Interlaken, and the Interlaken Virus....not the flu!

We departed from Munich and managed to navigate our way through some pretty tight train connections en route to Interlaken, Switzerland. We THINK the name comes from the fact that the town is at the meeting point of two lakes in the Swiss Alps (see: learning languages).

We arrived in Interlaken and first of all, we did not realize that the currency there was in Swiss Francs, so that took a bit of getting used to. 1 Euro would buy us approximately 1.4 Francs. Checked into our hostel called Balmer's Herberge, which was a very unique cabin style place in town. It was pretty cool and different than anything we had stayed in to date.

After getting settled in and checked into the hostel at around 4, we did some long overdue laundry, cleaned ourselves up from a day of sitting on a train, and headed out to grab some dinner. We were lucky to find a very delicious and reasonably priced (which is highly unusual in Switzerland) Italian restaurant.

For our first full day in the Alps we decided to trek up and them and do some sledding which was highly recommended by the woman behind reception at the hostel. She showed us on a map how you catch a city bus, then a 30 minute train taking you straight into the mountains. She then explained that we could rent a slede from a sporting good store and then buy a ticket for the gondala to take you straight up the mountain. She told us that once we got to the top of the mountain is was a 45 minute hike to the worlds longest sleding run and that we could then sled all the way down to the bottom of the mountain. She made it all sound so simple and perfect, we were sold.

Everything went according to plan until we reach the top of the mountain. When we stepped out of the gondola and all we could see was WHITE! It was blinding, I immediately put on my sunglasses and still struggled to see 3 feet in front of me, I had never seen anything like this. Upon further examination of the trail map, we realized that we had been very much misinformed about the 45 minute hike, it was actually a 2 and a half hour steep hike which you would at the least require hiking poles and snow shoes to even have a hope of making it up within that time frame.

Well, we were there and we weren't turning back as we had about 50 euros each in sunk cost, so onward we went. We made it about 30 steps before Jenna fell to the ground and surrendered. In her defense, the snow was up to our knees and we could not see further than 5 feet in front of us. We also came across some serious hikers who had proper gear and they took one look at our rented sleds and said point blank, "you aren't making it to the top today".
It took me about 3 or 4 minutes to coax her back onto her feet and we went back to to the gondala to inquire about how else we could get down this mountain. Eventually we figured out that there were sled runs from our current location and we could still make our way down the mountain.

We still spent a good three hours making our way down the mountain, stopping half way to have lunch outside. What started out as a tourist excursion gone wrong, turned into one of our best days yet. We had an incredible time, at one point the runs took us right through the trees and the views were absolutely breathtaking. Sledding in the alps is definitely dangerous at times and Ty had a few close calls around some sharp turns! We have some amazing pictures to show for it all.

The next day we woke up and walked over an hour and half round trip to one of the neighbouring lakes. On our way back we stopped into the Hooters in Interlaken (yes we said hooters...) as this was the only place in town having a St. Patty's Day celebration. So we ordered some green beers and some lunch. Unfortunately this is when Jenna began to fall ill. From here the next 48 hours were pretty hellish. Jenna was extremely sick the reminder of this day and Ty fell ill the next morning. The silver lining was that the hostel was incredibly kind to us and moved us into their guesthouse, which are private rooms, with more comfortable bedding, tv's and most importantly our own bathroom. They upgraded us at no extra charge for the remainder of our stay. We didn't get to see as much of Interlaken as we would have liked, but at least we weren't suffering in dorm rooms, with communal washrooms....

We left Interlaken on Friday morning, Ty still feeling a little weak, but I had more or less recovered fully and arrived in current location Paris! Which we will blog about shortly but in the meantime we have crepes to eat and many many sights to see!
Jenna and Ty