Switzerland - Interlaken

It was so cool to say so I must repeat! "Breakfast in Venice, Lunch in Milan, and Dinner in Interlaken Switzerland!"

  Once in Switzerland, we started experiencing a beautiful train ride through the mountains.  Definitely this was the most scenic train-ride we have had experienced on our trip so far.

  Once in Speiz we began our second "mountain train journey" to Interlaken while looking at excellent views of mountains and lakes the whole time.  Candace loves train rides and in the US is always saying "Lets go on a train-ride somewhere!".  Well babe, as I told her, it's a 2-month train ride :)



  Once in town our place we were staying at was a 5 minute walk through downtown Interlaken.   Our 1st HOSTEL of the trip! Backpackers Villa.  Pretty cool place with a kitchen area with 4 stove tops and sinks; food shelves where you can label your food yours or "free food", patio area and picnic tables, free breakfast, cool chill areas, foosball, ping pong tables in and out, pool table outside, small grassy area for tanning or a small soccer game, laundry, all super clean, and with a mountain view off of our balcony to top it off.   We also had a pretty cool field right next to our hostel where paragliders constantly were landing -

  After checkin, we looked at bunch of brochures and figured out what adventures wanted to do and then booking for the next few days: hanggliding, canyoning (which I had never heard of but looked super cool) and bungee jumping off a Gondola over a lake 125 meters up!  We then headed to the grocery store and picked up some food for next few days and cooked up an awesome meal with spinach ravioli, fresh tomatoes, a special pasta sauce, fresh arugla, and zucchini all cooked up and some olive oil poured on after (Yeah olive oil Nantaz&Sawyer!).   Candace cooked this one up - thanks babe!!    We then chilled out and worked on a couple things we were behind on like Blog and research and such.




  I'll admit my presentation of slopping the sauce on everywhere isn't too impressive, but hey I didn't know I'd be taking a picture! =)  In the morning we had the 1st free breakfast that we actually liked - there was cereal, bread, NUTELLO (Candace loves this stuff.  Its like peanut butter consistency but it tastes like chocolate.  Makes anything into a dessert), jelly, granola, and hot chocolate for Candace, and juice for me.  We went and rented some mountain bikes for 24 hours and started off on a bike ride all through Interlaken.   We weaved in and out of the streets and around the field, then caught some dudes surfing a river wave - (More about this in Budapest)

  Along rivers and in neighborhoods we explored until it was time to hangglide.  Parking our bikes, we met up with Nick who loaded us into the van, went to pick up a couple other guys from Cali - Mike and ChingChang and headed out to the Hangglide/parasale/wind whatever base.  We met Ed and Bernie who had just finished a glide and were packing the gliders to get ready to take us next. 




 The two guys had booked first the other day so they got taken up to jump 1st.  Before they went up, they set me up with a beer and told us where to look and watch to see them coming down.


  By the time they had gotten back the clouds were rolling in a bit more quickly and after Bernie checked the radar on his iphone, we could see some pretty scary stuff rolling in.  Looking up we saw black in some spots in the sky.  We waited it out to see if it would pass and just chilled a bit the 6 of us while it started to rain..  It ended up getting worse so we called it for hanggliding for the night.

  The two guys who got to go hanggliding were leaving the next day so I was kinda glad they got to go because our schedules are way more flexible and we just rescheduled with Bernie and Ed for the morning where they wouldn't have been able to go at all.  Their names were ChingChang and Mike and while we were all hanging out they told us of this Truckers Festival that was going on in town over the weekend.  They went the night before and got in, asked how much it was for a beer, and they got a response "Its free".  They were like "OK then we'll take 5!".  They also got a free bottle of champaign, etc.  Bernie Ed Candace and I assumed they got into a VIP section somehow for free.  Anyways, they were thinking about going again, but we wanted to check out the local nightlife being that it was Saturday so we went to check that out starting off with dinner at Hooters right off of the big field near Backpackers Villa.

  We had Bernie drop us off at Backpackers Villa to grab our bags.  I played ChingChang in a game of ping pong and defeated the Chinese! YES!!  21-19.



