And yes, you guessed it...MORE CHEESE!

Today smelled like winter here, with people burning fires and looking cold. It was in the 40s (F, not C, I've not moved to London yet!) and raining, and the storm dropped snow in the mountains all around. This didn't stop us, though! We still hit Fribourg in the morning, the namesake of this canton (which is like a state) and the canton's capital.
It's an old medieval city that was originally built along cliffs cut by a river, you can see in this picture that the houses sort of travel in a straight line from left to right, this is the curve of the cliff.

For lunch, horse steak, rare, at a cafeteria type place. And it was delicious! Finally, a country in which I can eat meat reeeally rare, as it should be. I should expect this, coming from the people that eat steak tartar!

Next we drove up up up through beautiful mountains...that were mostly covered in clouds. Still lovely though. We were heading to Broc and the Nestle chocolate factory...which turned out to be closed this time of year to tourists. Drat! We had to walk a while (in the cold and rain) to figure this out, though because the sign in the parking lot said 'Visitors are actually not permitted, as usual,' leaving us confused and no closer to figuring out whether the factory was open or not. Apparently, Asia is not the only place to find amusing bad English!

However...the local Gruyères cheese factory is never closed! For those of you who have been wondering how that famous Swiss cheese is made, now's your chance to satisfy your curiosity. Also, 49% of all Gruyères cheese is made in the canton of Fribourg. Hmm.
First they take fresh milk and heat it and probably do some other stuff to it in those huge vats on the right.

Then they have these fancy pumps that take the cheese curds and whey from those vats and shoot them into these cheese molds.

Then the cheese dudes come around and take the upper parts of the cheese molds off, as they were just there to help separate the curds from the whey. The whey was all that yellow liquid that was pouring out of the molds in the last pitcture.

Finally they press the curds together until they form the cheese wheel. This wheel is then soaked in salt water for...a while. Ok, I don't remember how long. THEN...the cheese wheels get stacked in the cheese cellar for at least 5 months (5 for mild cheese and more than 10 for sharp cheese). And then you eat the free cheese samples you get at the end of the tour!

And here, for those of you that have been complaining that there aren't enough pictures of ME, is Jessica, myself, and a painted cow sculpture.

And to proove that it's COLD, this is the view from the old castle in the village above the cheese factory. They say that thos mountains are very impressive...when you can see them.

Also, they say 'viola!' all the time here! I don't know if all French do that, or just the French-speaking Swiss, but it's awesome. Someone hands you back your umbrella: 'viola!' Someone gives you your package at the bakery: 'viola!' I love it! It's like I'm in a perminant magic show.