Day 23 & 24

Day 23

We got up early to catch the train to interlaken, Switzerland. Tim was moody during the train ride, but immediately as we got off the train in Switzerland, saw the beautiful mountains and clean, cool air, he was in a much better mood. Kate was relieved but reminded him every time were in a bad mood we can't just take a trip to switzerland to get out of it.

We were always warned at how expensive Switzerland was and we quickly found out they were not lying. A regulars dinner at a restaurant was at least 30 francs, which is about $32. So we hit up the grocery store before catching the boat to our hostel, which was in a small town of Interwald and right on a lake in the valley of the Alps.

That afternoon we hiked to a waterfall where a small bridge was built so you could walk underneath it. On the way back it started to get dark and clouds came in. It was all downhill, but like really steep downhill, so Tim sprinted off, Kate trying to keep up behind him, as we finally arrived to the hostel, but soaked from the rain.

Since the hostel was a little isolated and eating out was so expensive many people stayed in at the hostel at night. Eating our dinner of nutella, peanut butter, and bread (sorry mom no vegetables) we met a young couple out of grad school from LA who were just beginning a 3 week trip throughout Europe. They told us about their canyon jumping experience that day which seemed a lot of fun, but like the food prices, all of the extreme sporting activities were expensive...plus we had to leave some things to do for when we come back.

 

Day 24

We got up and ate breakfast provided by the hostel. It was a little lean, but it had really good bread (up to Kate's standards). We took the bus to Interlaken where we had planned to take a train up into the alps to do the Eiger trail. When we went to pay for the tickets (eurorail only gave a 25% discount) round trip for both of us would have been $150. So, we settled on cheaper to tickets to Grindelwald---which happened to be Kate's moms favorite place when she backpacked Europe.

We found a what was supposed to be a 5 hour hike through the Alps and back so we set out with our grocery store lunch, beer, and water. Eight hours later we finally make it back to Grindelwald, starving and thirsty and missing those baths in Budapest. The views were amazing, but it was definitely a steep hike. And we also realized walking down a steep hill is no faster or easier then walking up it. On the way back we passed a hotel that rented scooters to fly down the mountain into Grindelwald. Kate says we never really considered renting them while Tim says Kate claimed she didn't want to ride them down--but nevertheless it would have made the walk back a little easier.

Upgrading from our dinner of bread and nutella, we bought microwaveable dinners for that night and went to bed early and exhausted to get up early to take the train to Laussane to meet Tim's sister, Mariel, who will be joining us for the last part of our trip.