After showing a 15 minute clip of Art of Flight, which they got zoomed right into, we headed out for dinner at Hooters across the field.  Interestingly enough it turned into more than dinner when 2 Bachelor Parties arrived and a Bachelorette Party to boot. 



  They were giving us shots of Tequila, all dressed in their matching shirts with one of the Bachelors in a Pirate Outfit inside a movable tub (see left directly behind me) full of alcohol while the other bachelor had some sort of Indiana Jones theme going on

  After our food and a few beers (100 francs later! Interlaken is expensive, being one of the few countries that didn't convert to Euros which is down, and on top of that everything just costs more here.  Chinese food that would be $8 costs $19, and a personal pizza $14 for example), we biked to hostel #2, Lazy Falcon, where we were going to stay in a 5 bed dorm, checked in, then biked back to meet up with the guys.  We went out to a bunch of bars and all of them were pretty slow.  Wandering around town looking for places to chill, we stopped at a random local bar for a foosball game at a hole in the wall in the downtown area.  I thought my foosball skills were decent, but my partner and I got our asses handed to us.  It wasn't exactly foosball really because there were a different number of guys on each pole and it was all weighted way differently as well.

  We stopped at Jonny's where someone told us to go and there ended up being only 4 older men at the bar and no women.  We had hang gliding scheduled for the morning so we decided to just head back at this point.

  In the morning Bernie picked us up for hang gliding @ 9am and brought his kid Mayelle (yeah the pic above was from this day).  We headed out to the base, but it was just too foggy and rainy (mostly foggy, because you have to be able to see when you take off on top of the mountain.  It was a nogo.  It was cool to watch Nick (who picked us up the other day and who is a Skii/Board instructor when it's winter time in Interlockenin) training with Bernie & Ed for gliding and to see him get in some of his 1st training runs in at the field.  He couldn't go up and fly, but the wind was good for him to practice on land.



  Candace and I had already checked out of our last Hostel so Bernie hooked us up and called around till he found us a place then took us to hostel #3 -Balmers Tent Village where we checked into our first private room Hostel.  It WAS a tent though, but pretty sweet actually and Candace said the coolest setup yet.  With a main tent with 2 chill living room style areas flanking the inside portion of a Tiki bar that looks outside to the grassy common area adorned with a hot tub, pool, hammocks inside & out, tents lining each side, and cool mountain views.   Each tent was named after the biggest city in each country across the world, ours being Shanghai. 



  With constant rain, we hooked into their internet, then went to work on the blog and organizing pictures while it poured outside.  We had to return the bikes by 2pm so we headed out and accomplished the task in the rain and then ate at an Irish Pub on the way back and caught a bus for the rest of the way. 

  Back at the hostel we met with a couple - Sam & David who had some dew and we chilled with them and two Australian guys - Dave & Andrew who were working-for-stay at the hostel.  We hung out in Dave & Andrew's tent and I put some music on with the little speaker thing we had brought and been using a bit for the trip.  The aussies told us some stories and had us all try some crazy black oozing "vegetable paste" out of a tube.  Disgusting!  They said that every home in Australia has it, like ketchup in the states, and they were just eating it out of the tube and loved it!  They said that it typically goes on bread and it's like a condiment.  I had to grab Dave's beer to chase the stuff ugh.  The Australian guys had to get to work so we split our ways & Candace and I went in the Hot Tub enjoying mountain views all around.



We then ate some Thai food that we had got to eat later at the place right next to the bike return and got ready to head out.  Tonight is the Euro Cup Final game, Spain vs Italy!


  And since its Spain VS Italy and we had watched both teams win their matches over the last few days, we had some stock in the game and also we were hard pressed to choose a team to root for!  We decided to go with Italy probably because we had more fun watching the last Italy game than the Spain one.  Spain ended up dominating the possession at the beginning of the game and that paid off with their 1st two goals.   At that point Italy started to take control of the game, but just couldn't score.  The nail in the coffin for Italy came with Spain's 3rd goal.  Then came a 4th goal to boot and Spain at that point had dominated Italy for the Final and the win.

