May 10-11
This was a rough first trip to take, because I am not sure if it can be topped. We took a train east in Switzerland to Bern, the capital city and place of parliament, as well as the namesake of beloved musician Dan Bern. This train ride, I could not pick my jaw up off the floor. It was gorgeous…all the fields of yellow flowers and snow-covered peaks. They would get better when I got up to them, though. WOW, did it feel good to get out of French Switzerland and into the German part. Swiss-German never sounded so good. Notable notes of Bern are it’s known for bears, its city symbol, and who used to roam through the city. Also, we walked past the house where fellow M.O.T., Albert Einstein, developed the theory of relativity. The city is known for their clocktower and puts on a real show every hour. We heard we HAD to see it.
To kill time until the hour we walked around and it was just a beautiful city with a river going through it, lots of nature in it, too.
We walked past the house of parliament, which was a nice building, but they have a fountain out in front, like the kind they have at Epcot at Disney. It shoots up from the ground and builds a maze for you and you have to get out. It seemed there was a limited number of people over the age of 6 who were willing to strip down and join in on the fun. That guy was yours truly.
I really liked the fountains and statues they have in the middle of the streets there. I haven’t put a good one on facebook yet, but there was a ballin’ one of Moses carrying some commandments. I hadn’t seen more than a handful of Americans my entire trip thus far, so here I was crossing the river on the bridge, and I see a guy in a “Oldies 104.3 Woodward Dream Cruise” shirt, and I yell “YOU’RE FROM DETROIT!” and he’s like, “yeah man!” Funny thing, him and his friend also go to Michigan State, so we enjoyed a little “go green go white” action. About 10 minutes later when we were waiting for the clocktower to sing and dance for us a man with a hella-grizzly beard comes up to and asks in German if I speak German or English, to which I respond that I’m American. He says, in response to my MSU shirt that he lived on a farm outside of Lansing and graduated from MSU 30 years back. I ate this stuff up. The clocktower you ask? Cool, but somewhat anti-climactic.
Then we moved on to Interlaken. I have had several debates over whether it was the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. What are the most beautiful places you’ve ever seen? I’ll think of my list too. It might include Harbor Springs (MI), Yellowstone and the Rockies, Tel Aviv at sunset, I dunno. Interlaken means between the lakes so there are to huge lakes in the middle of this valley with snow covered peaks all around. Also, this hostel was AMAZING! You pay $27 for a night (keep in mind the awful exchange rate) and get a room, free breakfast, free internet, and my beloved relaxation room! It’s labeled as a hangover recovery room with a dozen hammocks on a covered porch, but its SOOOO relaxing.
So we did some extra-curricular activities that night, and around 2 a.m. I ran into a group of friends from Ohio. Summering in Europe is all about making the most of these 48 hours friendships. You have to accept them, enjoy them for what they are, and move on. There was a girl who spent a month in Ohio and met her hetero-sexual lifemate, an Israeli girl, who wrote her a letter in Hebrew before she left. She’s been looking for someone who speaks Hebrew and English for 6 months now! I believe in fate because I had enough extra-curricular activities at the precise time that they were sitting there and we struck up a conversation. Anyway, I translated the letter…it was real deep and poetic.
The next morning I stepped outside and tried to find a good place to take a picture of how pretty this place was. I couldn’t decide so I took a video of ranting about how a picture won’t do it justice and how beautiful it is, using profanity for emphasis.
We got up early and my South African colleague says that we better hurry up and get out of bed to make good on what we talked about yesterday. I didn’t think that she would actually hold us to our conversation about going paragliding. OH dear…I guess we’re doing this. You see, I have a fear of heights. I am not at all comfortable a good distance above the earth. I was terrified of skydiving, I even wasn’t comfortable in the cable car up to the Eifel Tower yesterday…I was a sport though. I was talking to my pilot as we swung in our parachute above the earth that it’s a tragedy to let fear prevent you from doing anything great. I’ll take that attitude, but this fear of heights is getting worse, not better with age. Better do more stupid while I still can.
So we sign our waivers and drive up to the top of one peak. WOW. It. Was. Breathtaking. We got all our gear on and took a running start and jumped off a cliff, simple as that. It was scary, but about halfway through I actually could enjoy it and enjoy types of views I may never seen again. Here are some pics of the view, then the flight. See facebook for more:
This was a rough first trip to take, because I am not sure if it can be topped. We took a train east in Switzerland to Bern, the capital city and place of parliament, as well as the namesake of beloved musician Dan Bern. This train ride, I could not pick my jaw up off the floor. It was gorgeous…all the fields of yellow flowers and snow-covered peaks. They would get better when I got up to them, though. WOW, did it feel good to get out of French Switzerland and into the German part. Swiss-German never sounded so good. Notable notes of Bern are it’s known for bears, its city symbol, and who used to roam through the city. Also, we walked past the house where fellow M.O.T., Albert Einstein, developed the theory of relativity. The city is known for their clocktower and puts on a real show every hour. We heard we HAD to see it.
