Interlaken!

Interlaken, Switzerland

I spent this last weekend in Interlaken, Switzerland and had an amazing time. I thought one weekend there might be enough but I have now decided it might have to be my future home. I loved just about everything about it, with the one exception being the high prices for everything, but I will leave that for a little later and start with what I loved and what I experienced.
We left at 6:30 PM on Friday night and drove the 7 and a half hours there so I slept most of that. We had a group of 41 people go so we knew there wouldn’t be a dull moment once we got there. We got in around 2:30 AM so some went to bed and some went out to explore the night life there. I was pretty tired so I just went to bed so I could get up early the next day. So my group got our keys and went up to the room. I don’t know how many people have ever stayed at a hostel, but I couldn’t help but laugh when I got into the room. It was about a 10x10 room with just enough for 4 bunk beds and a little room to walk by. But that was fine, I just needed the room to sleep so it wasn’t a big deal and I’m the type of person that would be happy with a floor in that situation.

So I woke up the next morning and went out with some friends to look at the city. It was interesting how different the buildings and houses were compared to Italy. It’s defiantly not like the US where houses differ a little but not a whole lot, it was a pretty drastic change but it was really cool. The town is in kind of a valley surrounded by the Alps so everywhere you look you see awesome mountains. I think I went a little picture crazy taking pictures of the mountains and the buildings but owell, with the digital it’s easy to delete haha. There was also river that runs through the town and the color of the water was so cool looking. It had the turquoise color and it almost looked fake. So after walking around for a while and taking a lot of pictures, we started looking for somewhere to eat. This is when we realized how expensive Interlaken is. Every restaurant we went by was $30 to $40 a plate for things like a hamburger and fries. It was crazy. We ended up going to McDonalds, yes I know but we were craving American food, and for a big mac meal it cost $13!! So that was the only down fall but it was still an amazing time.
After walking around town I went canyoning, and that was awesome. For those who don’t know what it is, canyoning is when you hike down a river canyon, jumping off waterfalls, repelling down cliffs, sliding down rocks, and other things like that. It was an amazing time, really exhilarating!! It was strange feeling jumping down 15 feet into a 4x4 landing spot but it’s a feeling I love having. Our guides on it were awesome. One was a Scotsman and the other was a Frenchmen. In the summers they are canyoning instructors and in the winter they are ski and snowboard instructors. When I was talking with one of them about it, he said, “my mom asks me when I’m going to grow up, and I just answer, Why would I!” I don’t blame him, and in fact, may have to consider following in his footsteps haha. It would be a life packed with crazy times and little responsibility, so a perfect job for someone who’s about to graduate and isn’t ready to grow up like me!! For canyoning, they offered a 3 hour and an 8 hour length trip. The 8 hour trip was filled so I went on the 3 hour one which was still really awesome, but from what I’ve heard the 8 hour one was amazing. So for anyone going to Interlaken, if you are going canyoning and you like extreme sports and heights don’t bother you, for sure do the 8 hour one.

After canyoning we grabbed a quick bite to eat and then hung out at the Hostel for a while. We stayed at the Balmers (sorry for not mentioning that before) but it’s a fairly famous hostel and it had a huge night club downstairs. So our group stuck around there most of the night, danced had fun, things like that haha! It was a great way to end an amazing day with great new friends. The next day, well, everyone was pretty slow moving lol. So I walked around town a bit more, some rented scooters and said that was awesome. The bus picked us up around 2 and we came back to Paderno! It was such a great weekend, really hard to put into words how much fun I had. I know my family may think I’m kidding about moving to Interlaken, but I don’t know!! So far it is my favorite place on earth. Although, it seems like every place I’ve gone to here is my new favorite place haha. But I really can’t say enough about Interlaken, if you are planning a trip, squeeze it in there and you will not be disappointed! Well that brings you up to speed, I’m heading to Cinque Terre this weekend so I will be sure to let you all know how that goes. Until then Ciao!