Saturday, May 1, 2010

Interlaken, SWEETzerland

Coffee before the road-trip...chocolate smiley face!

the PUNTO!

SWISS CHOCOLATE HEAVEN!!!


Taking a juice box break. This is for my sister...."Juicy-ca Dickson"


MOOOOOOOOO


Hana, Me, Amanda, and Lauren taking in the view!
(picture by our personal photographer: Lancelot)


I am way behind on this whole blogging thing (as usual) so I will try to remember all the details as well as possible. Last Friday morning, Hana, Lance, Lauren, Amanda, and I rented a car and drove to Interlaken for the weekend. Just when we thought we couldn’t outdo ourselves (because Prague was amazing!)..we did! Hands down my favorite trip and will probably remain so (although we are already thinking up ways to top it!).

So at about 7am we headed down to the parking garage to get in our car. It was a Fiat Punto, probably the definition of a Euro Car. So we all packed into it and Lauren drove because she was the only one of us who could even drive a stick. We knew it would be an interesting drive when we couldn’t even figure out how to get the car out of our apartment parking garage. Soon we were on the road and all paying very careful attention to our directions. Proud to say that we never got lost! It seemed like a miracle. I have been on a lot of long car rides and seen some beautiful scenery, but nothing like this. Switzerland is just a beautiful place and it reminded me of home just because of the fact at it had mountains and greenery, although it didn’t look at all the same. The grass is bright green and the lake water is bright turquoise. Combine that with the snow capped mountains and a sunny blue sky and you just can’t compare it to anything else! Only downfall: the mass amount of tolls you pay every time you switch highways. No wonder Europeans don’t drive very much!

We got to Interlaken and it was a really small town but incredibly beautiful with mountains completely surrounding it. Not much to do within the actual town but walk around and shop. We were hungry so we decided to go out to dinner…that was a rude awakening. The first restaurant we went to had nothing on the menu for less than 17 francs (francs are almost exactly equal to the USD). We thought maybe we just picked too nice of a place so we kept looking but soon realized this was just the standard there; a big mac meal at McDonald’s was even 12 francs…outrageous! So we finally just accepted the fact we would pay a lot and went to a nice looking place. Everyone spent like 30 to 50 francs on their meal, accept me. I ordered Minestrone soup for 8 francs and it was better than all the other food!

Our hostel there was so nice that I would be willing to bet it is top 5 in all of Europe. It was called Backpackers Hostel and we were all a little hesitant before arriving, only because this is the same name as our Florence hostel that was disgusting! It was a typical wood carved/German looking building with a really modern and clean inside, had free breakfast, cappuccino’s, internet, really friendly staff, and best of all…free swiss chocolate! Every time we left and came back we grabbed a piece. Swiss chocolate is better than anything I have ever tasted. Also, we had a deck off of our room with an amazing view of the Alps (it was so cool waking up to that in the morning!). The staff was really friendly about suggesting places to go and things to see. They pointed us in the direction of a fun club the first nigh we were there and also showed us a couple of hikes to go on.

Saturday morning we got up really early and it was a beautiful day. We took a train up to Lauterbrunnen (30 min away) where all the good hiking trails start. It was such a cute little town. Since we had to be back to our hostel by 1 to meet our bungee jumping guides (so cool it gets its own separate entry! J) we decided to just do the easiest/shortest hike which was basically a flat trek along a bunch of waterfalls. It was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen and the air was so fresh up there. (besides when we walked by a huge stable of cows…that wasn’t so fresh! They have cows everywhere). The rest of the day only got better, in fact it was probably one of the most memorable of my life!!

On Sunday we got up early again and went back to Lauterbrunnen to do another hike. This time we did the 2 hour one which took us through some forest and more up in the hills. It was so cool because you would be completely surrounded by trees and then out of nowhere you would round the corner and there was a huge clearing with a view of the Alps so close it felt like you could reach out and touch it. Just as we were about to take the gondola back down to Lauterbrunnen, I found a restaurant that had an amazing view of the mountains and was way cheaper than anything we had seen so far. So we had a really fun lunch in the middle of the Alps and it was a great close to our hike.

The drive home was interesting…we were all pretty tired and Lauren was our only driver so we felt bad for her. We ended up stopping at Lake Como and it was such a tease to only be able to hang out there for a couple hours! It’s so pretty and definitely a different side of Italy we had yet to see. Also, we wanted to go on a hunt for George Clooney’s mansion! Never ran into him L We had high hopes though. Although it was beautiful there, we had a terrible dinner experience that put us all in pretty bad moods. We ordered a couple of pizzas to split and that pissed off our waiter because in Italy you really aren’t supposed to split things. So he brought us 2 pizzas one of which we did not order, and when we tried to send it back he just yelled at us in Italian and walked off. So we called over another waiter who spoke English and was a little nicer. He got us the pizza we actually ordered, but then when it was time to pay and I needed change be brought it to me in 10 and 20 euro cent coins (5 euro worth!!). By this point we were more than ready to get back to Padova where people are actually friendly.

By the time we got back to Padova it was almost 1am and we were leaving for Venice at 9am the next morning. Being sleep deprived has become normal here, so much so that if I get 6 hours of sleep I feel really well rested (unlike at home where I need like 10 hours!). It was worth it though because I can’t imagine not having seen Switzerland. It is definitely on my list along with Paris of places I absolutely must go back to in my lifetime.

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