Karls in Charge

So my best story from Switzerland (other than Emily falling twice at the top of the mountain) is just the entire existence of the guy who ran the hotel we stayed in. 

His name was Karls which is the Swiss version of Charles. And our guide Marysol told us right from the beginning that he was the cutest man and we would love him and she was right. Karls looked to be a spry 60-something but I am pretty bad at stuff like that. He really could have been anywhere from 40 to 80. 

Here is our first glimpse of the man, the myth, the legend.

He was so precise. He was very proud of his hotel and he carried our luggage up the stairs like a young man of 30. God love him.

Swiss chocolates rested atop our pillows and I let mine melt in my mouth as Emily took a shower and my brother FaceTimed me to explain that our father had kidnapped him. (He really did take Patrick to Virginia under the guise of getting lunch 20 minutes away from Apex, it's a funny story if you're not Patrick.)

When we headed down to dinner I noticed that tucked away in a little corner was an assortment of toys. We can only assume that these are for any children having a stay at Hotel Alpina. How precious is that?

Next Karls dazzled me with his tablescapes. We had paper placemats with maps! I LOVE MAPS!

And he served a mean breakfast too. I finally had access to what I felt were appropriate amounts of carbohydrates in the morning. Nothing fancy, no gooseberry danishes or cardamom scones. Just baguettes, croissants and unGodly amounts of Nutella.

And these cute yawning? screaming? kitten napkins. Yes I saved one for my scrapbook. Scrapbooks. This trip took 2.

As I mentioned in the last post, Karls packed us lunches for our day at Jungfrau. What an angel. He gave me my favorite flavor of chips - plain. And my favorite of the Swiss chocolates. What I really appreciated about Swiss chocolate was that it so often included hazelnuts for no reason at all. And Emily doesn't like hazelnuts. But I do. 😊  These Cailler chocolate bars came in red and green and blue and it took us awhile to realize that they were all the same.

Karls really checked all the boxes for a European host. He gave me chocolate. He gave me soda. He carried my bags. If only he had an ice machine, this man would be unstoppable. 

When we got Swiss Army knives engraved with names I really considered using Karls instead of Charles for my dad. But I already call him Carlos so I decided to reign it in a tad.

Karls, if you're reading this, I'm glad your English is better than my German. Danke schoen.