Information for Josie's Switzerland report

Our family line from Switzerland are the Luthi's. That would be Josie's great great grandmother Rose Luthi, she was born in the county of Bern Switzerland (Huttwil area), her family had been in this area for over two hundred years. Switzerland is very very green because of the tremendous amount of moisture they receive. The country itself is about one third the size of Utah. The elevation in the valleys is around 2000 feet and they are a lot closer to the equator than we are. They get a lot of snow in the winters and rain during the rest of the year. They are bordered by Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, France and Austria. They speak French, German, English, Italian what they call Swiss (a mixture of German and French). The Italian and French areas are the dirtiest and the rest is really clean. In the Alps area they ride these little cable cars up the mountains to these farm areas. In the farming communties they still use horses because the cars would be to expensive. The farms are subsidized by the government and you have to be able to run your own farm, you can't buy one and have someone else run it, this keeps the big monies from buying all the land out. One of the dinners at the Fluckiger farm was Beef, clear bullion with angel hair, a berner platte (ham, boiled beef, bacon, two kinds of sausage, sauerkraut, string beans and potato's) fruit salad, ice cream and whipped cream. They have a lot of older history with monasteries and cathedrals, they started building the monastery in 1100 A.D. with the last renovation being 40 years ago. The capital in Bern and the big business head quarters is in Zurich. They have really high mountains with really narrow valleys with people literally living on the side on the mountains. You bike, rail or walk wherever you go and the don't have a lot of street lights they use round abouts. They have a lot of entertainers like singers and such that sing on the street for money (not like panhandlers). Skiing and soccer are really big there. But they are beginning to be worried about there snow pack. They raise a tremendous amount of fruits and vegetables in the valleys. They run most of there electricity is from Hydro power.

Lana we need your email address to send some pictures of Switzerland to. Hope this helps you let us know if you need anymore info.

We love you all and miss you bunches