10 years ago on a European backpacking trip I fell in love with mountains. On someone else's advice, I arrived in a tiny village in the Swiss mountains after dark at a charming hostel. Right away I made friends and we had wine (at high altitudes), sing alongs and bonding conversations. An epic night, but in the morning the weather was rainy and being so high, we were surrounded by clouds. I had no idea what anything more than 10 feet from me looked like so I was awe struck when the sky clearing revealed giant mountain peaks right above and around me. I had never seen anything so enormous and breathtaking and beautiful in my life. They were so overwhelming and magnificent...as mountains are, yet I have never been anywhere close to a mountain before, and here I was for the first time, with them right there in front of me...beside me, above me...everywhere!

Me and my new best friends wasted no time and got hiking. We came across waterfalls, glaciers, many cows, and the typical 'ricola' commercial scene of steep green slopes peppered with purple and yellow flowers.

Sometimes we hiked in silence, sometimes we sang top pop 80's tunes and sometimes we listened to the jangle of cow bells from the distant hills.

The hills are alive with the sound of music.

Summiting a mountain is hard work...tires muscles, accelerated heartbeat , dirt caked under my fingernails, but at the top I felt pure joy...bliss.

On one such hike my friends and I took along lunch and it was the best tuna sandwich I ever had. For dessert we had this incredible white chocolate filled with a creamy center. It took me a while to realize that it wasn't a hard-to-find specialty Swiss chocolate, but a very available lindt lindor.

I spent a week there in Gimmelwald and it was close to being the best time of my life.

Just recently I found some of the lindt lindor chocolate at my grocery store and I involuntarily sighed a breath of relief, as in 'phew, thank goodness I found this, my life can be complete again'. Really it's that good, and it brings for me the added sway of nostalgia.

*the photo was taken in Queenstown, New Zealand.