Ash's European Adventures: Army Knives, Lindt Chocolate and Rösti…We’re in Switzerland!

Hey all,

When we arrived in Lauterbrunnen, we were in a little 4 bed cabin, sharing with this one lovely guy from Australia, who will be basically following our journey up until La Tomatina in Spain. He was really nice and lots of fun. We arrived at night, so of course the first thing to do is to go to the pub. We thought we’d go check it out. In Switzerland, every house built is required by law to have the same amount of space beneath it – a bunker. So the camping grounds (where we’re staying) had turned their bunker into a bar. It’s a pretty cool concept. But we only had one beer (beer is not their best attribute in Switzerland) and went to bed, being so buggered from the 10 hour drive from Paris. But at about 4am, we woke up to our lovely room mate coming in from the bar. Normally we wouldn’t care, it’s a shared dorm, you get what you pay for. But when they take a piss in the corner of the room, we reckon we didn’t pay for that. We just didn’t know what to do. We just laid there, and as he went off to bed, he began snoring like a royal arsehole. The snoring was so so bad. To the point I was hitting the wall and screaming ‘fucking prick shut up’.

(The Alps - out front of our door step!)

As we arrived in Lauterbrunnen at night, we couldn’t really see what was surrounding us until the morning. When we got up, and quickly got out of the piss room, we were in absolute awe from our surroundings. We were right in the valley of the Swiss Alps. And if you see pictures, nothing compares to seeing it in person. Every time I turn around or look out our cabin room window (and yes, we did change rooms) and see those snow capped mountains, it takes my breath away, every time! The valley is mates with 72 waterfalls, and pals with 11570 feet of magnificent mountains. It is like nothing we have ever seen in our lives, we could easily live here and never come back! It still snows in the summer time! The sun will be shining and you’ll see snow. And at least 20 times a day, you see base jumpers just throwing themselves off the mountain – it’s crazy! It’s amazing. I think I like it here more than France, which is a huge statement coming from me. But it’s pretty safe to say Adam likes it here best.

(Me and Adam half way up the Alps)

Well, on our first day, we thought we be all wild and adventurous and trek the Wëngen (pronounced Vengen) walking trail up the Alps. We first hit the town to get me some decent hiking boots (240 Swiss francs later) and then began the walk up this enormous mountain. And we walked UP, and I mean UP for 5000 metres. On at least a 55 degree incline. Ouch! We pushed on and pushed on, and it was so hard! Our legs were killing us, but we kept going, and finally made it to the top. I don’t think I would have made it if I was still smoking. I actually said to Adam at the top how disgraced I was at the thought that if I was still smoking, I probably would have had cigarette breaks on the way up. But I made it up, and I felt on top of the world – I probably was. At the top, the view was breathtaking, and there is a little village, so we had some lunch and strolled through the shops.

(White water rapids!)
We then thought about taking the train back down, but figured we had made it all the way up on foot (unlike all the other lazy people!!) so we’ll go down on foot too – probably not the best idea. It was so hard to hold ourselves back, we ended up running most of the way down – really scary cos you can’t stop yourself when you build up a bit of momentum. There were some people on mountain bikes flying down – crazy freaks. By the time we got down, about 9000 metres later, my feet were killing me from the new shoes, and our legs were like jelly. We were glad to get back and have a well deserved shower. Well, Adam was anyways. I was just happy to be clean. The hike itself gave me an awful rash – very painful. It was shocking, I was a turnip. And then the shower after – my skin was on fire – I cut myself from all the scratching. It annoys me so much that I can’t just do these things. But at the end of the day, I still did it – I pushed through and made it all the way to the top and back.

(Our view! among many...)

Well it may not seem like we did much on our first day, but that took hours. We had dinner at 10pm! But from day one, we realised how brilliant Switzerland is. Not only does it have the natural beauty of the Alps, but every shop sells Swiss Army Knives (please send us an email if you would like us to get you one – they have special edition ones you can only get in Switzerland), they sell Lindt Chocolate everywhere too which I have been making full use of! And they have a massive Ovaltine range here (as it is Swiss) so we have been having Ovomaltine (ovaltini musli – yum!) every morning for breakfast. But I think to top it off is their traditional dish: Rösti – it’s a big potato, cheese, bacon, egg, tomato, basil big lump thing. Sooo good. We will have to make one for everyone when we get back to Australia!

(Me at one of the shops - Swiss Army Knives everywhere - Adam bought 2!)

Well, lots to do, this is the adventure and skiing capital. We love this place; it’ll be hard to leave.

(Lauterbrunnen!)

We’ll put up the photos soon on Myspace. To all those who have sent us emails, for my birthday or anything else, I have checked it, but we’re so pressed for net time, its really hard to get online to reply – so just hang in there, you’ll get a reply soon!!!

(View from under the waterfall!)