Laura 69 : Switzerland

The next morning I broke the law when I was off to Switzerland and needed to get to the train station. The night before, I had bought a ticket for the tram and "composted it" (used the machine to mark it as "used") before I realized that, because of the French strikes, no tram would come.

So I hopped on the tram with my "used" ticket and hoped the contrôle wouldn't catch me.....Well, a stop or two away from the train station they boarded to check tickets, and I made a fast break out the door. 

My first stop was in Bern, Switzerland to meet with Jüerg, the brother of a family friend who is Swiss. He toured me around the city and so kindly treated me to all the Swiss specialties of beers and foods. Bern is a great town, with bears right in the heart of the city and the most beautiful blue/green water running through the city.

We had a great time together and he helped me to plan my hiking routes and adventures for the next couple of days. 

On the train to Interlaken from bern i met a group of Texans who were on a Eurotrip. Although it was a relief to hear familiar english words and the occasional "y'all"...It's true what they say... Americans are loud. 

Well there are two train stations in Interlaken, ost and west, not more than a 20 min walk apart (which I didn't know at the time). Of course, I needed to go to the West station, but I confused the station name 'Ost' with the French word for West, l'Ouest.
I was all mixed up between languages and I missed the station. I had to back-track on the train.

When I arrived in Interlaken, I had a rough start because I had no map (the one I loaded on my phone wouldn't work of course) and no one I could find spoke English or French. I went into a hotel where a man gave me a map and told me he wouldn't help me further because "we help the people who are customers." So, I headed to search for my hostel extremely frustrated.

Interlaken

I arrived flustered at the building of my hostel. Which, to my surprise, split half of the building with a brothel.....

a

On the other side was the entrance to the hostel, and I walked into a tiny room where several people were laying in bunks. The girl on the top bunk of my bed was named Sam, and she gave me the lo-down on how to survive hostels and told me it could be worse (for example...my sheets weren't changed and I had to just roll with it).

our room's "artwork" 

The hostel shower, out into the hallway... 

I noticed Sam because she was already laughing, and I realized she would be my friend. She's a Canadian/South African chef who had been in Switzerland for two weeks, traveling the country indefinitely looking for a job.

I asked her to head to Balmers hostel with me later, as I had read that this particular hostel has a youth club/bar everyone loves in town. She was ready for the adventure.

We arrived at Balmers and it was a wild club.
There were limbo contests...I went 'all out' but had a pretty epically drawn out fall that loosened everybody up a little. There were people 18-30 in age from all over the world.

A Spanish guy lied to me that he could swing dance which caused a lot of confusion but I did get to do the "roll over the back in the air" swing dance move, so not all was lost. Everyone on the dance floor did the Macarena (who would've thought that's an internationally known dance) and Sam and  I drank a pitcher each. 

Thursday The weather was supposed to be dismal, but it was Sam's last full day in the area so we were determined to make the best of it. I originally planned to stay down in the valley of Interlaken and explore some waterfalls, but Sam wanted to head up into the mountains for some panoramic views. Since I would be be hiking alone for the next 4 days I figured I could use a buddy regardless of where we went.

So, we decided to head up to Männlichen by cable car, and then we would part ways there and I would hike several hours from Grindlewald to Schynige Platte. 

Well, I certainly didn't pack for this type of rainy and cold weather (which is unusual for this time of year) and I really only had one set of warmer workout clothes. We found ourselves riding up the mountain in a cable car to a very cold and windy mountaintop with only a few seconds here and there of a break in the clouds. The cable cars go thousand of feet up and are incredible. These are not 'baby' cable cars. We were freezing, and the clouds were thick enough that the incredibly views were blocked. There was a playground on top of the mountain which we took full advantage of despite our frozen fingers and toes. 

on the way up 

the swiss put a silhouette of a cow in the cable cars 

We headed to a town named Wengen and had a lovely view of Lauterbrunnen, the next valley I would be staying in.

That night, we went out to dinner together to have traditional Swiss fondue and to watch the Eurocup match. The restaurant we went to only served fondue outside, and offered blankets and furs to stay warm. 

When my new friend and I returned to our hostel, we met our two new roommates for the night: Two flatulent 50 year old men from Alabama.
They were clueless about the area and didn't exactly desire to immerse themselves in culture while traveling... they had been to Hooter's for dinner in Interlaken. They were hilarious...

When you arrive at the hostel, you need to put a duvet cover on the comforter, put the fitted sheet on your bed, and put your pillowcase on your pillow. One of our new roommates thought that the duvet cover should be used like a sleeping bag, and hopped in it like he was gunning ahead in a potato sack race. We all stayed up until 2AM talking and laughing.

"We thought we'd tell y'all when you came back that we ran out of clothes so we sleep in the nude, and then we'd wake up and y'all would be dressed like you're going skiing .....The other option for a story was lovers on our honeymoon but we woulda' been some cheap ones huh? sharing a hostel on our honeymoon could you ever believe it!"

.....We clued them in that the other half of the hostel was a brothel, and told them about the door for 'Laura 69' they apparently hadn't noticed.