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Published: August 11th 2005
Interlaken, Switzerland August 6-9 Hostel; Balmers Herberge...One of Europes 15 most famous hostels
We have officially been gone one month now! Sure doesnt seem like it! Anyways, now we are in Interlaken, Switzerland...which is the most opposite of flat Grand Forks you can get. By far the most prettiest and spendiest place we have stopped. For example, we found McDonlads to be the cheapest, which usually is not the case and for 2 meals there it was nearly 18 US dollars! Sooooo, that means we were no where near having the money to do adventure sports such as skydiving (300 USD), paragliding, (150 USD for 25 min.), hangliding, canyoning and such, but the trip is definatly not over yet, and maybe in Australia well re-visit the idea. Things were so expensive it honestly made us laugh, and look at the guy and think is this really the price, you really expect me to pay this! For a minute or so, we started looking for trees that had money growing on them, but we couldnt find any. None the less, we had an excellent time and enjoyed the sites on a simpler budget. The first day was a bit rainy, so we walked the small town of about 20,000 and enjoyed the streams/rivers that went through the town, and they were this turqoise gorgeous color green, which we didnt know why, but it was very pretty.
The hostel we stayed at was very fun, nice and clean. The first two days we stayed in a dorm, which we dont much like, it takes all of your privacy away and you have to be quiet and all that, but in our dorm room, there was a little den looking thing that had a bunk in it with a desk, if you were to put a door there, it would be our own room and we were lucky enough to get those two beds, it was great. The first morning we slept through everyone getting up and getting ready. We must be late sleepers or something, but everyone seems to get up before the crack of dawn. They are usually out of the room by 7am...not us! The next morning was quite a different story, however. In the other room was 6 beds, and the second night we got a whole new crew of people, who ended up being Asian. No offense meant by this, but this is how the story goes. We woke up to what we thought to be a rave party at 6:30 in the morning!!! They were literally yelling and chanting and poking their heads out of the window and then theyd yell some more and laugh hysterically! It was absolutely ridiculous! There is no way possible anyone could sleep through it. It was very rude we thought, its like they were oblivious to the fact that others were trying to sleep.
But we are happy to say, our last 2 nights we had a private room which was great, very nice and clean andwe slept well.
So, more about the hostel just quick and why it was so much fun. They had all sorts of board games and other stuff to keep you busy. They had a life size chess board in the backyard - Justin taught me how to play chess and now i am hooked and looking for a travelling chess board so we can play on the trains. They also had a grill, pool table, movie room (2 of them), fooseball, a bar downstairs, ping pong table, kitchen to cook your own food and an adventure desk to book all trips. It was a very fun atmosphere, everyone was up beat and ready to go.
Our second day there we decided to go hiking, figured we wouldnt spend much money doing that, and we really didnt. We packed pbj sandwiches and took a train to Lauterbrunnen. We stepped out of the train and to our left we saw this massively high waterfall, the water didnt even reach the ground because it evaporated and misted into the air. Then there were two huge mountains tops that had no snow, but trees and such, then in the middle of these 2 was this amazingly gorgeous snow-capped mountain. (we took lots of pictures and are currently putting them on a cd, and soon they will be on this site, i swear it!!!) Then we started our hike, which we thought would be about 4 hours round trip, we had instructions and all. Instead of taking the gondola up, which by the way is the steepest gondola weve ever seen, it was absolutly crazy. We hiked up 1500 vertical feet to a mountain town called Murren. On our way, we hiked up to the waterfall we saw when we got off the train, it was very neat. The hike took all of 4.5 hours, and basically took everything out of us we had! The hike took us through the mountain, through trees, more waterfalls and massive rock walls, just stunning. Again, we need to show the pictures. Also through our hike, we would go around a corner, or come to a clearing and all of the sudden, there would appear this huge range of snow capped mountains with clouds nestled and hugging the mountain tops as they passed through, it was gorgeous..hard to keep hiking with sites like that! So now that wed been hiking for 4.5 hours and were getting a bit tuckered out, we thought wed take the train thing down to some spelezerg or something town, but then wed have to hike another 1.5 hours to Lauterbrunnen, but this would be a flat walk. Otherwise, to get down the mountain and come in at Lauterbrunnen was nearly 2 hours, so we thought we would take the scenic route and walk down, and save some money as well. It was a very lovely walk, you could see the Swiss cows grazing with their cow bells ringing as they moved, we also saw sheep. By the time we got to the bottom though, our knees were about ready to buckle and we were ready for bed. So, all in all, our hike lasted 7 hours and 45 minutes...much more than we thought we were going to do, but the sites were definately worth it, and your darn right we deserved McDonalds at the end of the day...hehe
The following day we thought for sure we could not walk another inch, and hiking was out of the question. So we decided to ruin our butts instead and hire some bicycles. And once again the Swiss Alps royally kicked our asses! We were going to go for a leisurely cruise around this lovely glistening turgoise green lake, which was said to be a very easy ride. However, our idea of easy and the locals idea of easy is definately 2 different things. We found ourselves walking these stupid bikes up these crazy steep hills. We do have to admit though, going down was a lot of fun! And the views were great. On our way back, we went over a bridge and we stopped to take it all in. The sun was fully shining, with no clouds, the water was sparkling like it was full of diamonds, we were surrounded by mountains and the paragliders and hangliders that filled the sky and in the middle of it all was Interlaken (The town we stayed at). Talk about getting caught up in a moment!
Just a quick little side note. Justin thinks he is, or has become an intellectual, because he has recently gotten into reading books (and is on his 3rd already, the DaVinci Code) while he listens to his Beethovens symphonies, he sips on coffee in the morning and is also into chess and beats me everytime we play (Yah, I know that doesnt say much for me, but oh well). But he is trying to keep it real and be a bad ass so he is growing a goatee on his chin and tonight he is planning on using the good ole Bic shaver on his head...right to the bone!
Actually, as we right this we are in Florence, Italy and spent the day in Pisa checking out the leaning tower..it was real real cool. Well right about that in our next blog though.
Hope all is well and hope to hear from you all soon!!
Beth and Justin
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Robin
non-member comment
Cheater
Beth just to forwarn you Justin cheats at Chess. He makes up his own rules! Beware! Switzerland sounds pretty. I can't wait to see pictures. I'll be sending you some soon :)