Blogs from Interlaken, South-West, Switzerland, Europe

DAY FIR – Friday May 11 Okay so things didn’t exactly go as planned. Actually nothing went as planned. We ordered SIM cards for our phones online but they never got to the hostel. When we called to see what happened they had been “sent” but not received so we had to pick them up which meant we were catching a later train. Long story short we ventured into some suburb in France to get them (took 3 hours) went to the train station and found out that our train was booked solid. So we ended up taking a detour which started with an overnight train to Munich. Day Fumf – Saturday May 12 We shopped for about an hour and took 4 more trains to get to Interlaken Switzerland. This really sucked because we had ... read more

Well it’s been a long 30+ hour week at work and I am exhausted. We had so much to do since we’ve had a few proposals accepted and a big meeting with UNAIDS. I will hopefully try to get a meeting with a lawyer from UNAIDS within the next few weeks so I am very excited for that. I am going to be home in the next 5 weeks so it’s been a sprint to get everything for this summer organized. It’s been a good but stressful week so today I’m going to jump off of a bridge… Just kidding! But in all seriousness I am taking a day trip to Interlaken to day to go bungee jumping. I’ve wanted to go for a long time and it will be nice to cross yet another thing ... read more

DAY 2: I woke up early and opened the balcony door. The snowcapped mountain was reflecting golden rays of sun; the weather was soothing with a slightly chilly breeze; the surrounding of the hotel was a nice blend of brick houses and rolling greenery; lone cars went pass the road at regular intervals but otherwise there was not much activity seen on road. Population density of that area was a minimum- which I appreciated most. After shower and dress up, we went down for the complementary buffet breakfast. Food was simple but fresh and nicely presented. There was orange juice, milk, tea, coffee, boiled eggs, a choice of cereal, and sausages. And of course – fresh bread, butter, jams and cheese as usual. We took leaflets and brochures from the hotel counter and decided our next ... read more

Today was our relaxing day. We slept until 9:30, Kaitlin cooked an awesome breakfast and we headed out into the city with no plans at all. We decided to walk for a bit and explore the side streets outside of the touristy part.. After a bit of walking we decided to go get our favorite food here .. Donar sandwiches lol yummy.. After that we walked to the park to sit and watch the mountains while eating some fresh gelato.. Although very sore from the day before we decided that we wanted to do the electric tandom bike so we headed over to the rental place and negotiated for 2 hours instead of the standard 4.. Once we figured out how to use it properly we headed out to view the lake.. It was a great ... read more

Today we woke up at 6:00 am to hike it to the train station for our Jouney to Switzerland. Its 3 hours by express train to Milano, then another 2 hours by express train to Speiz then a small little 20 min ride into Interlaken. The northern Italy mountains were beautiful but once we entered into switzerland the mountains got bigger and more beautiful. :) Finally made it into the town of Interlaken surrounded by mountains at about 2:30 and wandered over to our hostel to check in.. Once we were all checked we decided to head out and explore the old and new parts of the city. First thing we noticed is how expensive everything is swiss francs, a combo at Mcdonalds is 11 Swiss France which is about 13 Canadian dollars. We have only ... read more

A long, reclusive stare; the young child had clearly never seen anyone different. I was in a small breakfast restaurant in a even smaller town in Switzerland. Four tables, packed together with strange 1950's themed tablecloth, collecting dust from the lack of hungry customers or the vacant life of the outside streets. His mother and father were cooking me up something from the menu that I had pointed to (ham and cheese...the only thing that looked somewhat familiar), as they did not speak English. The boy’s wondering gaze grew deeper when I murmured up a “hello.” Even this simple word he did not understand (or chose not to speak out of fright). After he half turned, startled from the strange words of this handsome (self-proclaimed) customer, he stirred the courage to continue his wandering gaze. Finally, ... read more

DID NOTHING. It felt great. I needed a good day of rest after 4 days of intense activities. I did some laundry and packed up for tomorrow trip to Zurich ... read more