Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Bears, Moutains and RR&R



So we are still alive for all those concerned. Shady internet plus awesome things to see equals delayed blog posts. Remember, blame the French for the late blog posts. So after flying out of Barcelona we landed in Geneva which was too fancy to have any open hostels so we immediately jumped on a train to Lausanne.
Sometimes pictures don't need captions
We found an amazing lake and spent the rest of the day just admiring it.
Home of the Killer Swans

The next day we hoped on the train to Bern to see some bears. We got off our train and saw a slice of home, McDonalds. We had noticed that Lausanne was very expensive, but surely the home of the dollar menu will help us save some of our precious money. We walked in and scanned the menu for some amazing chicken nuggets and found a price next to it that surely was a typo. 13 dollars for a chicken nugget meal? Crazy talk. Alas, this is the norm in Switzerland. Everyone always talks about how healthy and fit the Swiss are. It is because they can't afford food.


We stayed in the capital Bern for a few days and saw the bears. The bears had a sweet little forest that was riverside. I wonder how much that little pad cost them.
DANGER ZONEEE!

Besides the bears Bern is known for being the home of Einstein. We went to his house and read his whole life story. It was relatively interesting, see what I did there.
Some cousin lovin' went on here


We met an Australian that was heading to Interlaken the same time we were so we packed up and took off.

Interlaken is the home of everything adventurous in Switzerland. Anyway you can think to risk serious bodily harm or potential death they have it. Want to jump off a cliff and swing through a mountain? check. Want to slide off water falls into shallow ponds? check. Basically anything that would make your mother have a heart attack they have. We dropped our bags and went immediately to sign up. The guy at the shop sold us on canyoning. This includes sliding off waterfalls and jumping 30ft into a pond and if we don't land were they say we will crash into rocks. Awesome.

We made it through the seven hour journey thanks to our guides who were some of the most intense guys I have ever met. So when they suggested a hike for us we should have known we were getting in over our heads. Five hours into the hike they said was only about two hours, we accepted defeat and walked down. The view was amazing though.
     
"Two hour hike" 1/10th of the way in  

When you think of a neat town tucked away in the gorgeous mountains you think of Interlaken.
After leaving we traveling to Zurich to meet up with a friend of my cousins. Rob-Roy and his wife Roberta, thus the RR&R in the title, graciously let us stay at their house and proved to be amazing hosts. Rob-Roy gave us what every guy from Texas cherishes the most, a meal straight from the grill. We were able to take in the sights from Zurich, but they couldn't hold up with great time we had talking and visiting with them and their friends.
Seashell see hell
We couldn't have asked for a better end to our travels in Switzerland or this blog post. Next stop is Venice.

2 comments:

  1. Love it! I'm so glad you guys posted...seeing the pictures somehow makes you feel not so far away! Can't wait to hug you both.

    Spence - loving how calm cool you look in the last picture...even though you are facing seashell see hell.

    Dave - your fleece, white shirt and hat are really pulling together to give you that 'ramblin Euroman' look.

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  2. Hey Guys, We miss ya'll, but glad ur still exploring! I recognize some of the sites u recently visited from the trip Mom, Kels, Holly & I took.

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