Interlaken, Switzerland

Our Switzerland trip was ABSOLUTELY amazing…. Wow. For starters, we got back from Morocco on Tuesday night, and within about 6 hours we were on a bus starting our next adventure! We rode a bus from Granada to Madrid, flew Ryanair from Madrid to Milan, took a train from Milan to Spietz and then to Interlaken! The trip took us a bit longer than we had anticipated, with long layovers and exchanges… But we arrived in Interlaken around 10:00 the next night. We were exhausted, but SO excited to finally be in Switzerland! We somehow found our hostel within 5 minutes of exploring the city, with no directions whatsoever. The hostel we stayed at is called the “Lazy Falcon.” It was a LEGIT hostel. There was always great music playing in the bar/restaurant area and we had breakfast included for only 22E a night! Quite the deal I must say… Anyway that night we were so hungry and exhausted, so we hit up our American comfort: McDonald’s. The bad part was that everything is SO ridiculously expensive in Switzerland. A big-mac meal was 11.50 franks… which is basically 11 American Dollars! The cost of living is higher in Switzerland, so it works for them, but for us travelers, it kinda stunk! I asked a worker of McDonalds about this and he said that he gets 50,000 a year….. which is GREAT for a McDonald’s worker, compared to the states! So I guess it all evens out in the end for them. Anyway, the next day we slept in until about 9:30, ate breakfast, and then the guys hit up the slopes. They were going to explore the mountain and how all of the rental stuff works. Us girls stayed back at the hostel, shopped, went to the grocery store, and just explored Interlaken. While we were shopping we saw Swiss army knives, watches, and coo-coo clocks EVERYWHERE. It was actually pretty funny. We also made sure to indulge in some Swiss chocolate. AMAZING. It’s such a beautiful little town. “Interlaken” means between lakes. The city is surrounded by water and mountains basically. Also, since the water comes straight from the Alps it was CRYSTAL blue. The most beautiful water I’ve ever seen in my life. Us girls bought things to make sandwiches and pasta… and just chilled. We had the pasta ready for the guys when they got back from their day on the mountain. I think they appreciated that quite a bit  It made us girls feel good to do something nice for them as well! Later in the night, we explored and found a bar that was playing live music. There were two women singers that had GREAT voices, and it was a very relaxed atmosphere. I really enjoyed that. We went to bed at a decent time because the next morning we woke up at 6:30 for our day in the mountain! Everything went so smoothly that day as well! We got on a train in Interlaken that took us up to the mountains. We rented our gear, and we were ready to rock and roll! The train ride up to the way top of the mountain was absolutely breath taking. At this point in the day, it was bright and sunny, and there is something magical about the mountains in the morning. The entire way up we could see little Swiss cottages which were adorable. Skiing was SO awesome… some of my friends were trying to learn to snowboard/ski, so Chris, Ben, and I stuck with them for the first run to try and teach them. Then we went off on our own and hit the slopes hard. We met up for lunch and had some goulash soup, which hit the spot! We had about 3 hours left to ski after lunch, so we decided to do a few runs, and then take a run that would take us from the way top all the way to the bottom (which is where we needed to return our rental stuff). By this point in the day, it was BLIZZARDING on the mountain. I was wearing sunglasses with my helmet, and it got to the point where I literally couldn’t see because they were being fogged up and pelted with snow! We were absolutely drenched when we were done, and we were ready to shower up and eat some more pasta! We had to walk from the grocery store back to our hostel in the RAIN, and that took us about 30 minutes…. Not my favorite! Our pasta was once again delicious… and SUPER filling! (Note: If you are poor and need a filling meal, pasta is undoubtedly the best choice) After dinner we just chilled out, and got ready to go out dancing! We went to a hostel called the “Funny farm” and met lots of kids from all around the world! The dance floor was pretty dead when we got there, but we kids (being the fun-loving Americans we are) spiced it up. We jumped on stage, and from then on the entire place was having a blast. Caitlyn, Ben and I got kind of tired, so we decided to leave early. The only problem was that we didn’t quite remember how to get back to our hostel… We ended up on the outskirts of town; luckily saw a road sign with an arrow pointing us back into Interlaken. After trudging along railroad tracks with snow up to our knees for about 45 minutes, we flagged down a taxi and asked him how much it would cost to take us back to our hostel. He told us it would be 50 franks…. We thought that was a bit ridiculous so we kept walking. We saw another taxi dude and asked him, and he told us 12… so we took it! (I don’t think the first taxi driver spoke very good English, and didn’t understand where we really wanted to go). That night I had a long talk with one of my Australian roommates in the hostel about “life”, including dreams and goals we had for ourselves. It’s always neat to meet others and learn from them. During our train ride into Milan, we ended up sitting in first class without knowing it. When the lady went around to check our tickets ¾ of the way into our ride, she told us we need to go back to our seats “NOW.” Little did we know! I was wondering why the seats were so large and comfy, though. Oh well- maybe from now on I’ll pretend like I simply don’t understand my ticket, and pull that trick off on a regular basis. Our flight from Milan to Madrid was MAJORLY delayed…. An hour and a half. Boo… we were so antsy to get back to Granada… and exhausted, needless to say.

All in all, this trip was amazing in so many different ways. I found my new “family” (the eight of us became super close after living, eating, and traveling together), We have so many inside jokes now through experiencing hilarious moments, my abs are sore from laughing so hard, I got to ski in the Swiss Alps, I met people from Australia, Korea, New Zealand, Mexico, and even met men in the Swiss army….I saw the most beautiful mountains/water that I have in my entire life, I ate Swiss chocolate AND cheese on a regular basis, also I learned how to get around Europe on bus, train, metro AND plane. I witnessed people slodging (sledding) down the Alps, as well as people on wooden bikes going down the mountain (really sweet but dangerous!). Last but not least, I managed to learn how to pack my entire life in ONE backpack. Holler! Though the trip was pretty expensive, it was worth every single penny. I recommend Interlaken to anyone- whether you are a skier or not. On our way back we had a two hour delay in the Bergamo, Italy airort... not so much fun! Our trip back took us 24 hours- from Interlaken, Switzerland to Granada, Spain. It was a LOOONG one.... lots of stops and changes of transportation! Now i'm back in my room in Granada and Maria made me a welcome home pizza. Its so good to be back, but I had an AMAZING TIME in Switzerland! Now I'm just going to get ready for class to finally start :)