in to Singen, another nearby German town, the next day. We needed to go to Singen for pretzel bread and gelato, first and foremost, but also because we needed to go to the Apotheke. Elisa had contracted some bug bites at some point over the night which were in need of soothing. The bug bites are unsurprising; we've had many unpleasant insect visitors in our room because it's not yet cold enough for them all to be dead, and it's wet outside, so they come inside. Elisa killed two huge spiders yesterday and I'm infinitely thankful that she is my roommate on this trip and not Diane Loughry. We shall have a great many more adventures in the coming weeks, I'm sure!
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