Day 33: Swiss Alps at Leisure

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Choose to hike the many trails or enjoy a trip up the snow covered Jungfrau mountain on a cog railway that passes through the eiger mountain!

Went to the top of Europe ! Saw it snow for my first time ever. Got to sleep in till 8, then had pancakes for breakfast before heading into town to the train station to go on the largest cog railaway network in the world. The ride up was really beautiful, with all the mountains and trees and little towns, and of course the snow. It took about 2 hours to ascend the 3454m, switching trains at Klein Scheidegg and having photo stops at Eigerwand and Eigermeer. The snow was so amazing, so white and powdery and blanketing everything. We went into the ice palace first which was really cool, the floor was so slippery we went running and sliding around everywhere. I fell over on my knees and Julia and Dave both fell over backwards. The ice sculptures were really cool, especially the one of an eskimo fishing outside an igloo. There was cloud all over the plateau, so we went up to the Sphinx observation terrace which is 3571m high. The view was amazing, we took so many photos before heading to the plateau. It was still cloudz, but went sliding down the hill on our garbage bags with Keith, Julia, Kristy and George (who got engaged later that day). It was so much fun, but kind of scary when you went near the ropes where the cliff just dropped away. Went out onto the glacier and found Matty, Carson, Melissa and Jana (the Canadians), who taught me how to make a proper snowball and roll it in the snow so it gets bigger and bigger. We made a snow woman, complete with pistachio nipples. I had so much fun playing in the snow, it was fanstastic. I ate some snow, and also a stalectite. Then it started to snow, which was exciting. We caught the train back down and wandered through the town to buy white chocolate toblerones, then back to the campsite.
The town is really beautiful, surrounded by waterfalls and the mountains covered in snow. The campsite is really cool, with a restaurant, minimarket, tv room, internet, and of course the bomb shelter. The bridge that leads over to the chalet from the campsite is in Missy Higgins latest film clip, I think it's 'ten days'. The bomb shelter bar is so cool, all buildings in Switzerland have to have a bomb shelter, and they're also under car parking lots. Hospitals have another identical hospital built directly underneath them so they can be used in case of a war or something. Contiki have turned their bomb shelter into a bar. There's a fussball table, bathrooms, laundry facilities and the bar and dancefloor area. The drinks are pretty expensive, they have flugels which are vodka and red bull in a bottle, and you shot it while you have the bottle top stuck to your forehead, then try to spit the top at a target on the back of the bar. I never saw anyone get one in, and there was always lids flying everywhere.
Had fondue for dinner, and Nat L-Z and I bought some fondue wine to have aswell. To get rid of our Franks, we all bought Rugenbrau 6 packs at the mini market, then sat around chatting outside until the storm came in. It sounded really cool as the thunder echoed all around the valley. We moved and sat in the bar area which turned out to be the busabout bar, then went down to the bomb shelter for a while before having an early night.

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