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Published: October 13th 2005
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i'm back, where i am now at liberty to upload pictures and write to my heart's content about switzerland. b/c my internet time is limited, i'm going to do this by describing my vacation one day at a time.
first i will tell you how we traveled to switzerland. we had sleeper car reservations, and b/c we had never dealt with the trains at termini before, we got there about 3 hours early. so we ended up sitting at a table, playing cards, eating mcdonalds and chocolate. then we were a little apprehensive b/c the train listed at our time didn't say to spiez but said geneva. i didn't figure there would be two trains going to switzerland at the exact same time, so we got on the geneva train and we were correct in our actions. let me tell you, though, the sleeper car sucked. it was a six by six box, with three beds lined up against each wall . there was enough room for one person to stand in the aisle between the beds. we put down the beds almost immedieatly, which means we had to just lay there while it was only 9
on the train
this is the view from the train on our way into town at night. it was the most uncomfortable unrestful situation ever. the three other people in the car with us were a german man and his young daughter and a korean guy who only knew how to say thank you, hello, and slowly. keri liked the trip alright but laura and i were very unhappy. we stopped in milan for three hours in the middle of the night. i remember waking up here very angry that i was in such an uncomfortable situation, and i think i will dislike milan for the rest of my life now. also, laura was awake at the milan station and she described it as a "terminal of trains" but in my sleepy state i heard "terminal of drains". that confused me for awhile.
we woke up at dawn and went and stop in the aisle outside our room to get our first view of the alps. astounding. the mountains are soooo big and amazing. and the hills at the bottom are soooo green and lush and all the houses look like they're straight from heidi or some other disney movie. its unbelievable. we passed all these lakes that were soooo blue
and clear. once we got to interlaken we were astounded for a multitude of reasons. 1] there were only a few cars and they weren't trying to run us over 2] the air was sweet and breathable and 3] there wasn't dog crap everywhere. we had a pleasant walk through town to our hostel. balmers was amazing. they were super friendly and catered to americans. as soon as we got there we told one of the staff memebers that we wanted to go paragliding at some point in the next few days and he said "well, hey why don't you go now?". so an hour after we got to interlaken i jumped off a mountain.
we had to wear these big backpacks that made us look like we were either turtles, snails, or babies with some really nasty diapers, and helmets and windbreakers. we each got a guide guy who went with us. it was super easy. they put us on this beautiful green hill, we waited for wind, ran about two steps, and then we were flying. i would recommend it for anyone. it was super easy and amazing. there was a seat somehow involved with the big
backpack, so i just sat while the crazy swiss man behind me guided us around. wow, i jumped off an alp and flew over switzerland. WOO! and all this right before you suckers had to wake up and go to class . hahahahahahahahahaha.
after paragliding and our crappy sleeper train experience, we were pretty pooped so we took naps at balmers. then we talked to some scottish guys. i seriously made more new friends this weekend than i have the entire time i've been in rome. EVERYBODY is fluent in english in switzerland. quite convenient.
then we got up and walked around town. we walked down this little path along one of the super blue rivers. we petted some sheep. all the animals in town were at least semi-tame and wore bells around their necks. precious. some swans followed us. we happened upon a castle, which we climbed up. then we walked back to our hostel by the main road where we discovered that interlaken has an amazing amount of really cute souveneir stuff. i bought all my christmas presents there. most of them were beer glasses of sorts, but they were really cool beer glasses.
launch pad
this is part of the mountain that i jumped off of. after taking showers we headed out to a place called brasserie 17. we decided to go here because my copy of europe on a shoestring said they had ribs there and laura has been dying for ribs for weeks. we did indeed get our ribs, and they were fabulous. very meaty. we don't get a whole lot of meat in rome. i go to mcdonalds once a week in rome just b/c all the meat included in a quarter pounder creates feelings of euphoria in my quasi vegetarian mouth. yum. we also decided to get rugen brau, the beer that is made in the interlaken region. i odn't really like beer, but this stuff wasn't bad. laura and i both got ribs, and keri got a more traditional dinner with dumplings of a sort and venison. she enjoyed it. something funny. initially, we were given a german menu. i noticed that one order of ribs was described as "american portion" [it wasn't hard for me
to figure out the german word for portion]. when they gave us the english menu, the word "american" had been replaced with "giant." heh.
after that we were super super tired and went back to our very warm hostel room for a peaceful night of sleep.
ya'll will have to wait awhile for the next updates b/c i'm leaving for florence tomorow and won't be back till sunday night. two days in rome then back on the road . woo, crazy stuff.
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Kim
non-member comment
Of course
You couldn't go without a pic of you eating some large piece of meat. I'm just surprised that it's not in your mouth.