"Ice, ice, baby..."

June 2, 2011-June 3, 2011

The week is almost over and I can’t believe it. That morning a small group of us went and saw the Salvador Dali exhibit which was really cool. We were able to take our time going through the rooms and really enjoying the paintings. Adrienne and I then headed to get a crepe (so good!) and to class at 1. We watched a movie called Wildflowers which was kind of weird, it had a slight Tim Burton/Wonderland/Brothers’ Grimm feel to it. It was good though. We then started The Trial based off the book by Frank Kafka which was good but we didn’t have time to finish it. Now for the exciting part…CATCHING A TRAIN TO SWITZERLAND! Sarah and I are doing this…it’s a surreal feeling doing something like this on your own, by yourself…independent. And we did it. We met some nice Canadians before hand while waiting on the train and luckily one of our cabin mates was really nice (a guy named Ben from Australia), I won’t mention the other couple who came in who weren’t the nicest…but it all worked out and we woke up in Germany to catch our train to Switzerland! I couldn’t believe it…after 15 hours on a train we were here. 

Sarah and I were off…we had to find Outdoor Interlaken because we wanted to go canyoning…

We finally found the tourism office and booked a trip for that afternoon. We found our hostel…background behind us? MOUNTAINS…WITH SNOW…no big deal ;)

We found Outdoor Adventure, met our guides (Matt from New Zealand and Silva from France), changed into skin tight wet suites…added a few more layers, picked our helmets…mine was “COOL”…what else would I be? Duh. Haha Our group consisted of only 4 other people. Two girls on study abroad in Lusanne and one in Germany and a girl and guy doing a Europe trip after grad school. Good group? Heck yes.

We hiked a small hill and we were there. Oh and it was gorgeous. Clear, rushing water over rocks and such was amazing. We started off small and then came repelling! What!?!? I leaned a little too far back but at least I wasn’t hanging on for dear life to the rope. It was awesome. And luckily we had the wet suite, boots, two jackets, vest, and helmet because the water was freezing! But refreshing! We then preceded to jumps and slides which were awesome! No one got swept away though there were a few close calls. Haha It was great time and I am so glad we did it. The experience was once in a lifetime. I just am amazed that we did it. We got here in one piece and stuck together. We just checked into our hostel…the name? Funny Farm…yup you hear me right…weird name but it’s pretty nice! Off to explore the town some more! 

We had a nice dinner in town…I had some homemade lasagna oh so good. Afterwards we headed back to the hostel to skype the parents to let them know we got there okay and chill out. We decided to go to bed early since we had to be up at 5:30am the next morning…yes 5:30. Oh bless. 

June 4, 2011

Bright and early we woke up…but not before the sun surprisingly! Switzerland is so pretty in the morning, cool, crisp, and clean…just like the water we were in the day before. Haha We went and purchased our Jungfrau tickets to go to the “Top of Europe”. The train left at 6:35am and we weren’t the only ones on it! Other people were up at this hour. The ride up was gorgeous. As we got higher, we could see farther…and we could see snow! It got colder and colder and we kept adding clothes. We made a couple of train changes and stopped along the way to get pictures of the view…oh how amazing it was. If you have never had your breath taken away…please go to Switzerland and see the views. I was in constant amazement…this is in people’s backyards. How crazy!?? AWESOME. We got to the top and were able to see the Ice Palace, the Plateau, and the Sphinx (research tower) before the clouds. Unfortunately there was a lot of cloud cover and even when we got to the bottom later on in the day there was still quite a bit of cloud cover. Just the luck of the draw but oh it was a great experience. I loved being that high up and seeing the views on the way up and down. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Maybe one day I can do research there because it is so high up and at great vantage point, a lot of research goes on up there in the Sphinx tower. After getting back down to the bottom, we did a little more shopping and picked up our videos from our canyoning trip…then back to trains, trains, and more trains…

The ride back wasn’t so bad…we only had one change and we are overnighting from Basel to Prague. I kept calling Prague home while in Switzerland. Weird. While I absolutely LOVED Switzerland, I am happy to be going back to the place where my home is…for now. It was a great weekend in Switzerland and one day I will go back. I’ve got some skiing and hiking to do! Until we are back in Praha!