A Weekend in Interlaken, Switzerland
Day 0: Thursday, October 22, 2009
This weekend I was traveling with Brett, Erin, Rachel, Eric, Hallie, and Kristen, like the weekend before. After classes ended on Thursday afternoon, we caught the bus to Venlo and then a train to Dusseldorf Hauptbahnhof, where we caught our international train: a CityNightLine overnight to Bern, Switzerland. Tonight was fairly uneventful, save to say that when our international train arrived at the platform we realized that we were waiting at the wrong part of the platform, so we began to walk down the platform to the correct part of the train. On our way, we heard the conductor’s whistle and realized the train was about to depart. We scrambled onboard just as it began to pull away from the station. Here’s the moral of this story, dear reader: when the train comes, get on it as fast as you can and find where you’re supposed to be later, because the train WILL leave. We settled into our seats, which were shaped a bit like space capsules, studied for a bit (midterms were the following week) and fell asleep.
Day 1: Friday, October 23, 2009
Bern is a major city in Switzerland, so it has quite a few train stations. And since it was about 6 in the morning and we were all groggy after a night of train-sleep, we accidentally got off one stop too early. With the bitter cold of the early Swiss morning slapping us in the face, we quickly went inside the station to figure out when the next train to Interlaken would be coming. Luckily, we only had to wait about 20 minutes. On the train, most of us fell back to sleep, but I stayed up to watch the stunning Swiss landscape unfold from misty world outside our train. Arriving at Interlaken Ost station was like stepping into a fairytale; the mighty Alps towered high above the brightly colored and ornamented Swiss chalets, which were homes to dozens of little shops, many of which were just opening up for the day’s business of chocolate-selling. We went to our hostel to drop off our bags and stop off for a potty break, and found a lovely cafe just down the street to get an early lunch. We then set out to explore the town. Every street looked more perfect than the next: cheerful chalets, cheese carts, giant croissant sculptures to take funny pictures with, and canals with water so turquoise you’d swear it was either candy or you were tripping on acid. Not that I would know, but, anyway that’s how blue it was. And of course we had to touch it, so we went down to the edge of the water and stuck our hands in: freezing, of course. And some killer swans started to come a wee bit too close for comfort, so we moved on. After finding a charming medieval church (whose bells began to chime just as we discovered it!), we wanted to go to the lakes. After all, Interlaken literally means “between the lakes.” It was a failed attempt. We walked for miles, way out of town—and it had begun to rain. After passing too many cows and goats, we decided to head back for fear of imminent trenchfoot. We got back to the hostel, checked in, and dried ourselves out in our rooms, which were all very nice (too bad we think we all got bedbugs there…womp). We went down to the restaurant in the lobby and each got a glass of a delicious Swiss apple cider drink. It had been a long day already and we were all determined to have an equally long night, so we napped for a few hours. When we woke up, we got primped and pruned, grabbed a bite of dinner in town and then headed to Balmer’s—a huge backpacker’s hostel on the other side of town. It has a club that’s apparently one of the happenin’ spots in Interlaken, so we had to check it out. It was a long, fun night of dancing, drinks, and friends, and we slept soundly for the adventures that awaited the next day.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Happy birthday to Brett! Today was his 19th birthday, and to celebrate he, Erin, and I all went paragliding over the Alps. We met with our guides behind Hooters (sketchy, right? Not really…nothing is sketchy in Switzerland) and got our safety briefing and special flying boots. We then hopped in an unmarked white van (still not sketchy, I promise) and drove up to our launch site with our guides. My guide was named Pitsch, pronounced “peach”…gotta love it. From the top, we could see rolling, verdant farmlands—dotted with farmhouse chalets—giving way to the blue and white majestic Alpine peaks that surround Interlaken. Also, we were freaking PUMPED to be jumping off a mountain! The company only advertises a 12-15 minute flight time from launch to landing, but because we went in the morning there were plenty of updrafts in and around the mountains, and each of us got about a 25 minute flight. One of the best half hours of my life. After landing in the center of town, the three of us were on such an adrenaline high that we couldn’t stand still, and we bounced back to the hostel to get ready for our next adventure. This time, it was just me and Erin. After lunch, we took a series of trains, cog railways, and cable cars. Our destination? Schilthorn: one of the highest peaks in the Alps, and the location where they filmed a portion of the James Bond film “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.” The view from the top was unreal: mountains and snow as far as the eye could see. We took our time enjoying the view, and bought a dark chocolate Toblerone. On our way down, we stopped off in Murren, one of the tiny Swiss villages halfway up the mountain that is a cable car stopover. It was the quintessential Bavarian village: no cars, all-wooden chalets, and old-school window advertisements (in German, of course). It was somewhere in Murren that I decided if I moved to Europe, it would be to Switzerland. Maybe the altitude was making me irrational, but you’d have to see this place to believe it really exists; pictures can’t even do it justice. It was practically nightfall when we got back to the hostel. Erin and I met up with the rest of the group and grabbed dinner at a family-run Doner Kebab place near the train station that we all adored, and then headed back to Balmer’s for another long, but great night.
Day 3: Sunday, October 25, 2009
We were still determined to see the lakes. Even under clear skies, we knew better than to try to walk it again. So we made use of Switzerland’s excellent bus system, and took the route that brought us to the edge of Lake Brienz. The lake was stunning, and the water was so crystal clear that we were all tempted to drink it. And drink we did. Hallie even filled up her mug that she’d brought along. It was the best water I’ve ever tasted, and it came straight out of a lake. Nature: 1, Brita: 0. We walked along the lakeside, enjoying eachother’s company and stopping to smell the Christmas (pine trees—they were quite fragrant) on our way. After the obligatory photo shoot, we headed back to town for a lunch of traditional cheese fondue. It was mediocre and overpriced, but it was the experience that counts, right? We spent much of the afternoon shopping for trinkets, writing postcards, and exploring more of the town that we hadn’t seen before. In the afternoon, we boarded our beautiful German InterCity Express train back to Holland. As midterms started the following morning, we all stayed up well into the night to study, finally getting some sleep at 4 am, as the train sped us back to school at 200 km/hour. Midterms are a necessary evil, but Interlaken provided an excellent way to ease the blow.
