August 23rd (August 24th – Swiss time)

I slept for at least 6 hours on flight to Amsterdam. There was a long walk to our gate but no problems. Our flight to Zurich was delayed a bit because one passenger who had checked luggage did not show up for flight so we had to wait for them to remove his luggage.
Getting my SIM cards took an hour because of the long queue.  We met a bunch of guys from Bahrain who were in front of us in the queue and enjoyed talking with them.
We took the train to Wasserauen via transfer in Gossau. The 2nd class train was  very comfortable and quiet.  The rolling green hills, small farms and hamlets were beautiful.  I enjoyed taking photos of a couple of the buildings.

We switched trains in Gossau which meant that we had to go from track 3 to track 11.  Here is Shirley coming down the stairs with her suitcase.

I was glad we didn’t have to go up these stairs.  We didn’t have to wait to long to board  second train.

This train ride was much warmer and we got quite hot.

Finally we arrived in Wasserauen and walked up the hill to the Alpenrose where we were staying.  After hauling our suitcases up the stairs, we changed into cooler clothes.  Our little room was sweet and bright.

Then we went outside to the cafe and had ice-cream.  Shirley also had a cool beer.

The Alpenrose Gasthaus was built in 1892.

The weather was absolutely beautiful.  We took a walk up the hill and communed with the cows and marvelled at the beautiful mountains were we are going to be hiking in the morning.

 

Wasserauen is the end of the train line and it has one guesthouse/bar/restaurant and the Ebenalp Gondola are the only places here so it didn’t take us long to explore.  We did walk by the Seealpsee-Wasserauen small-scale hydroelectric power plant which supplies roughly ten percent of internal electricity with environmentally friendly electricity. After its commissioning in 1905, electrical lighting was first used in Apenzell.

After we got back to our room, we were immensely surprised when we began to hear thunder and see lightning.  The weather had changed in the blink of an eye.  The hail was  the size of garbanzo beans.  We opened the window and loved watching the storm from the inside of our room all snug and dry.

Viewing the rain, wind, and lightning while listening to the thunder was fabulous.  Shirley took a video with her phone and uploaded it to her Facebook page.  Then she airdropped it to me.

We had Schweinsschnitzel, salad, and Pommes Frites off of the children’s/senior’s menu for dinner.  Very enjoyable.

All in all it was a great beginning for our trip.