La Dolce Vita: Interlaken, Switzerland

From a foreigner's standpoint, New York City is to America as Interlaken is to Switzerland. The most popular tourist destination, a "must see" for travelers, which is why I knew I had to visit Interlaken before I left. Without thinking twice I decided I must sign up for sky diving in the alps during my visit. Even though I've never been able to muster up the guts to even do the drop zone in Kings Dominion, I knew based on my friends pictures that this was a once in a life time opportunity. I mean, how many people can say they've been skydiving over the alps?? My friend Emily and I packed our bags in anticipation of an incredible girls weekend in Interlaken.

It was just as I had pictured, pristine green grass and bright red farm houses nestled between snow covered mountains. We had no trouble finding our hostel, Bamber's, and it was just as great as we'd expected. Although it's not the most upscale place you could find in Interlaken, it was full of other backpacking college students. As we were checking into the hostel the woman told me that the chancing of me getting to sky diving the next day were slim to none because the winds were supposed to be strong. I was incredibly bummed out since this was the main reason I'd wanted to come to Interlaken, but I crossed my fingers and hoped it would work out. Emily and I got ready and went to the bar located right next to the hostel. There we met several Aussies our age, turns out a few of them had actually been to Manila, Philippines before. They attended a university named De Salle in Melbourne and went to Manila to visit the Philippine De Salle University, coincidentally we used to play against the Philippines De Salle women's soccer team while I was at the International School of Manila. They had also been to Phuket, Thailand where I visited for a week while I was living in the Philippines. It was so interesting to hear about other people travels and experiences, such a small world.

The next morning I woke up anxious to go sky diving and I ran downstairs to ask the woman if it was still on. Just my luck, they had canceled the trip and I attempted to reschedule for Sunday, with a high probability it would still be windy then too. The other thing Emily and I were dying to do on our trip was visit Jungfraujoch, the highest point in Europe, and see the ice palaces and do some hiking. We went to the train station, and sure enough, the trains running to Jungfraujoch were shut down due to mountain storms. Next we asked about another place called Schilthorn, which had an infamous rotating restaurant, and would you be surprised if I told you that was shut down too? Our only bet was a place called Lauterbrunnen. Making the most of our available options, we took the train to Lauterbrunnen and had a fantastic lunch at a family run restaurant there. We sat on the terrace and had a perfect few of the mountains, I swear it was like looking at someone's computer screensaver. I ordered pumpkin soup, fitting for a fall day :). After lunch we hiked toward Trummelbach falls. On our hike it was soothing to be able to enjoy the fall leaves, in every imaginable shade of orange, yellow and red. Also being the vegetarian and animal activist I am, it was great to see farm animals being treated properly, it was just like a story book. We finally reached the Trummelbach falls, a series of ten glacier-waterfalls inside the mountain made accessible by tunnel-lift and illuminated. Its drainage area is 24 km², half of it covered by snow and glaciers. Up to 20,000 liters of water per second. The only glacier-waterfalls in Europe inside the mountain and still accessible. Nearing the falls you could hear the roar of the waterfalls.

Although we may have missed out on Europe's highest point, I am so glad we got to see the falls. It was incredible to see clear blue water rushing through and the smoothed rock resulting from its unbelievable force. We hiked back and did some souvenir shopping around the town center, then had some much anticipated Chinese food for dinner (Asian girl's gotta get her fix). Since it was Halloween evening, we knew that our hostel bar would be packed, but we didn't know that Europeans were as fond of carrying out Halloween traditions as Americans, and ironically enough Emily and I were probably the only people NOT dressed up that evening haha. It was such a fun night and we got to hang out with our Aussie friends again.

It was daylight savings time but of course we forgot to set our clocks and then woke up an hour earlier than necessary. I went downstairs hoping that by some twist of fate the skydiving trip would be on. Unfortunately, the storms were still brewing in the mountains and they had to call it off again. I was pretty disappointed, but I guess this just means I'll have to go somewhere in the states (maybe with Dad for my birthday?!). Although our weekend was not what we had originally expected, we still saw some remarkable sights and met great people.