I know I'm way behind, but between traveling, class, and everything else Cambridge has to offer, I haven't had time to just sit down and post. Ok, first let me just say, Switzerland is absolutely beautiful, with the side note that I never have to visit Geneva for the rest of my life and will be perfectly fine. We of course flew the lovely airline of Easy Jet into Geneva. I knew it was going to be interesting when the first language that the safety instructions were given in was French and not English. We were on a tight schedule when we got to the airport, because we were catching the last train out of Geneva to Interlaken, which was about a 3 hour train ride. I honestly felt helpless in the airport. Not only did English not exist, but no one there spoke it either. The only words that I really heard in English were from a nice lady at the ticket booth who asked if my shirt was "Ralph Lauren." That's right, not Polo, but Ralph Lauren. I felt like I was back in time, but maybe that was the funky smell and lack of A/C in the train station. If they could bottle up some of the smells that I have encountered in Europe I would happily send them home and play horrible jokes on people. Ok, well after spending 30 mins buying what we hoped were the right train tickets we began our journey to Interlaken from Geneva. The train was nice, two stories and had A/C. Laugh all you want, A/C just doesn't grow on trees around here...We finally made it to Interlaken at around 1 am. After being greeted by the Hostel Dog, a 200 pound St. Bernard, we settled into our room and headed to the hostel bar.
You've all seen those western movies where someone walks into the saloon and all the people stop what they're doing and turn and look at you like you have "bite me" written on your head. Well, that's kinda what it felt like when we first walked into the hostel bar. Let's just say polo shirts and bathing weren't the norm. After realizing we were going to be able to enjoying drinks there, we hung out for a little bit and decided to call it a night...we had a big day of eating at Hooters and white water rafting coming up.
We had some time to kill the next day and made our way towards Hooters for lunch. They are proud of their chicken wings in Switzerland, to say the least. They could have been the most organic, free range, no cage, brushed daily, petted constantly, chickens in the world and still wouldn't have been worth the 17 Franks (about 1/1 with the dollar) that they cost. Yes, 17 dollars for roughly 10 chicken wings. Welcome to Switzerland, home of chocolate, the Alps and price gouging chicken wings. After enjoying those delicious wings a few local brews, we walked around the town for a bit. You know, touristy things. We actually are pretty good at it. In fact we even found the historic, local casino. However, we got to the door and realized you had to pay to get in unless we had this card from our Hostel so we decided against it. I know paying someone to take your money sounds like a great idea and all, but no thanks. I can go to the Indian casinos back home and pay them to take my money. So after this touristy, blah blah suff it was time to white water raft.
First, have any of you worn a wet suit before? I've never been wrapped as tight as possible with a roll of plastic wrap, but the feeling has to be pretty similar. Modesty and pride are thrown out the window once those bad boys are zipped up. However, we were rafting with several guys of asian background, so we all felt a little better about ourselves. ha Unfortunately for us, we looked like the most athletic group that was rafting that afternoon (yes, I'm serious, and yes that is terrible), so they made us split up to help the other boats out. Remeber the our Asian friends? They come into play here and a little later. Alan and Horne were veteran rafters, so they were the lucky ones that got to join our Asian friends in a boat. Ben, Kyle, Josh, and myself were joined by a Middle Eastern couple who I got the hunch had never white water rafted before. Why you ask? Well, when the guide said row foward and the girl started rowing backward, that was a pretty good indication. We finally got in the water and, wow. It was awesome. I was glad to have the wet suit, though, because that water was freeeezing. Our boat had an awesome time, but the good stories come from Alan, Horne, and our Asian friends. I'm guessing our Asian friends weren't a fan of rushing water, because one of them, well, wet his wet suit if you catch my drift. So, now that I think about it, I guess he was a fan of rushing water. ha Did I mention this was while Alan and Horne were helping pull him out of the boat? So yes, he shared the love on their wet suit as well...hahahahaha At one point during the rafting, our guide let us jump out of the raft and practice our rescuing techniques. Well, I wasn't even out of the raft when Kyle and I decided to go out the same way and he roundhouse kicked me right in the jaw on my way out of the raft. ha No worries, though...my face was numb from the 40 degree water.
After a successful day of rafting it was time to head back to the Hostel, grab some food and get a good night's rest...we were canyoning tomorrow...on the canyon that required "cliff jumping skills." Cliff jumping skills??? Oh, and as usual, we skipped the good night's rest part. The hostel bar was much more welcoming this night. Even met some people from Georgia. Several hours later, bed time.
The seven a.m. alarm going off for Canyoning was not a welcome sound. It meant I couldn't sleep more and that I was about to go jump off rocks, slide down cliffs and rope my happy self through waterfalls. Just a normal Saturday for me. We again got to put on the fashionable and slim fitting wet suits, except this time we also enjoyed wearing harnesses with yellow butt pads. Oh, and we each had individualized helmets with names written in big, bold letters on the front. I guess this was so when I slipped off a rock, busted my butt and looked up they could see and yell my name, which was Rocky, by the way. After about an hour van ride to the canyon, I figured we would just hop out of the van and there it was. Nope. We had to walk through this trail a Mountain Goat would have issues with. There was no plan B. You either made it through the trail, or fell off the mountain. Pretty simple. We finally made it to the canyon. I have all the pictures on facebook, if you can see those, but let me say, the pictures don't do it justice. It was seriously one of the most awesome things I've ever done. After a nice easy slide to start things off. A big jump was next. When I say big, I mean big. Kyle was the first to go and one look at his face made me realize slipping off the mountain might not have been such a bad idea back on the trail. When it got to be my turn, I was contemplating my sanity. There are no platforms that you jump off. It's a slipperly, jagged rock for your left foot and your guide's mildewed, wet shoe for second foot to stand on. After my instructions to jump the right because the left was a rock and will hurt you, I was ready. Wow. After I realized I was in one piece, only wet from the natural water, I was all smiles. Once that first jump was over, I wanted more. The jump slide was probably one of the crazier things. Having to jump from a rock to the smooth side of a cliff, turn your body and slide was pretty intense. Josh, well he missed the cliff by oh, 6 feet, so he just had a nice free fall into the water...haha Ok, so I just realized how long this post was getting, so I'm hurrying I promise. This went on for 4 hours. I would go again tomorrow. We then had one night left to enjoy.
We find out that three other people have joined our hostel room. Including an Asian girl that probably hates every one of us. The poor girl slept with her iPod on and didn't speak a word. There were also these girls from Iowa that were there. They were friendly and didn't mind our shananigans so it was all good there. ha. A few of us decided to train back early to Geneva the next day to get on an early flight. We did and of course, Easy Jet makes things interesting. The flight was perfect until the landing when our pilot felt it was a good idea to corckscrew for 30 minuts above Gatwick airport. I don't get it. Did I mention he managed to find the biggest set of clouds to corkscrew through to add turbulance to the menu? I firmly believe they do this for jokes. Well the others that didn't get on the early flight weren't so lucky. Their flight was delayed enough that they couldn't get on the last train from King's Cross to Cambridge, so they made a lovely arrival back home at around 5:30 am the next morning. Just another typical weekend for our group. Ok, this has been long enough, and my Scotland post will be coming soon. Scotland and the British Open were amazing. In fact, Scotland may be one of my new favorite places. I have to go back. We have just one week left in Cambridge. Unreal. This trip has been amazing to say the least. Wimbledon, Amsterdam, Switzerland, British Open. That's a pretty good month I would say. Ok, hope everyone is doing well. Talk to you all soon.
Until my next post,
Life's a garden. Dig it.
Woodard
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