Pinch me please
Trip Start
May 31, 2005
1
9
89
Trip End
Dec 25, 2005
Interlaken,
Switzerland
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Yup, I'm still in Switzerland. Just having an awesome time. My typical day is waking up at 7 or 8 and eating breakfast, which for some reason now takes me an hour to eat. Then I ride the train into the mountains and take a combination of more trains, cable cars, buses, and hiking all through the mountains. I feel like I know the towns and the mountains now as I recognize them from all of the different viewpoints. Then around 5 or 6 I come back down from the mountains and do "wellness". Found out that with this hostel, we have free access to a spa. The spa is awesome: dry sauna, wet sauna, saunlarium (sauna with bird chirping and rushing water sounds with lights in the ceiling), this cold shower and a bucket that fills with water that you can dump on yourself, a 'car wash' that sprays mint and rose smelling water and massages you, a biolarium which is a wet sauna that smells like mint again with changing colored lights, a huge whirlpool with a fountain, and extremely comfortable chairs; all with huge glass windows from which you see the alps, the trees, and the lake. The usual entrance fee to this place is almost as much as the hostel room costs me. I'm finding a place like this when I get back cause after 2 hours in this place, nothing phases me. Oh, and this spa has 'nacked zones' and it's a mixed sex spa. It was quite interesting the first time around but now I've gotten used to it - as they say when in rome ... :)
So just when I thought this place couldn't get better, go to sign up for one more night here, and they tell me the night is free because i've stayed so long. Most hostels kick you out after a certain number of nights.
I had been hanging around with a couple in their early twenties that were here. The girl is actually in Iraq and was vacationing here for 2 weeks with her husband who she hadn't seen for 7 months. She was awesome, and I still can't get over the idea of her driving a truck between all the bases hauling large equipment. Some of the stories she told me were unreal. They left today and it was liking saying goodbye to a friend - relationships build quickly here on the road. But there are many more to come.
I'm leaving Monday and will probably be heading to France, but not sure yet. I'm thinking eastern france then maybe barcelona then french riviera and down the coast of italy and sicily then athens. But that could all change in the next 5 minutes.