  We had canyoning scheduled for 7am in the morning, then hang gliding after that so we headed back and were up at 6:30am in our tent listening to the rain and thunder outside.  We kept trying to get a hold of the canyoning company and when we finally did they didn't seem care about the thunder and lightning, only about the water level which they were in the process of checking.  A guy came out to Tent Village where we were at and informed us that they were running Canyon runs, but only the medium ones, and not the extreme one we signed up for.  After talking to the dude for a while, he was cool, and I concluded that I didn't want to go if we couldn't do the big one.  So I txted Bernie and let him know that if anything clears up that day we are ready to rock for Hanggliding. 

  It was raining all day so just chilled again.   Sam and David we met last night had went to the waterfall but it too was closed.  Everything was closed.  We hung out with the slugs (that were out everywhere because of the rain), and in hammocks and read our books or worked on a blog entry until 4pm when we got picked up to go Bungee jumping off a gondola at 125 meters up.

  We met with the rest of the group going and took busses up to the 1st gondola ride up with spectacular views.




Going above the clouds



And into more clouds



  At the finish of the gondola ride our new base point was 10 degrees colder due to the altitude change.  They separated us into two groups - spectators and jumpers.  Candace wanted to just watch so she took the camera and I went and got weighed and listened to all the nervous banter in the jumper group.  I got my harness and my "80" on my hand for 80 KG in weight then grabbed a pic with Candace



  I got into the 1st group to jump and as we were getting into the Gondola to go up to the jump point the guides mentioned that the 1st jumpers would/could get wet.



  Despite the cold, off came our jackets, shirts, and sweat pants!  All I had on were my shoes and shorts.  We all crammed into the Gondola and headed up!



  The strategy was to jump out, look back for the camera, fall like a skydiver, then once you got closer to the water tuck your head and dive in with fists out and in front.  As we got up there they picked one of us and strapped him in, let him under the rope and out to the open doorway on the Gondola.. and we counted 5, 4, 3, 2, 1! and off he went out into the abyss... As he picked the next person, then the next person, and the next excitement mounted.  Then the person before me was the 1st one to get wet in the water, up to the waist. 

  Right before I was going randomly stories were going on of two black eyes from some dude a few weeks back who forgot to tuck their head, and then someone else was talking about a kickboxer dude with a strong neck that almost messed it up badly..  So the further you jump out, the less chance you have of going in the water so I was prepping to jump pretty damn far right after hearing this.  Of course, I knew that my head would be down and that I know how to dive so I'd be ok either way, but still.. its 125 meters.  So as he straps on the red shin-straps, clips the carabiners onto my gear and harness, I step under the rope.  Ted (who we later met for Canyoning) had strapped me in and then leaned over and pointed a finger at a location to jump.  He said "the best is when you give the water a little slap with one hand and boom, that's it".  So I aimed for that spot and pushed off, pretty hard.  I flew out into the open, looking back for my picture and then taking in the whole scene of me in the air over this huge drop to the lake.  Seconds later, I was flying, and still flying.  Down I went and I soon began to feel the tension on my legs, the bungee pulling back on me and so out came my arms and I came to the bottom, reaching out to almost touch the water!The dude in the boat said I was one meter away.  The kid after me got dunked! haha -



  Candace, while on her way down to the boat area, hiking from the top, caught a video of me coming up the hill and then we headed up to join everyone in Never Have I Ever drinking games that they were playing.  They had music going on and were selling beers and shots, so we all hung out while everyone else jumped and we yelled and cheered them on every couple jump or so when we noticed ;)


Jumper getting pulled into the boat at the lake -



  We took the Gondola back down as a group, with talk of all heading to the live music at Tent Village where we stayed a couple nights back.  Candace and I got back by 9:30 and headed to hostel #4 Happy Inn to check in (2 nights).  We found out that the live music in tent village ended at 10pm so BUMMER we couldn't go!  We then just hung out at our new hostel and caught some sleep - hoping that our 3rd rescheduled hang gliding would go through in morning!