To kill time until the hour we walked around and it was just a beautiful city with a river going through it, lots of nature in it, too.
We walked past the house of parliament, which was a nice building, but they have a fountain out in front, like the kind they have at Epcot at Disney. It shoots up from the ground and builds a maze for you and you have to get out. It seemed there was a limited number of people over the age of 6 who were willing to strip down and join in on the fun. That guy was yours truly.
I really liked the fountains and statues they have in the middle of the streets there. I haven’t put a good one on facebook yet, but there was a ballin’ one of Moses carrying some commandments. I hadn’t seen more than a handful of Americans my entire trip thus far, so here I was crossing the river on the bridge, and I see a guy in a “Oldies 104.3 Woodward Dream Cruise” shirt, and I yell “YOU’RE FROM DETROIT!” and he’s like, “yeah man!” Funny thing, him and his friend also go to Michigan State, so we enjoyed a little “go green go white” action. About 10 minutes later when we were waiting for the clocktower to sing and dance for us a man with a hella-grizzly beard comes up to and asks in German if I speak German or English, to which I respond that I’m American. He says, in response to my MSU shirt that he lived on a farm outside of Lansing and graduated from MSU 30 years back. I ate this stuff up. The clocktower you ask? Cool, but somewhat anti-climactic.
Then we moved on to Interlaken. I have had several debates over whether it was the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen. What are the most beautiful places you’ve ever seen? I’ll think of my list too. It might include Harbor Springs (MI), Yellowstone and the Rockies, Tel Aviv at sunset, I dunno. Interlaken means between the lakes so there are to huge lakes in the middle of this valley with snow covered peaks all around. Also, this hostel was AMAZING! You pay $27 for a night (keep in mind the awful exchange rate) and get a room, free breakfast, free internet, and my beloved relaxation room! It’s labeled as a hangover recovery room with a dozen hammocks on a covered porch, but its SOOOO relaxing.
So we did some extra-curricular activities that night, and around 2 a.m. I ran into a group of friends from Ohio. Summering in Europe is all about making the most of these 48 hours friendships. You have to accept them, enjoy them for what they are, and move on. There was a girl who spent a month in Ohio and met her hetero-sexual lifemate, an Israeli girl, who wrote her a letter in Hebrew before she left. She’s been looking for someone who speaks Hebrew and English for 6 months now! I believe in fate because I had enough extra-curricular activities at the precise time that they were sitting there and we struck up a conversation. Anyway, I translated the letter…it was real deep and poetic.
The next morning I stepped outside and tried to find a good place to take a picture of how pretty this place was. I couldn’t decide so I took a video of ranting about how a picture won’t do it justice and how beautiful it is, using profanity for emphasis.
We got up early and my South African colleague says that we better hurry up and get out of bed to make good on what we talked about yesterday. I didn’t think that she would actually hold us to our conversation about going paragliding. OH dear…I guess we’re doing this. You see, I have a fear of heights. I am not at all comfortable a good distance above the earth. I was terrified of skydiving, I even wasn’t comfortable in the cable car up to the Eifel Tower yesterday…I was a sport though. I was talking to my pilot as we swung in our parachute above the earth that it’s a tragedy to let fear prevent you from doing anything great. I’ll take that attitude, but this fear of heights is getting worse, not better with age. Better do more stupid while I still can.
So we sign our waivers and drive up to the top of one peak. WOW. It. Was. Breathtaking. We got all our gear on and took a running start and jumped off a cliff, simple as that. It was scary, but about halfway through I actually could enjoy it and enjoy types of views I may never seen again. Here are some pics of the view, then the flight. See facebook for more:
The rest of the day we rode bikes. We took a horse path to the lake, past old castles and the sort, and got to a place where the path ended and we surrounded by lake. A Swiss guy told me, “its not swimming season, the water is still far too cold this time of year.” I had my doubts. If I could handle instructional swim at CYJ then I could deal. I stuck my hand in the river and it wasn’t that bad! But we get to the end point and walk in…after 3 or 4 seconds it is so bitterly cold…cold isn’t even the word. Needles. My friend was in for about 10 seconds straight and her foot turned purple.
V’yehi erev, v’yehi boker, weekend rishon.
2 comments:
we miss you to bro!
but you are on a once in a lifetime type of thing here, so hang in there and keep telling us about all the fun your having!
Did you see a bear every day in Bern?
I think I would have a very hard time choosing between a tel aviv sunset and a jerusalem sunset, I think you know what I mean.
We Spartans are everywhere, you should let the alumni relations office know about your run in, would make a great story.
paragliding looks amazing, I am trudging along here, golf, work, and school mostly. Keep it going, and have fun.
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