sticks

I was so destroyed yesterday night that I went to bed at 9, no staying up until 12 writing or not-writing blog posts...but here's a morning update before I face the new week.

The service went fine. The boys did well with the sticks - I observed no sword fights; there was some thumping but they *were* supposed to be walking sticks so fair enough; and the boys wisely declined to follow Moses's example of waving their sticks in the air to celebrate crossing the Red Sea. For their part, the girls wisely declined to wear headscarves and wore their squares of cloth as capes or shawls. The lack of rehearsal made the kids nervous so they mostly huddled together in a group and were easily herded around the church. So, success on that front.

I was very very nervous about our little skit, but after a couple of run-throughs before church we got it to a passable state, and that was maybe the best it was ever going to be. I will cross "German-speaking actor" off my list of possible careers.

Pro tip: little rice cakes make good "manna" in the sense that no one really likes them, but they'll keep you alive in a pinch.

After church we drove to Goldau and took my mom on the cog-wheel railway up to the top of Rigi, "Queen of the Mountains." It wasn't quite clear enough to see *all* the Alps from the top, but by any standards other than Swiss-postcard ones, the views were amaaaaaaaaazing.

On the way up. Those mountains in the distance are called the "Mythen" - the myths. Just so you don't run the risk of, like, underestimating the importance of this region to the Swiss self-conception. 

It seems unnecessary to point out that you can take good pictures from here, but whatever works.

The hotel/restaurant Rigi Kulm and Lake Lucerne, aka the Vierwaldstättersee

...and the train back down. So cute.