Ticino!

Today Mr. Joe Long arrived in Zurich and after his flight was delayed we finally picked him up and headed straight for Ticine, the Italian speaking Kanton of Switzerland. We arrived in Ticine very late but it was eerie and beautiful driving through winding cobble streets up to Adrian’s grandparents house. We passed several old rock churches and the environment is very humid there so the hillsides are actually covered in a chaparral like jungle. Adrian’s stepfamily’s house was on the top of the hill and it was a tall stone building over looking the entire valley. Even though it was dark, I could tell it had a gorgeous view. After a little bit of food and wine, we went to sleep and woke up to loud birds early in the morning. It was really nice sitting on the balcony outside reading and watching the sunrise over this very Italian looking setting. That day we headed towards the mountains weaving along cliff edges following a river. On each side of the road at times were steep hillsides, yet also small clusters of houses, vineyards and churches that composed towns. It seemed straight out of a movie because everything seemed so original like it hadn’t been touched for 600 years. We found a spot along the river to have lunch where we could swim, play cards and backgammon, and jump off of cliffs. The water was sooo clear and blue and cold. Joe, Adrian, and I climbed up a really tall waterfall too which was fun to check out the view and play in some of the pools. After hanging at the river most of the day, we traveled back down the river a little bit to a 400 year old bridge that had an awesome arch design. We decided to jump off it even though no one was doing it, and below was a beach where tons of German tourists were swimming. They all started cheering for us as we jumped off the 70-foot bridge. We survived, good thing it was deep. Then we checked out an old church before we followed the winding road back to a huge Dam, the same Dam that James Bond jumped off of in one of his movies.