Interlaken

Last weekend I had the privilege of going to Interlaken, Switzerland! A couple friends and I did this program, called Bus2alps, that provided hostel stay and a roundtrip bus ride (12 hours each way!!) to and from Rome. The hostel was the first "real" hostel I have stayed in and it was a lot of fun! It is called Balmer's Herbage and is the most popular hostel in Interlaken. The only, and I mean only, place to go out of a night in the entire town was in our hostel! I'm all about convenience, so obviously I loved that.



So we left Thursday night from Rome, and I tried to sleep the entire way, which did not prove to be as successful as I had hoped. We arrived in Interlaken circa 6:30 am where us 5 girls checked into an 8 person room with two other random boys who were studying in Florence but were on the same trip as us. I slept for about an hour and a half before waking up to go skiing!!

I rented boots, skies, a jacket, pants, gloves, goggles, and a helmet by 9am my friend and I were on the bus up to the mountain! The mountain(s) we skied at was Kleine Scheidegg/Männlichen. We took a gondola up to the top of the Männlichen mountain, not without a couple of Ricola cough drops that the woman who worked at the ticket office gave us as we climbed on the gondola. How stereotypical Swiss is that?



The entire day provided us with awful, cloudy weather to the point where I couldn't see 1o ft in front of my face. The skiing was OK (to be honest I prefer the perfect snow and mountainous terrain of Park City, UT...not that I'm biased or anything). Every once in awhile we would catch a glimpse of what the vista could have been all day , but it would quickly disappear into the clouds. The whole point of skiing in the alps is to actually see the Alps, and since we didn't get a chance to see the Alps, the day was slightly disappointing. I had to keep slapping myself in the face and reminding myself, "Quit your whining, you're skiing in the Alps right now" which automatically put me in a better mood. All in all, its not a place I would necessarily make a point to go back for skiing, but the experience was amazing and I'm really glad I did it. After lunch, we had about 7 minutes of sunshine at the top of the mountain and it was AMAZING! I know that had it been that way the entire day it would have been the most incredible thing I've ever done. But alas, that was not in the cards.





This is the at the Tipi bar at the top of the mountain, with a bunch of Swiss-Germans who decided to jump in my picture.





So the weather continued to be like that all weekend, and the other activities such as skydiving, hang gliding, and paragliding were all canceled. It turned out to be a disappointing weekend in that sense, but it was still my favorite weekend thus far.

Friday night we got Thai food (AMAZING and such a nice break from Italian) and headed to the club at the bottom of our hostel where we hung out with some Aussie ski bums who are living in Interlaken full time...ski bums in the winter, raft guides in the summer (The aussie version of Jamie's ideal life) What a life.

Saturday we attempted to get on a trip to Zurich for the day, but not enough people signed up and we couldn't go. So then we went to try and rent ATVs to go up in the mountains, but the group before us took the last bunch. Finally, four of us reserved a fun car (2 seater, no doors) to drive up in the mountains to a glacier. We couldn't get the fun car for a couple of hours, so a few of us walked into town and got to see what Interlaken was like. It is a tiny little town, very cute and very Swiss/German. Everything in Switzerland is very expensive, so my McDonald's lunch was the most expensive McDonald's ever.

That afternoon we took the fun cars up through the mountains to the glacier, and hiked in our leather boots through the snow to get a better view of the glacier. Although the weather was bad and we could have potentially ruined our boots, it was SUCH a fun little excursion with the girls I was with. We had such a good time driving in the cars and enjoying life in the Alps that nothing else mattered. It was beautiful where we were and we couldn't have asked for anything else.







After the fun cars, three of us (Caroline, Kia, and I) signed up for hang gliding since there was a possibility that the weather would subside. Unfortunately, it did not, but the hang gliding Aussies took us up to the jumping point so we could see the view. It was honestly one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. We would have run down a sloped hill on a mountain and jumped out over the most beautiful, turquoise colored lake to fly like a bird with the peaks of the mountains sticking out through the clouds in the distance. The pictures I have do not do this view justice. That little drive up the mountain made my weekend, it was the best part. Even though we didn't get to go, it was worth it to be able to see that incredible view. But hang gliding just wasn't meant to be.





That night, we got Thai food again! Twice in a weekend isn't too bad haha. We made it an early night to try and get as much as we could done in the morning. Sunday morning we woke up and Caroline, Kia and I tried to go paragliding but when we got up to the mountain they told us the wind wasn't right AGAIN. It was really frustrating this time, because we had expressed to them that if the wind wasn't right we had the opportunity to go canyon jumping (free-fall 300 ft in a canyon until the rope around your waist catches you and you swing in between the canyon walls!!) but they told us paragliding was definitely on, so we got our hopes up. Again, probably just not meant to be. The day was successful, however, as I bought myself a real, authentic Swiss Army knife!

Finally, at around 1 as we were getting on the bus, the sky cleared up and there was nothing but sun the entire bus ride home. For the first two hours of the bus ride, we were driving in the Alps getting the view we should have had all weekend and it was BREATHTAKING! The ride back was better than the ride there as we put our Swiss Army knives to use...



Switzerland is one of the prettiest places I have ever been, and I highly recommend it to anyone thinking about going. It is absolutely worth it. I am so excited to go back with Jamie in the summer! Maybe then the weather will be nice enough for hang gliding....