We’re Off On the Road to Switzerland

We used to visit my grandparents in Switzerland as often as we could when I was a child. A typical winter would begin with lazy days in the ocean at home and end with a boreal summer high in the mountains of their strange little oceanless country. Switzerland is not cheese and clocks to me. It is picnics at the lake and falling asleep comfortably in front of a fire while the adults talk about the good old days. It is my grandmother sitting on my bed brushing my hair while my grandfather makes us all laugh and scream with his Frankenstein impression. My childhood memories of my grandparents and Switzerland are inextricable.