Day 8 - OAM - Saturday, 13 June 2015 - Crans-Montana, Switzerland

We had a free morning in Crans-Montana and a suggestion was to take the cable car up to the ski mountain. Breakfast was at 8 am and was the most delicious breakfast to date. Fresh bread with fruit jam that tasted homemade. Swiss cheeses, dry cereal, salami/bologna, muesli, yogurt, hard boiled eggs, and fresh fruit was available. Coffee (GOOD coffee, no more Nescafe), tea, and warmed milk were also available. Seth had consult #2 in the hotel lobby this morning regarding a petechial rash in an adult.

After breakfast, we bought 3 cable car tickets for $15 CHF each and dropped off our laundry for $30 CHF. There was a bus that was meeting down the street to take Ambassadors up to the cable cars but we decided to walk – it wasn't far from our hotel but the walk turned out to be fairly steep and we were at about a 5000 foot altitude.

We boarded the cable car and when we reached the top of the ski lift, the view really was incredible. The kids had a fabulous time running around and screaming. We walked down one of the ski runs and I took way more pictures of other kids than I did of mine to upload to Facebook later.

We made a quick stop at the hotel to pick up Amina's inhaler – she was having some issues probably as a result of some combination of allergies, altitude, and fatigue. We walked into the center of town and found a grocery store to buy a few snacks. I was also on a mission to find some shampoo with conditioner because so far, all of the hotels only had shampoo – no conditioner – and it was driving me nuts. Of note, we walked into what looked like a grocery store but, in retrospect, this store was very expensive and we probably should have walked a bit further to the "Coop" grocery store everyone else was going to.  Walking along the lake we saw some huge fish in the beautiful clear water. There were a ton of small playgrounds with what kind of worked like zip lines with a round disk at the bottom to sit or stand on. This was along the walkway back towards our hotel.

We met just before noon to take the bus to Chateau de Chillon. Each bus had its own tour guide and we were guided to different rooms in the castle with explanations in each room. When the tour ended, we were given the option of either riding the bus to the town square or we could walk the 2 miles along the lake. We opted for the walk and it was a really nice one. The flowers and scenery were so pretty.

When we reached the town square, we found a grocery store and bought some Swiss chocolate and other snacks. The store was 2 stories and we were cracking up when we saw the escalator for patrons and their carts. The chocolate was much better priced than the ones that we saw in the gas/rest stations that we had stopped at along the way to Crans-Montana. We walked around for a bit more before meeting the rest of the bus for the ride back to Crans-Montana which took about 1.5 hours.

Dinner was back at our hotel and consisted of 4 courses again: salad (which was pretty consistent most places we went to: lettuce, tomato, cucumber, shredded carrots, and corn), pizza which tasted like it had freshly made tomato sauce and cheese, minced beef with rice which was delicious, and then a dessert of ice cream.

The concert that evening was at 8:30 pm back in the town tent and we had been instructed not sit in the seats in front of the stage – to save those seats for the locals. The chorus sang first followed by the jazz band and then the concert band. The audience really reacted the most to the concert band and following Stars and Stripes Forever, there was a standing ovation.

Following the concerts, I had consult #3 which involved a student's foot that was smashed by a falling bench. All was well, though, as neurovasularly the foot was fine and nothing appeared broken – just a rather large amount of ecchymosis and edema. More ibuprofen and ice was recommended. ;-)

It was after 10 pm when we returned to the hotel.

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