Let's Explore: INTERLAKEN (Spring Break Part 1)

and the stories begin:

First stop on the SB2K14 European Adventure: Interlaken!

First off, let me say this is the most beautiful city I have ever seen. Ok, now I'll talk about the trip...

Day1: Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

6:30 AM
Taxi to the airport
Plane to Barcelona
Plane to Vienna
Plance to Zurich
Train to Bern
Train to Interlaken
8:00 PM

So, as you can see it was a longggg day of travel but most definitely worth it because as I hopped onto the platform off the train at the Interlaken train station, my jaw dropped at the beautiful snow topped mountains surrounding me. Interlaken is a very small town surrounded by mountains on the north and south sides of the city, and lakes on the east and west sides of the city. Which is why I consider it to be so beautiful!

After finding wandering around we found our hostel and it was so adorable! It was like a little ski lodge/ cabin backpackers hostel and it was just precious. After tossing our stuff in our room we were starving for some real food (that wasn't airplane snacks). We asked our hostel for a recommendation for some authentic swiss food and they sent us to a fantastic and reasonably priced (reasonable for Switzerland) restaurant on the main strip! She also recommended that we get Rosti, which is a potato/ hash brown dish served a million ways. I had it with cheese, tomatoes, and basil and it was absolutely fabulous!

After dinner, we wandered around the town (which is super small, so it didn't take long to get acquainted!) We admired a very large and beautiful hotel and decided to take a peak inside. It was so beautiful and we found a pool table, so we decided to kill sometime and play a round. After a game of pool we headed back to our hostel, chatted a bit and hit the lights after an exhausting day of travel!

Day 2: Jumping over waterfalls

After a wonderful breakfast of toast with PEANUT BUTTER (the real reason I loved this hostel) and some delicious granola our adventure began!

That's right. Sara and I signed ourselves up for a real adventure. It's called Canyoning and it's the most thrilling and exhilarating experience I have ever had. What is Canyoning? It's going down a canyon via jumping over waterfalls and rocks in to small pools of water, sliding down natural rock water slides, rappelling down waterfalls and rocks, and a bit of climbing as well! Basically all the things I love!

Want to know more about what I did? Watch this video! (It's not a video of me but this is exactly what I did!) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gihw1sZl2o

Some highlights for me from canyoning were jumping and landing face first/ belly flopping on the first jump (which was about 15 meters) right after our guide told us "whatever you do, don't fall on your face." Whoops. Yeah, it hurt but I'm alive to tell the tale. I also enjoyed doing a front flip off a rock over a waterfall into a pool of water! It was terrifying when they told you "Ok, don't go too far to the right, there's rocks there, and if you go to the left, there's a strong current that will take you in, so jump righttt there, ready? 3, 2, 1, GO!" and after I asked a million questions to make sure I understood what I was supposed to do, I jumped slid or flipped into the water! There was one jump where it was a tiny crevice/ waterfall that you had to jump through (or your could slide down) I decided to jump and after I made it to the bottom and looked up at what I had just done I was absolutely amazed that I didn't crash against a rock!

but don't worry, we were fully suited up: a wet suit, 2 wet suit jackets, a life vest and a personalized helmet! All the helmets had different names on them and I was "Sexy." HAHA So I got to hear, "Alright sexy it's time to jump!" many times.

Our guides were great and we had a fun group too! The group consisted of two brothers (in their 30s) and their dad (probably in his 60s--BADASS) from Texas and a couple (26) from Germany.

After an amazing and beautiful and exhausting trip down the canyons they brought out the fooood. Some authentic swiss cheese, bread and veggies to make some sandwiches! A very well deserved meal!

We then headed back to the hostel where we showered and took a quick nap! We then got the craving for some swiss fondue so we headed to the strip and found this cheap fondue place after a man wearing cow pants pulled us off the street and into his restaurant (he didn't literally pull us, just told us the prices and we gladly walked in.) We had some cheese fondue and then some chocolate fondue for dessert, NOMS! The man in the cow pants (owner I assume) was so hilarious and entertaining. He would always come over to our table to check on us and took my fondue fork and taught me the correct fondue technique, which is called "roll and blow." I started laughing so hard. He also would randomly ride his bike past the front of the restaurant and play his tuba inside. It was bizarre, but very entertaining!

