This was our first weekend trip and we are off to INTERLAKEN! SO much to say so littlee time, so if this post seems all over the place, it’s because I sometimes have a hard time with putting my excitement into words.
We had class (Italian) on Friday, Jan 13 until noon. Luckily our teacher let us out early because she knew we were going on a weekend trip to Interlaken. Originally, we were planning to buy a train ticket to get to Interlaken, but because the entire group (44 of us) were going on this trip, we rented a charter bus for the weekend instead (60 francs per person). So our journey begins with our bus ride to Interlaken at 2pm. What was supposed to be a 2 and a half hour bus ride, turned into a 4 hour bus ride.
This bus ride was going smoothly and everything was going fine until we hit driving up this mountain. Btw, driving up these Alps is possibly one of the more scarier things I have done… they barely leave any shoulder room, and you are looking off the side of this mountain and you could literally take 1 wrong turn and DIE because youre on a frickin mountain… crazy. We were so close for getting to our destination (about 5 kilometers out… yeah, kilometers because apparently these Europeans don’t use miles.) and all of a sudden we hit some bad traffic on the mountain. We had no idea what was the hold up, so naturally we assumed it was car crash. We sat in traffic for a good 1 ½ hours … and it seemed only necessary to open some wine to make the time go by quickly – drinking wine and playing family feud in a charter bus with a driver that speaks german and doesn’t know how to speak English. It was an interesting combination of events. We finally got to the hostel (Balmers) at 6:10pm, but we had to be on another bus at 7pm because we scheduled a night-time sledding. We were in a hurry.
This was the first hostel I have ever stayed in and it was quite nice. I didn’t know what to expect of hostels but apparently we had one of the nicer hostels (about 30 francs per night). There were 3 buildings/sections of the hostel with 3 floors each. The floors are basically long hallways with public showers and restrooms and about 5 bedrooms per floor. Each bedroom could have been anywhere between 6-18 people per room. Me and 5 other girls shared a room, bunk bed style, on the first floor. The main building of Balmers had a nice restaurant area and lounge (we got free breakfast woo hoo!). And at night time, they have an underground club/bar (so much fun! i will talk more about this soon).
So after we checked in, we had to get goin’ because we were going night sledding!! We left the hostel and walked to the bus station. The bus took us up even farther on this huge mountain (mountains be errywhere!) about a 20 min bus ride. After the bus ride, we had to get off and take a gondola ride (a ski lift thing) even FARTHER up the mountain. At the top of the mountain, we got off the gondola and went to this restaurant place where we got our fondue! The fondue was awesome! Cheese on cheese on cheese on bread and potatoes – the cheese was different tasting because they actually made it with wine so it had this bitter taste to it. Needless to say.. some of us may have had a drink or 2 because it’s such a good idea to be intoxicated when we are about to sled to our demise….
After the fondue, everyone was just so excited in general to start sledding so we sprinted to get our sleds (small plastic things) and started sledding. This was a terrible idea. We should have probably listened to our sledding instructor instead of running straight past him. When I say “sledding”, y’all probably think a short 30 sec ride down a little hill. HA. HAHA. This “sledding” was unlike anything I have ever done. It is an estimated 30 minute sledding down to the bottom of the mountain… We all started off sledding and nobody knew how to sled swiss style… but it was very dangerous. People were sledding into other people! So many bruises!! It was quite scary at some points because the route down the mountain was so narrow… you could literally sled off the mountain… literally. It was pitch black, foggy, and you couldn’t see 10 feet in front! I am having such a hard time at describing this sledding experience because… it’s just so hard to put into words how scary, exhilarating, dangerous, fun?, and extreme it was. Let’s just say, that apparently night time sledding is one of the more dangerous activities to do in Switzerland... but obviously the Swiss just want to have a laugh at us silly Americans while we struggle to speed down a mountain.
1 girl sled off the side of the track and had to hike back up the mountain to get back on the right track -- Another girl hit a pole and had a terrible groin bruise -- Another girl was hit by an incoming sled and did a flip in the air… just sayin. But I survived!! BUT I WILL NEVER DO ANYTHING LIKE THAT EVER AGAIN!!!
The sledding trip ended around 11:30pm and all of us were obviously exhausted. We got back to the hostel and PTFO (passed out).
The next day, Saturday, a lot of people did different things. About 10 girls went paragliding, 20 people went to the World Cup Skiing competition (about 1 hr away from the hostel) and the rest of us stayed around town and explored. I was part of the latter. I really wish I could have paraglided but it was just a little too out of my budget – but what I hear from the girls that went, it was amazing!! Me and some girls walked around the park and watched the other girls who went paragliding soar through the air – pretty neat! (Oh btw, it was really cold in Interlaken – about 25 degrees as the high.)
While walking around Interlaken, the girls and I noticed some interesting things:
- 1. There are a lot of Asians in Interlaken. Why? I have no idea.
- 2. I think the country’s mascot is a cow or something because I swear… we saw so many cow souvenirs … it was strange.
- 3. Many people in Interlaken speak English!!
- 4. Interlaken is part of the German speaking area of Switzerland (there are 3 speaking sections – German, Italian, and French)
We decided to do the European thing and have a 3 hour lunch at a local pizzeria – I had the most delicious tortellini in the entire world of tortellini food evaaaa!! (17 francs)
After our day trip, we all got back to the hostel (around 5:30pm)and started to get ready for the night of clubbing!! Luckily, the hostel we stayed at is also a club at night time – talk about convenience!! I will not go into too much detail about clubbing, but basically we all had a great, fun, intoxicated time!
That was my trip to Interlaken… nothing too exciting, but definitely a good start of figuring out how our weekend trips will be.
Fun Facts!!
- 1. Everyone in Switzerland thinks I am Brazilian – I don’t’ mind… they can think what they want
- 2. The bouncer at the club said I looked like Pocahontas
- 3. For a 2 night trip, I packed my entire hiking backpack… I have no idea how I will pack for a 10 day trip with that thing…
- 4. street sweepers make 40,000 a year
- 5. Swiss people are required to retire at the age of 65
Next weekend (Jan20-22), I am off to Munich and Dachau! Munich should be fun – we have a planned walking tour of the city and a night-time beer tour of all the cool places to drink beer. Dachau will be much more depressing and profound (concentration camps) so we will only be there Sunday morning for the 2 hour tour.
CIAO FOR NOW!
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