RIIIICOLAAAAAA

10/10/2009

Today we set our alarm to wake up early. I am not sure what was going on or if this hostel just is terribly insulated but every time someone shuts a door here, it sounds like they are slamming it. We had planned to take the train to Grindelwald, a mountain town higher up that Interlaken, to walk around and see what was up there (both Josh and Katherine’s uncle recommended the place) and then spend the afternoon doing a high ropes course back in town. We wanted to do something extreme in Interlaken because this place really does have a lot of outdoor extreme activities going on it. Originally we had hear that an adventure called canyoning was fun, but with my foot being on the fritz, Katherine’s recent recovery from her sinus infection, and the chilly October weather, we decided something a little dryer would work better for us.

So when the alarm went of at 7 this morning, we could hear how bad the weather was from the sounds of cars on the road. So we slept in till nine to finally wake up to pouring rain. We had our delicious granola breakfast’s and then still decided to take the train up to Grindelwald in hopes that the weather might only be dreary up there. We checked with the front desk and the ropes course was definitely closed due to the rain. Go figure that the one place we go to where it would be most beneficial to have good weather, the weather is the worst we have had so far.

We walked to the wrong train station in the rain, but luckily the next train out of the station’s first stop was the other train station in town, so we just made a quick connection there and took the train on up the mountain. We arrived in Grindelwald to more pouring down rain, but still made a solid effort to walk around the town. This is the first time on the trip so far that I have actually pulled out, used, and needed my umbrella. A pretty big bummer considering the place we were.

Grindelwald was cute, but with the rain there wasn’t really that much else to do there other than check out the shops. We stopped in a chocolate shop and got a free taste of chocolate. I have decided that I like Swiss chocolate the best, better than Belgian or German. Its so smooth, creamy, and milky. (side note, Ovaltine is pretty common around here, but Katherine had a bad experience with it, it tasted and smelled terrible, and in no way resembles Swiss chocolate) Also in all of these shops is the first place I had scene Ricola. This tickled me. I was hoping that we might find somewhere up there that did a big Swiss horn show, but that was just wishful thinking on my part and we definitely did not even see a mention of one. We had seen all we needed to see after about an hour. As we went to check the times of the train back to Interlaken, we realized we just missed it and would have to wait an hour for the next one. So we decided to get Swiss fondue for the second time in 24 hours! Really we cant get enough of it and it was delicious. That nicely filled our time, and right after we paid out bill, we hopped on the train for the return trip.

On the return trip home I kept thinking about how different the lives of the people who live in these mountain houses must be from mine. Its pretty wild to think about. We got to about two stops away from our stop at Interlaken and the ticket man on the train came to our car to check our tickets. So naturally Katherine and I pulled out our Eurail passes, but unnaturally the man looks at us like we are crazy. In very broken English (this is when I realize we are going to have a serious language barrier problem, and it is to be noted that they speak German in Switzerland and Austria) her tells us that our Eurail pass does not cover this train ride because it is a private railroad. So we are like ok how much do we owe you and do you take credit card or Euro because we don’t have any Swiss franks. He tells us that he does take credit card, so I gave him mine to run through but something happened and it turned out that he really didn’t know how to run a credit card through his little machine (by the way service people carry credit card machines on their belts over here, its pretty convenient if they can get them to work). At this point Katherine asks him very nicely to please explain one more time why and what we are being charged for, just so that she has a full grasp on it, not being rude or anything. The man rolls his eyes and then got very huffy with us. So then we try to give him Euro, but we both only have 50 euro bills and he doesn’t have change for both of them, so he makes us pay together and gives us change back in Franks. At this point, we are pulling into Interlaken and we feel like we are being taken advantage of.

So we go into the information center at the train station in Interlaken just to make sure that everything that went on was kosher. A really nice guy helped us out with resolving this situation. Turns out the man charged us for first class tickets, but never told us we were sitting in first class or to move. He did give us the right amount of change back for what we were charged, but the guy at the counter told us that he should have handled the situation more professionally. He told us the guy got huffy with us because he didn’t know how to explain it in English, which is really not a good reason to get worked up over something. Then we needed help with our train travel for tomorrow, which the information guy was extremely helpful with and then he gave us vouchers for free drinks at a coffee shop across the street for our troubles. He was great at customer service and totally helped calm us down with the situation. And because Swiss chocolate is so good, we both ordered some excellent hot chocolates (true Swiss Miss if you will).

At this point it was about 2 in the afternoon and the weather was still drizzly. We walked back to the hostel and decided to rent a movie they had their and watch it on my laptop in our cozy beds. We watched Sex and the City, always a great movie every time. Now what happened during the movie really got my goat. So we are laying down and all of a sudden we cant see the screen anymore because there is a glare from the SUN on it! I know, it rains all day and the sun decides to come out at 4 in the afternoon so that we cant do any activities for the day and have a clear night. Now that makes sense. After the movie we were hungry and decided to get take out at the places next to the hostel. I got pad thai again, it was really that good that I loved eating it twice. We had a pretty low-key night of packing for our train travels the next day. We are really running on the bare minimum for clean clothes, so hopefully we can do laundry soon. I max out after 12 days. Tomorrow we start the final portion of our travels together, but saving the best for last, Italia.