After dinner we went back to the hostel and met our room mates, 2 girls that are studying abroad in SEVILLA. How crazy is that?? So we all decided to check out the hostel bar/club, which is apparently the most popular/ only bar/club in Interlaken, which means everyone in the town goes there. We also went with the group of super nice Canadian girls who we drove with to the Canyoning adventure!

The bar was located right underneath our hostel which was super convenient and they played great american music! Like I said, everyone in Interlaken goes to this bar, including the german couple from our canyoning group, and even our canyoning guides! It was a fun night!

Day 3: Hiked a Mountain

After another amazing breakfast we got moving on our second adventure: a hike. We chose this trail because it was said to have some of the most amazing view of Interlaken and the mountains and the views did not disappoint. After a 2 hour trek straight upwards (with many water breaks) we finally made it to the top. We took in the view and nommed on our packed lunches of apples, bananas and peanut butter that we snagged from breakfast. We also met 2 guys from England who were super nice and took some great picture for us after we took some for them! They then told us that they take a YMCA picture where ever they travel to with people they meet, so we happily jumped in and completed the YMCA on top of a mountain picture.

After our hike we went back and showered and met our new room mate from South Korea. We then went to a Chocolate Show! This was a very cool and delicious experience! We went into the back room of a chocolate shop and watched a video on how chocolate is harvested, then watched how the chocolate is made, and saw right before our eyes how the molds are prepared and how chocolate covered caramels are made! Then of course we had many many samples, which were all absolutely scrumptious!

After our chocolate feast we wanted to go to the lake! After 3 tries, stumbling upon some sheep and asking a random swiss family that was in their backyard we finally found our way to the lake! (You wouldn't think it would be that difficult to find--but hey we were a little tired!) and it was well worth the three tries because the lake was stunning! Surrounded by mountains it was so picturesque!

We grabbed a slice of pizza on our way back to the hostel and then were chilling in our lobby talking to a guy we met from Madrid! We decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to practice our Spanish, so we had a nice conversation in the beautiful language of Espanol! As we were sitting there, 3 guys wandered into our hostel looking for the bar. We told them it was closed on Sunday (which we also just learned) and they were bummed and wanted to go to a bar. Basically, nothing is open in Interlaken on Sundays, but there was a pub right next door to our hostel that was open until 12:30 so we decided to stop by for a drink with them. They were members of a swiss ball hockey team and they were a hilarious few guys to hang out with for the night!

Day 4: Saying goodbye to a beautiful place

We got up and ate breakfast and went on one last beautiful hike. It was a much shorter hike (about an hour and a half total) but it still had some wonderful views! We then went back to our hostel to gather our things and print our boarding passes but strange thing is I could not for the life of me find my confirmation e-mail! I still don't know where it went (but luckily I was able to retrieve it at the check in at the airport)! On our way to the train station we stopped at the chocolate shop because we had an $8 Swiss Fran voucher from the chocolate show, so we got some chocolate tart and cheese cake, which was the most proper farewell we could have asked for after an amazing time in such a beautiful paradise.

Other notes from the trip: Interlaken is a part of the German province of Switzerland. There are four provinces: the German, French, Italian, and a small part that it Romanian. In Interlaken they speak swiss-german, and the only words I learned were Gesclossen Sontag which mean Closed Sunday... The currency is Swiss Francs, and one franc is equal to 1.13 US Dollars, so it was definitely the most expensive of the three places we visited. Also, we noticed there were a lot of Asian tourists in Interlaken and we were curious why...turns out "Interlaken was twinned with the Japanese town of Otsu in 1978. As a token of this friendship and these close ties a Japanese Garden complete with pond and pavilion were laid out adjacent to the Hotel Interlaken." --- according to Interlaken's website. Another fun fact is that it's super difficult to obtain a Swiss VISA-- which is terrible news because I could totally see myself living there! Lastly, Switzerland reminded me of Madison, Wisconsin-- located between two lakes, known for their cheese and cows, and so cute and perfect! (Now all Madison needs is some mountains!)

Overall, it was an amazing and beautiful adventure through Interlaken--enjoy the photos!

Sending Smiles From Sevilla,

Rebecca

Our meals in Interlaken! Rosti on the left and fondue on the right!

Pre-Canyoning adventure!

HIKING! As you can see, we were very exhausted, but it was well worth it for the views! In the bottom right picture is the mountain we climbed! Can't believe we made it to the top!