An Irish Adventure: Traveling for a Month Part Five- Swizterland

We left Munich early after stopping at the grocery store. We had decided we wanted to run across the country of Lichtenstein because one of our fellow study abroaders had said that it was only two miles wide if you wanted to run across. We spent the first part of the drive pumping ourselves up and enjoying the scenery, when we finally got to the border we pulled into a gas station for a bathroom break and snacks and water. We double checked the GPS because that road was supposed to stretch across the country and into Switzerland. What we found was that in fact Lichtenstein was actually four miles across. We all then made the decision that that was way too far (in my case, the others probably could have run it easily haha) and we didn't want to run that far so we enjoyed our break and decided to just keep driving.

We decided to stop and take a closer look at this lake and lakeside town right after getting to Switzerland.

Our first stop in Switzerland was Zurich for the day. We had to start our time in Zurich at the bus station meeting up with the 6th person in our group who had taken a bus. We had a hard time both in finding a bathroom and finding money while we were waiting. We went wandering in the neighborhood around the bus station for and ATM and food, but were unsuccessful. As we decided to head back to the bus station we realized that the gas station across from where we had parked exchanged money. A few of us exchanged a little money and then the next issue was the bathroom. If you didn't know, in Europe, you often have to pay for bathrooms or you have to purchase something from a store/restaurant before you can use the bathroom because they have a keypad outside the door you need to enter a code on to get into. Eventually someone gave in and paid probably close to $8 for a Starbucks drink so the group could get the code to the bathroom.

This was really nice car that everyone was stopping to take pictures of, it seemed to be custom made, and was named "Desire"

Once we had been reunited we decided to take our groceries to a lake that we had seen and ate on the boardwalk area. We quickly realized that there is a lot of money in Zurich and everyone drives fancy cars. We decided to wander the city center area, because none of us really knew what there was to do in Zurich. We were able to find an ATM, we also saw the Lindt Chocolate factory. Another realization quickly dawned on us that Zurich is definetly a shopping city, but only if you have lots of money. We found a park over looking the city and sat up there for a little bit. From there we saw there was a church with two towers and it looked like people were on top, so we decided to check that out and then head to Interlaken where we were going to be staying for the next few nights.

We had a little trouble finding the chalet that we were staying in, but when we found it, it was perfect. We had a view to the side of a mountain of a forest and the inside was so cute! We relaxed and ate some food that we had picked up that morning and then made a campfire outside.

Our Chalet

The next morning we met up with two other people from our study abroad group who were finishing their time in Switzerland that day and then decided to hike. There is a big platform at the top of one of the mountains surrounding Interlaken that you can hike to and walk out on so we decided to do that hike. The hike was named Harder Klum and took us a little over two hours to hike up about 1500 meters. It was a difficult hike but definitely worth the views that we got at the end. Then we hiked down and walked around the city a little bit, but many of the stores were closed because it was a Sunday. We stopped at the grocery store and got some more food for dinner that night which we cooked at the Chalet. We had another campfire that night in the beautiful evening and just sat around chatting.

At the top of Harder Klum

Views as we hiked up

The platform at the top

View from the platform

The next day we went back to Interlaken with the plan of walking around for a bit. The day before we had seen a lot of people landing from Paragliding in the big park in the middle of the town and I decided to try it! I got all suited up and drove up to the top of one of the mountains where you do that launch from and walked to the starting point. By the time we got up there though the wind had picked up and changed direction so we weren't able to safely take off. We waiting up there for a while to see if the wind changed, but sadly it didn't and we headed back down to town. It was disappointing that I wasn't able to go paragliding because I had worked up all the courage to get excited about it, but at least I got to see a view that not many people get to see when they go to Interlaken. They said we could keep checking in with them throughout the day to see if the wind changed later in the day, sometimes it dies down around 4pm but every time we checked they said that it hadn't changed.

We drowned our sorrows in a chocolate show that we had been planning to go to. This means that you go to a chocolate factory and they show you how they make all the different types of chocolate that they sell and give you samples! The chocolatier showed us how they make chocolate shoes and I immediately thought of my Aunt Joan who loves shoes and I wanted to bring one back for her, but sadly it wouldn't fit in my small suitcase I was using to get around for the month. We then decided to get dinner at the restaurant connected to the chocolate shop, which was really good! We ended the night relaxing in the chalet playing games and catching up on reading, journaling and blogging (this is where I wrote my blog about Dublin and Paris).