First Dierauf Christmas in der Schweiz

This is going to be a long post. I should probably break it into multiple posts but that sounds like a lot of work. 

This was the first Dierauf family Christmas in Switzerland! Usually we end up back in Portland for Christmas, but with my leg surgery happening on an indeterminate date and my recovery taking an indeterminate amount of time, we decided to have Christmas in Zurich just in case I happened to be less mobile over the break.

We were going to be bouncing around the country, so my gift to everyone was all-access transit passes.

My parents showed up in mid December and the day after they arrived I took them on the typical Rigi Kulm -> Vitznau -> boat to Luzern -> back to Zurich tourist loop. 

A few days later we collected my sister and stopped at the office to get some lunch.

And went straight to Handel's Messiah:

The Holga I had order off AliExpress a month prior finally showed up and I fired off some test shots. I don't think I've shot it since? But it is very fun.

Had a little walk up Uetliberg with the fam and Dani's brother. On the walk up we ran into some Americans who were also from Berkeley, but now living in Switzerland.

The weather was looking gloomy everywhere except Ticino. We got up early and took the train to Lugano and then the cograil up to the top of San Salvatore. 

Then we hiked all the way to Morcote

After Christmas, we all went to Lauterbrunnen and spent a few days together there

Getting to the cabin:

Alec showed up the day after, and we did the classic walk to Murren then back down the valley.

The next day we took the cograil + gondola up to Männlichen and did the classic hike to Kleine Scheidegg (winter version).

Dani and I headed back to Zurich the following day and celebrated New Year's at the WG

We had a few days to recover, then went to Lausanne to meet my parents, who were staying in an apartment in Grandvaux.

The next day was quite overcast and cold. Dani and Alec met us in downtown Lausanne and we walked around a bit

We spent the final day, a Sunday, in Geneva, then headed back to Zurich.

My parents joined us in Zurich for one more night, then flew back to Portland. Dani, Sasha and I are going to Lisbon next weekend, then the holidays will really be over. Overall it was a quite successful first Dierauf Christmas in Switzerland!