Canyoning in Interlaken Switzerland

Hey People,

I feel like a real 21st Century

traveler now that I've got myself a high tech bl

og. So I may be

kind of starting in

media res with this blog, but I'll get to my introductory weeks in London later. First off: My Weekend Adventure in Switzerland. Adventure is

the perfect word for this trip because it sounds like

everything about Switzerland is an adventure.

My plane left London, Luton airport on 7 AM, Friday September 11 (Didn't take note of the date until after we were already checked in). That was the roughest part of the whole trip. Luton is about 45 min outside of the city, and we were told there were trains running from King's Cross, St Pancras station (10 min walk from flats) all night. Well looking back on it now, I think we

messed up because we walked to King's Cross station at 3 AM (I'll sleep when I'm dead), only to find it closed. This was because we walked in on The Tube side, and that closes at Midnight. A

taxi driver approaches us and says he'll take us to Luton, and we agreed. He seemed like a legit guy, but apparently not to the girls. I found that out later though. Needless to say, we got there and it was actually cheaper to go with this guy to Luton.

We arrived in Zurich at around 9 in the morning and got right on the train to Interlaken, Adventure Capital of Europe. It was GORGEOUS. I felt like I was in secret Yosemite. The train on the way there cruised right along these radiant blue lakes surrounded by giant cliff faces. Unbelievable. My group (Cath, Phoebe, Mimi, and I) got in and we checked in the hostel then decided to go for a hike. The rest of the kids were getting in around 9 o'clock.

That's the boring part. After a long day of travel we were all asleep by 10:00 and couldn't wait for the next day. Saturday morning we were ready to go Canyoning! Canyoning is like extreme hiking. The most we knew about it what you start at the top of a canyon with a river, then hike down and jump off waterfalls and go down rock slides. That was the least of it. We checked in with the company, Alpin Raft, and they drove us up to the base of a canyon in the Alps, where we suited up in wetsuits, helmets, and life vests. Then we drove up further on this little mountain road. Suddenly, the van stops in the middle of the road, and we were told to get out. On our left was a sheer cliff, and on our right was a sheer drop. We didn't know what we were getting out for. Next thing we know, we are hooked up in harnesses and being told we had to rappel down a 160 foot rock face. AWESOME!

Once we climbed down, we were all already ona huge adrenaline rush. Our guides, Sue and Darren, went over the safety information which basically was something like this:

"Don't jump with straight legs, because you'll break them. Land on your Butt so you don't break your legs. When you jump, jump exactly where we tell you, or you'll land in rocks and break your legs"

Not unsettling at all.

The rest was just one 2 hour hike full of jumps and slides and zip lines. No big deal.

The last part of the tour was a zip line that opened up over a lagoon and we had to let go of the roap anddrop in the water ourselves, they weren't controlling it this time. They told us that if we did a back flip, we got a free beer. So naturally I did the best back flip. There's a photo sequence of it.

We pooled ourmoney andbought the CD with all the pictures that they took of us going down. Worth more than gold.

We checked into the Alpin Raft center at 9 Am, and got back at 3. It was a full day adventure. That nigth we were walking around our hostel and randomly stumbled upon a bar that was showing the Notre Dame game in Interlaken Switzerland! I'm not going to say anything more abotu that though, we lost.

The next day, we took the train into Zurich and spent the day there. It was beautiful. A river runs through th ecity, then opens up to a lake that the city surrounds. Gorgeous. We ate brats by the lake, surrounded by swans. It was so cool. Everything was way expensive there. I think it's number 4 or 5 most expensive cities in the world, so we got our free kicks from just sitting on a bench and people watching by the lake. Enough entertainment for a whole day.

Overall the trip to Switzerland was a great kick off to seeing the rest of Europe, and we all felt we set the bar pretty high for our other European travels.

That's all for now, I'll have more on London and more travels soon!