Day 9: Frutigen and Bonderfalle  Part I
Yesterday I had the day off! The spring vollies and the staff went out as one of their last times together. Because of this, I had a croissant and chocolate pastry for breakfast instead of oatmeal! Yay!

I went to Frutigen with two summer vollies, Mariam and Jessica. We left for the bus around 11:30am and took the 25 minutes bus ride to Frutigen. I usually go through the town because the train stop is there but yesterday we explored instead. We realized that all of the stores close from 12pm to 2pm in Switzerland for lunchtime. We found a bench to eat lunch and then we looked at and took pictures of people's houses. Frutigen is on a hill so we walked up away from the market place to the residential areas. Running through one part of town is a river that looked a little murky but that was probably from the recent rainfall. Most of the houses are made of natural wood and have gardens in the back. The roofs are terracotta or wooden. There were a few creative decorations including cutesy gnomes and animals. I also spotted two houses with pirate flags on the outside.  We even found a walkway for a cat besides one apartment style house. We walked up and down the streets, milling about until we stumbled across CO-OP, a chain supermarket and household store that is open during lunch time.

CO-OP had a separate shoe and clothing section along with supermarket and household items sections. Jessica and Mariam were both shopping for specific items but I started to mill around the supermarket area. I noticed that there was a long aisle with one side dedicated solely to chocolate. I spent a long time examining this aisle but resisted buying any chocolate. I then began to go on a quest to find something that I have been missing from the states: PEANUT BUTTER! After searching the entire store, I found one jar of it and of course I bought it. I have eaten a good portion of the jar already but I plan on rationing it now. Apparently none of the other summer vollies eat peanut butter out of a jar like I do but I think it is delicious!

Once 2 pm came around all of the local shops re-opened and we looked around in different stores including a trophy store, a post office/phone store, and we ate some cake at a tea shop attached to a hotel. There is one main fountain in the entire town and it was in front of a hotel and water came out of two spouts and the front was decorated by a bird.  We also went into the local bakery (outside there is a giant fake croissant marking the bakery shop!). The bakery was small and sold dessert, bread, chocolate, drinks and cat food. I can already tell that cats are highly respected here...especially after I saw a cat on a leash in Bern!

We also walked up the hill to a church. The church was white with a terracotta roof and had a sundial on one of the outside walls. There were also a few graves near the entrance but behind the church was where the grave yard lay. We didn't go inside the church because it was being cleaned and someone inside was practicing the organ! The music made it pleasant to look around the yard and take pictures. At the bottom of the hill is the library. The library looked like a house from the outside  (aside from the library sign haha).

We then took the bus back to Adelboden. Frutigen is a small town but it was nice to visit and explore it. Frutigen is bigger than Adelboden and has more to do. We started to hike back up the hill but I was walking much faster and made it back to Our Chalet a few minutes before Jessica and Mariam. Afterwards, I had dinner and then stretched before I decided to go on a hike at 7:55pm (it was still light out).