Comfort Hotel Chalet Swiss Interlaken

We let the girls sleep in and then broke the news that we were going to have a quiet day in the hostel because it was raining and that they had to do a few hours of homework. Looking at the screen in the hostel, you could see that it was snowing heavily on the mountains.

By afternoon, the rain had turned to drizzle, so we ...

... we were very comfortable.

I left Witek in bed and went to explore the town by myself and get some lunch. Interlaken was much bigger than Zermatt but is similarly surrounded by mountains. It is famous for all of the adventure sports it has available such as skydiving, paragliding, white water rafting, canyoning, zorbing etc.etc. The park opposite our hostel was actually one of the landing spots for one of the paragliding companies and we could see them landing form our room. We ...

... on flying saucers in the snow and sled dogs apparently but we didn't see them. We stayed for a bit to take in the view and went to the ice palace and out onto the snow. We really enjoyed the train ride up and down the mountain as we got to see a lot of the alps and countryside. The skiing in the winter on the mountains would be great and the scenery would be very different so we may come back here on our way to fly out of Zurich just to see it!

(Steve ...

... and make supper. We have a little balcony with a couple chairs and table just outside our window that we have supper on every evening with a bottle of wine and talk about how fake the mountains around us look because they look so perfect.

If there was ever the good life, this is it. Monday we went to (or were going to go to) the top of Niederhorn but got lost so we just ended up walking around for a few hours still enjoying the countryside ...

... week's worth of clothes *nd other necessities into * Ver* Br*dley b*ckp*ck. Ye*h, th*t w*s oodles of fun! However, I w*s very proud of my *bility to cr*m *ll of my items into such * sm*ll sp*ce, for m*ny of the other girls took full-sized suitc*ses. Who knew I could be so pir*tic*l? Once *ll little kiddies were p*cked *nd re*dy, we he*ded to the bus/tr*in *nd m*de our w*y to Interl*ken vi* Aigle, Visp, *nd Spiez. The l*ndsc*pe w*s *bsolutely bre ...

We decided to make a quick exit out of Switzerland because we were going to go broke if we stayed for any length of time. So we took the scenic mountain route out of Lucerne with our EuroRail pass - no expenses other than a sandwich or two. Unfortunately there were low lying clouds the whole trip and we missed the snow capped mountains but it was pretty just the same.

... of costs: Single hotel room in the party area (very loud, 24 hours), no breakfast, shared bathroom facilities is 90 dollars. Big Mac menu deal 13 dollars. Single train trip at night 7 dollars. Strawberry Sundae 5 dollars. Internet 13 dollars an hour. I've done very little and blown the budget at 150 dollars a day. Switzerland is definitely out of the realms of budget backpackers. If only I knew this beforehand... I would of skipped it and spent the extra ...

... search of a fantastic Swiss dinner. I had actually found a restaurant during the day, and saw that it was open until 11:30. So, when we walked inside the waitress asked us if we were there for drinks and we said, "No, we are here for food". She informed us that the kitchen closed at 9:30. What restaurant closes the kitchen two hours before it closes? Apparently all of the restaurants in Zurich because we went to two more and were greeted by the same response ...

... up in a 2 star hotel in a resort called Zermatt as the staff accomodation was full. Calling it a hotel is probablz like calling the old italian lire, currency. my room was small, well when i say small what i really mean is that in order to close the door (which had not auto lock system on it) i had to breath in and lunge towards the bed. it did however have a small yet comfortable bed and a TV with cable which allowed me to see the repeat of ...

... with Del, Nick, & Matt, Canyoning tomorrow morning at 8:15 AM with Del, Nick, Matt, May, and Ty. Total cost: $US 330. I took a walk with May, who needed to locate and purchase a bathing suit and towel for her and Ty's 1:15 river rafting session. Speaking of Oz counterparts, May is a unique composite of Marianne McCarley and Cathryn Mazer, two dear New York friends with whom I click extraordinarily well. She's down to earth, comfortable to talk with, I feel like I've known her ...