Jet lagged in Interlaken

We arrived at Interlaken West under sunny skies. It was good to finally be outside, since we had spent our previous 18 hours or so in a car, airport, airplane, or train with very little time outside in between. The air was cool and dry. Awkwardly handling our duffels and daypacks, we were off to find our first hostel, Hotel Rugenpark.

Ursula may well be the most friendly host we'll come across. If we are lucky enough to stay at a place with personnel half as accommodating as she was, we'll be just fine. She gave us a choice of two rooms, one with a clear mountain view off the balcony, and one not. Um, we'll take mountain view please. Beflowered and charming, Hotel Rugenpark is a place I'd recommend to anyone.

Jet lag is wicked old biddy. One gets to an exciting new place halfway across the planet, and the prevailing urge is to sleep. We fought The Urge for a little while. We walked a few quaint blocks, through a few traffic circles, avoided getting hit by the frequent speeding Audi, over a couple bridges that span the Aare River - as blue as a theme park water feature - in search of a place to either picnic that afternoon or eat that evening.

While the US dollar holds its own against the Swiss franc - $1 currently equals 1.019 SFr - dinner in Interlaken is still expensive. We managed to find a loaf of bread for around 3.50 SFr, and then two small (.5 l) bottles of wine and cheese for 11 SFr. Our intention was to find a spot to eat a picnic lunch, but that old biddy reared her amorphous, dreamlike head and we crashed at 4pm for about three hours. Jet lag's win-loss record throughout the history of air travel is astounding, experts agree.

Dinner that night was at a pizza place we found on our walk - Margherita Pizza. With two Rugenbrau beers, a pretty good local lager, our total came in around 24 SFr. We headed back to our room under a light rain, organized a little bit, and then submitted to sleep again with big plans to see the Alps from a little closer the next day.

Thanks again for the comments, everyone. Wish you were here.

(We predicted 2 posts today, but the internet is a bit slower than anticipated, and Windows 7 "starter" is a bona fide piece of crap. We've got a few more pictures up on our flickr. Check back tomorrow for more pictures and another post.)