  Meeting Bernie in the morning we headed over to the base and met our driver for the day, who had been gliding for 30 years.  We looked up towards the restaurant on the hill and could barely see it



   But the fog only needed to lift a little bit above it so we got the gliders and all the gear packed up and onto the van and headed up into the mountain.  Once up in the fog, we hiked to a jumping grounds and got some fun pics and videos in.  Almost immediately we could see the lake, which is what we needed to be able to jump!  So we got prepped.  Did a practice run or two, hooked into the glider and off we ran!  Boom! Immediately into the air we flew and we were gliding!  It was awesome being up there!  After getting situated we were looking for updrafts along the mountain to keep our height.  I could see the whole lake and mountains and Candace gliding not to far off.  We did what hanggliders do, then followed with some tricks such as a stall, where you pull up and literally come to a halt, then reengage the wind.  After a few turns and dives, we headed for the landing field and glided in perfect, then capturing Candace's landing on video.

  After gliding, we paid our goodbyes to Ed & Bernie and joked about how they could probably have a great name for an ice cream company, we then had a brie and fig jam sandwich, some smoked salmon and vegetables and an egg sandwich then passed out for a cat nap 1 hour.  Soon we had re-rented bikes and started our journey around the lake!  The 1st 1/3 was by far the hardest and we had no idea that it would difficult at all.



  Lots of big hills to bike up.  I was excited for the workout and I almost felt like I was back on my bike trip across the US after a couple of hours!  Candace was like "a couple more of those hills and thats it!"  haha.  Along the 1st half we enjoyed waterfalls across the lake coming down steep mountains -



  Nice forest runs -



Quaint little towns to bike through -




Beautiful views -



Cool whatevers -



The halfway point brought us to a waterfall -




And looking at a spectacular building/hotel/something we didn't know for sure what it was.



  We stopped to grab a bite to eat at the "place" that looked like it was out of a fairytale of some sort.  It was stationed on a steep incline with the biggest waterfall of the lake to one side of it, and a beautiful vista of the lake and mountains on the front. 

  We had lunch there and it was very good, fancy, and with excellent service.



  Feeling a bit refreshed and like royalty after visiting the castle, we headed back out and around the eastern tip of the lake to start our trek back.

 

   This side of the lake was much more flat and easily conquerable.  I decided to head into the water on this side of the lake.  It was actually colder than Maine water so very refreshing.  It was nice to just sit on the dock out in the water and look at the beautiful place I was in.



  We caught a great glimpse of the "castle in the mountain" that we had eaten at earlier and I grabbed a shot at full zoom -



The train tracks we came in on earlier in the week -


Majestic mountain views -



Candace with the sheep who followed her along the road!



  After we got back we returned the bikes and got some awesome Thai food.  Back to the hostel and ready to sleep anticipating canyoning at 7:45am.  Ted, our guide for bungee jumping the other day, grabbed us in the morning to take us to the adventure place's base.  The three of us talked about Bernie and it was funny because he used to guide with Bernie before Bernie started up the Hanggliding company.  He told us some stories and we talked about how Bernie has the "crazy energy" and antics and he talked about some of the stuff that they used to do.  Shortly we were at the adventure base awaiting the report for the water level.  He said that if it was more than 5 centimeters then they just don't go.

  The guides like Ted are ready to rock n roll for Whitewater rafting guiding, Canyoning, Bungee Jumping, and other things.  Seems like a pretty cool summer job and we immediately thought of Sawyer and how he would probably have a blast doing, learning, and guiding for all of that in the summers, when Interlaken tourism happens, AZ is at its hottest, and the Cutco F&S season at its lowest.  The water level ended up being too high so we exchanged info with Ted so that if he was in town in Phoenix he could meet up and crash at our place, etc.   We then headed to Backpackers Villa to do laundry.  We plugged the laundry in and Candace went to work on lodging for Munich while I finished the Florence blog.  Soon we were eating lunch on way walking to the train station out of Interlaken to catch our train to Munich, GERMANY! 



  Just wanna say Mom & Dad (Jeffrey & Feiger) that we love you, and giving you a shot out here on the blog ;)  And don't worry Mom, we are being safe!

Jason & Candace