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Week 10: To the Mountains!

  • paigemarquardt
  • Nov 4, 2019
  • 7 min read

10/28/19 – I started classes again this Monday. Wow, it’s going to be hard to get back in the swing of things. I got a lot of my exams back, and my grades were a lot better than I expected! Yay!


10/29/19 – Tuesday, for class we went to the Gucci Garden, which is an exhibit exclusive to Florence. The brand began in Florence, so they have a special museum with various pieces they have created over the years. I was so in love. They also have a store with exclusive merchandise, and also a restaurant. Did you know you can buy Gucci furniture? And Gucci china? A new goal has been set for my future: to have a Gucci dining room. For lunch, I got Indian food, which is something I have really been missing lately. It was actually pretty good!



10/30/19 – Most of Wednesday consisted of class and errands. Nothing too exciting, but not a bad day. It gets dark here so early now, though. It’s dark at almost 5:30. Apparently, we also switched off of daylight-savings time now without me even knowing.

10/31/19 – I spent Thursday packing and preparing for my trip to Interlaken, Switzerland this weekend. It rained most of the day here, and it’s supposed to rain every day we are in Interlaken. Fingers crossed it doesn’t! We left on our bus at 9pm to arrive at like 4 am (yikes).

11/1/19 – Early Friday morning, 5am to be exact, we arrived in Interlaken. And shortly after we arrived we went back to bed. We then woke up a little later, at 9am to start our day. Our guide told us the wrong times for when breakfast ended, so we missed out on our free breakfast that day (which is a big deal if you have been to Switzerland and seen the prices). We headed to Barracuda café across the street, and I got a pastrami breakfast bagel sandwich (exactly what I needed). Then we headed across the street to the pick-up point for our paragliding adventure we booked! We got in the van, got to the place, put on our hiking shoes, just to find out it would have to be rescheduled. Apparently the clouds were too low on the mountains to safely fly. The weather for the entire weekend was not looking very good, though, so we were worried we would never get to go. We decided to reschedule for 3:30 that day, just in case it also was canceled and we could then reschedule again. In the meantime, we took a walk through the town to the Lake Brienz, which was one of two lakes in the town (hence the name Interlaken, meaning between 2 lakes. Just a fun fact for ya). It’s a beautiful, bright blue because it is created from glaciers. We just walked around it for a bit taking some awesome pictures, and soaking in the nature. It was so incredibly peaceful there, I’m not sure why I haven’t moved there yet, honestly. A little bit of a change from the concrete jungle of Florence. Definitely the most relaxing weekend I have had here in Europe. After a little while, we were getting hungry. So we headed back into town to look for some lunch. Now, like I said before, if you have been to Switzerland, you know the prices. But if you haven’t been, prepare yourself if you ever decide to go. The average price for an entree is probably around $25 to $30 (even for a burger with fries). It is definitely the most expensive country I have been to besides Iceland. We ended up going for a Chinese place, since the pricing seemed to be a bit more reasonable at $20 a dish. It was nice for a change, though. After lunch it was about time for our paragliding, but we were positive it would be canceled because it was raining. We went over to reschedule, but the man at the desk said it was looking like we would be able to go. We anxiously waited for a while for the driver to arrive, and luckily the rain had stopped too. We jumped in the van, picked up the guides, and headed up the many curves of the mountain. We just kept driving up and up, I was surprised how high. When you are watching the gliders from the ground, it doesn’t look like they start out that high up. What I didn’t realize is that you literally run and jump off a mountain to get airborne (clearly I didn’t do a whole lot of research before deciding I wanted to paraglide, haha). Everyone jumped out of the van when we arrived at the top and hurried to prepare to fly. They brought us to where we were about to run off the mountain, and I was surprised to see how steep it was. I mean literally I had to run straight down the mountain at like a 120 degree angle (no exaggeration). Before I knew it, it was my time to go. I was nervous about slipping, since it had just been raining and I was running down a mountain. My guide told me to run as fast as I could, so I just went for it. I didn’t end up falling and it went smoothly! It was literally one of the craziest and coolest things I have done. I loved every second and immediately wanted to do it again. I found my new hobby, but too bad it’s kind of expensive (yikes). I got some cool videos and pictures of me in the air, though. After that we relaxed at the hotel for a bit before dinner. We really wanted fondue, but everywhere was booked. We ended up at a place with a small fondue portion and other food, so I got a burger too. After we stuffed ourselves so much we could barely breath, we went to bed.



11/2/19 – Hannah and I had signed up for a day trip to Zürich for Saturday. We left around 9am and got to Zürich around 11am. Our drop off point was Starbucks, so I indulged in a toasted marshmallow hot chocolate because holiday drinks are out, even in Switzerland (super delicious btw)! Hannah and I wanted a way to get around the city quickly, since we only had about 4 hours sadly. We saw two “Lime” scooters and thought why not. I had never used the scooters before, but have wanted to. They were fun, but it was difficult to navigate when you aren’t familiar with a city. I also almost fell off because it got stuck in the street car track, but all is good, no worries! We got the Grossmünster Church, where we climbed to the top of a bell tower. The view was great, and you could see all of the old town. After, we headed to the park we were told had a great view of the city. It was surround by cute and colorful little houses. We were pretty hungry at this point, so we began looking around. We found a place with several different kinds of foods under one roof. There was Italian, Lebanese, Chinese, and Japanese. We ended up getting the sushi because it was on a conveyor belt, which is always fun. It was pay by the plate and we ended up getting just 6 plates and it cost like $60. Sadly, we felt we shouldn’t buy more, but we were still pretty much starving. We were running out of time, so we walked around a little more to the other side. We stumbled upon a botanical garden, but not much was planted, since it was cold. We continued to walk around back into the old town and along the river. Then our prayers came true and we found a doner kebab walk-up stand. Finally we were full off a fairly affordable meal. After that, it was time to head back to the bus, and back to Interlaken. 2 hours later, we arrived. We relaxed in the room for a little bit, deciding what we would do next. It was just about dinner time, so we decided to go to a place that served apple sauce macaroni and cheese. This might sound like a bit weird of a combination, but it was literally one of the top 5 meals I have had abroad. The apple sauce is on the side, and you eat it with it. The mac and cheese also had small potatoes in it. Once again, I ate until I couldn’t breathe, so it was time for bed.



11/3/19 – Sunday was our last day in Switzerland. We decided to go to the St. Beatus caves near Interlaken. They were quite large and pretty cool. We also got our cheapest meal (a hotdog and fries for $14) with the best view of the lake and the mountains. Next we were going to head to the top of a mountain right before we left. However, this didn’t end up happening because the bus system is apparently very unreliable in Switzerland (or at least we didn’t have any luck). We waited for the bus for 40 minutes, but finally it did. We were getting nervous it would never come, though. Otherwise, we would have been stranded because there is no uber in Switzerland either (ugh). Also this entire time, a man (who seemed little off), was waiting for the bus on the other side of the street and kept blowing kisses and talking to us. It was little bit creepy. Kind of like a horror movie because we were stranded in the middle of nowhere with this crazy man. Okay, I’m being a bit dramatic, and there were other people around, but you get the point. We ended up not having time to do anything else, but grab a couple of chocolate truffles before we headed back to the hotel to leave. We left around 2pm, and got back to Florence at 11. It was like the longest bus ride ever because my phone isn’t working again, of course. Gotta get that figured out in Florence. Luckily there were some movies to watch.



 
 
 

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