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Published: July 27th 2008
Today we had the opportunity to go up the Jungfrau Mountain. Ash had told us it would be one of the best experiences we would have on the trip, so of course Lauren and I paid up and went.
Jungfrau means virgin and according to Ash it's surrounded by another mountain called the monk who rescued her from the ogre mountain. Anyways, we went up the mountain by train. Well it wasn't a train of sorts because it had to hook on to a cable and be pulled as we got closer to the top. As we were going up the train stopped to let us off and take pictures twice. We were a little worried because we couldn't see anything but white clouds. It was very cool because the view points were actually inside the mountain and there were big glass windows you could see out of.
The weather was still the same when we made it to the top of the mountain (about an hour and a half later). A couple of people looked around for a few minutes and then turned around and went right back down the mountain (believe me, they regretted it later). Lauren, a guy
The Initial View
Nothin but white mistnamed Brad (New Zealander), and a guy named James explored some and found the ice palace. It was an area made completely out of ice! The floors, walls, ceiling, and a whole bunch of sculptures. There was a lot of things to see there. We also went up to a little viewing deck where it was snowing(!) and they had a giant Swiss flag. It was at this point that I realized wearing my birkenstocks with socks was not the best idea. I wore them because my tennis shoes were wet from playing in the rain yesterday. I should have worn them anyways since they would have just gotte more wet. I really don't know about my logic there.
When we went back inside to thaw out we bought beanies to help keep us warm. We also ate the lunches we had packed that morning. It was a sandwich and a couple of pieces of Toblerone chocolate. Did you know it is shaped like it is to represent the Swiss Alps? They are very tasty Alps. Then, we went in search of the husky rides that the map said they had. We found the puppies but they weren't giving sled
rides today. =( They also weren't like Sasha dogs. They were little and red, well the four we saw at least. We continued on outside to play in the snow. Lauren and I made snow angels and some of the guys made a snowsheep. We also, of course, had a giant snowball fight.
After thawing out a bit inside again Lauren, Brad, and I decided to go for a hike. We just followed a path in the snow and hoped it was going somewhere cool. I guess Brad was in better shape than us because we couldn't keep up. In our defense it was a pretty steep path and we were 3500 meters up! We were about to turn around when another hiker came up. We started talking to him and since we didn't want to look like complete wimps, pushed forward. Luckily Brad was waiting for us and told us there actually was something at the end of the path, a restaurant. On the way up we talked to our new friend Chris. He was an Aussi (surprise surprise) who had been traveling since New Year's Eve. We really enjoyed hearing about all of his travels. When we finally
Swiss Pride
Brad with the Swiss flag got to the restaurant we all sat around and drank hot chocolate. Sadly time passed too quickly and we had to head back to dinner all too soon. I must say going down was much easier than hiking up.
On the train back down we looked at Chris's pictures of gorillas he tracked in Africa and we also talked to a Scottish guy who was doing two weeks of extreme sports. Sounds like quite the adventure. After dinner Lauren and I repacked our suitcases and wandered around the town a bit. We also had some more good conversation and went to bed relatively early (11:30).
Lauren and I made a new life goal today: to be in every country at least once. I can't wait to keep working on this one.
This was one of my favorite days of the entire trip!
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