Switzerland

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Hi guys. From madrid we took an easyjet flight to geneva in switzerland. The
first thing you notice about switzerland is that everything is well organised
and the people are extremely friendly and helpful. Almost everyone speaks at
least some english so it's simple to get the info you need.

We hopped straight on a train from inside the airport and headed for interlaken.
The train ride is quite beautiful as it starts off skirting lake geneva. The day
was perfect and the water looked a clear pale blue. They obviously care a great
deal about their environment and the water looked like you could drink straight
from it. The snow capped alps all around really make the vista something
special.

After a brief stop in bern we continued to interlaken. I thought lake geneva was
nice but onterlaken in much better. Firstly, they have two lakes. Secondly, the
mountains there are bigger and completely encircle the whole place. As we walked
to our hostel we noticed many paragliders floating down from the nearest cliff
and decided we had to give it a try. The hostel had a great position near the
centre of town and we had our own room with a balcony on the second floor with a
view to a snow capped mountain between two smaller ones close by.

Brook tested out the fondue the first night, while Paul and I tried veal
sausage. Most of the food was similar to Germany except twice as expensive. The
only thing cheaper was the swiss army knives.

On our first day there, Paul and I decided to try paragliding. Paul had spoken
to the local teacher the night before and set up the possibility of hom taking
us along with his students. It turned out to be a good idea. It was raining as
we left but the teacher was a trained meteorologist and he predicted it would
stay a little unsettled but clear in the afternoon.

We drove to a spot near the famous Jungfrau and Eigger mountains where a gondola
takes you up to a winter ski resort village. Paul and I both went up the first
time and thr teacher strapped Paul straight in and with a 30 second lesson ran
off the side of the hill and he was flying! I waited and watched the students
take off and then sat on the mou.tain with a radio waiting for the teacher to
come back up the gondola.

An hour later it was my turn. Strangely enough the take off looks and is so
gentle you don't get scared. I was a bit lucky and we hit some rare updrafts in
the valley and so what is usually a 5 - 10 minute flight turned into about 15 or
20. The teacher does a few 'wing overs' or sideways flips on the way down which
is like going on that joy park ride where you sit in bucket seats and you spin
wildly, except you get to go both ways and you're 1000m above the ground.

The second time I went up I got even luckier as we took off from the hill
(around 1500m), the teacher tells me he thinks the far side of the valley(it's a
narrow glacial valley with steep 800m cliffs) has the sun on it which may cause
thermals. Sure enough we fly over there and straight away the altimeter starts
beeping telling us we are climbing. This goes on for ages as we circle higher
and higher. Eventually we get to around 2000m which is much higher than the
starting point. I started to get a little quesy at this point and when asked if
I wanted to keep climbing I said maybe not. Later the teacher said he thinks we
could have climbed to the cloud base at 3000m. In any case we had an amazing
30minute flight above mountain birds and over pine forests. I was sick as a dog
afterwards but it was well worth it!

The next day we took the famous train up to Jungfrauhoch. The mountain itself is
4100m and the train goes up to 3500m. The views on the way up and back are truly
unbelievable. Cjeck out the photos! It is the one thing so far I would not have
missed, and maybe the paragliding.

Overall Switzerland was very beautiful and loads of fun. I just wish we had more
time there.

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