Switzerland (pronounced "heaven")

From the left: The Eiger, the Monch, and the Jungfrau

Before I begin this update, let me preface this by saying that no words or pictures can even begin to convey the beauty that I witnessed in my week in the Swiss Alps. With that out of the way, lets get started :)

Being the crazy person that I am, I decided to take the overnight bus to Interlaken and then go Canyoning that afternoon. This is crazy because you must sleep on the bus (and without a window seat this it tough) and because they stopped every two hours and turned on the lights for 20 minutes (which at 2 and 4am is NOT fun). Fortunately I made it through surprisingly well rested and ready for the day.


After exploring the city during the morning and just soaking up the swiss atmosphere it was off to canyoning. What is canyoning you ask? In short, its this...

Rappelling 160 ft straight down a cliff

Free jumping up to 30ft into shallow pools

Sliding down natural rock formations into pools and my personal favorite pictured here, zip-lining!

The whole thing took a couple of hours and was an absolute blast. And I only nearly killed myself twice!! It helped me make some new friends and got me into the right frame of mind to enjoy the Alps. The evening ended with me arriving at my lakefront hostel and learning that I had a room to myself :) Perfect end to a great day!

Day two began with the view you see above. It led into some relaxed exploring of the little town I was staying in before heading to meet some of my canyoning friends for a late lunch at a place Harder Kulm that overlooks both Interlaken and the mountains south of it. The top picture from this post was taken there. More follow below. The day ended with a lovely walk and some great ice cream :)

To keep this from becoming too long and boring (too late I know), i'll put the rest in an update tomorrow ;)

I had previously only seen water this color in Alaska (the color is the result of the lakes being glacier fed)

My friend Bena and I in front of a serious view of one of the two lakes that flank Interlaken

This is the other one