We were up relatively this morning. As a small thank you to Irene, we had offered to do a number of chores around the house. I oiled several teak chairs while Rick watered the flowers and staked a tree in the back year. For those of you new to the blog, Irene lives in an amazing 500 year old farm house. It’s very big with 6 bedrooms. Look at our old blog to see pictures.
It was a beautiful sunny morning, very nice to be outside working in the garden. We could hear the bells woren by the sheep that are grazing up the street. Very cool! The one downside is all the trees are blooming and everything is covered in pollen but luckily I have my allergy medicine.
With our chores done, we decided to make our annual pilgrimage to Appenzell. Appenzell is ideallic Swiss countryside. It was also where Rick’s family is from so we saw a lot to businesses with the name Manser.
Today was the Appenzell landsgemeinde. Every year on the last Sunday in April, around 3,000 eligible voters gather together in Appenzell at the Landsgemeindeplatz, the historic village square, for the landsgemeinde (cantonal assembly). Canton residents as well as Swiss citizens over the age of 18 with an established residence are eligible to vote. Since 1991 the voting card has served as authorisation to participate in the assembly. Men, however, are still allowed to present a bayonet – a sword that was generally passed down from generation to generation – which served as the only form of voting identification up until 1991. Peter, Rick’s cousin the we visited yesterday, has a voting bayonet. We couldn’t see much except the square was full of people and some people were dressed traditionally. Here’s one little girl in her traditional dress.
Here’s the square full of people.
We had lunch at the Hotel Santis which we do every year. One thing I haven’t mention yet is how expensive Switzerland is. Our lunch which was nice but not extravagant was $78 for two people. That typical. Even food at the grocery store is expensive.
After a nice lunch we wandered around town. We went by a cemetery and decided we would count the number of Mansers. We got up to 20 before we decided to stop. The cemetery was really beautiful. Here’s a picture.
Here’s a couple of pictures of the inside of the church near the cemetery.
Here are some pictures of the town and surrounding countryside.
We left town and headed to Gonten, a town next to Appenzell. There were two elderly sisters who lived in Gonten and who were distancely related to Rick. We had visited them in 2010 but not seen them since. We decided to try to track them down. We went to their house and the people currently living there were having a barbecue so Rick talked to them and they told him the sisters were living in the old age home. So we went there. One sister, Pia, was in the hospital and the other sister, Martha, was out so we waited about 15 minutes for her to return. When she returned they wheeled her into the lobby and Rick tried to talk to her and describe who we were. Eventually he went and got a nurse who spoke some English and she helped. We aren’t sure if Martha understood. She looked at us like we were from Mars. The nurse suggested that it might take her some time for sort it all out. She also said the other sister was expected to return from the hospital either tomorrow or Tuesday and she was more likely to understand who we are. Unfortunately we won’t be around then but the nurse said she would tell Pia about us. We told Martha that we would come back next year.
We drove back to Irene’s via the schwägalp. Here are a couple of pictures.
We arrive back at Irene’s, had a little dinner, and went to bed.