Our first full day, Interlaken Day 2

Morning in Interlaken! We woke up bright and early (around 7am) feeling rested, so we got ready for the day, and headed down to our delicious complimentary breakfast consisting of rolls, fruit, cheese, ham, cereal, orange juice and coffee. Over breakfast we discussed what we would like to do. We had considered going to the Jungfau- Top of Europe, but upon realizing that it was a full day trip, we decided to go for a nice hike. Upon Ursula's (the Rugenpark hotel owner) recommendation, we headed to the Beatenburg area for our hike.

Before we could do that though, we had to move from Rugenpark Hotel to our second hostel-- the Happy Inn.

Packing up and leaving Rugenpark

Less happy then the Rugenpark, it was still a pretty good spot, if you can ignore the smell of deep fried Chinese food wafting from the bar/restaurant below (not sure why it smelled like that, because it wasn't a Chinese restaurant). We couldn't move into our room right away, so we managed to smash our stuff into some lockers, and take off for the hike.

In order to get to our hiking destination, Waldegg, we had to take a bus! That was an experience unto itself.
View from the bus Why? Well buses aren't really the most graceful form of transportation when it comes to mountain travel. Lots of twisting turns, steep drop offs, and tight squeezes with oncoming traffic. Jacob had sweaty palms. As we approached a particularly blind turn, the driver hit the horn. And by horn I mean something that sounded more like a bugle call. As you can imagine, it was quite amusing. We managed to catch the moment on video the second time around on our way down the mountain.

After arriving at Waldegg, we searched for the trail head, which was cleverly hidden in what looked to be some kind of pasture. Nearly right away we were blown by the views and the lushness of our surroundings. Early on in the hike, we stumbled upon a wooden castle, which reminded me a lot of the old wooden castle at Timber Shores Playground that I used to play on until some uppity suburban parents (I presume) got all concerned and replaced it with a boring, safe playground and chopped down all the trees (Yes, i'm still bitter). But this castle was more impressive, and certainly had a better view.

Eventually we came upon some cows! Cows with bells around there necks! It was a very exciting moment for Jacob, because as he said "You know, you see all these cows as you drive down the highway, but I don't think I've ever been this close to one." And we were close-- you could definitely pet one if you wanted to (we didn't want to).

We also came upon this very large, very awesome dragon sculpture near a picnic ground. A rope hung from the bottom, which could be used to make the dragon's wings flap! It was pretty neat! I couldn't do it as well as Jacob because I have no upper body strength.

As we hiked, we continued to look for the perfect spot for our first official picnic. As we were nearing the end of the hike, we found it. See below:

Wow, it was amazing--- We set the bar pretty high on that picnic. (Read more about our 1st picnic in a future post). After the picnic, we hiked down to the nearest town to catch the bus home.

We were pretty pooped afterward, so when we got back we took a nice hour (to two hour) nap. I did some work, and worked on the blog a bit. Around 9, we headed out to find a cheap dinner. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed "the hunt" for an affordable but delicious meal in Europe. It's fun to walk from restaurant to restaurant reading the menu. We eventually settled on another pizzeria, but after waiting too long for service we left. We picked up some sandwiches and beer at a convenience-style grocery store (similar to Tesco in London, but nicer) and headed back to our hostel and dined as we blogged. Later on, we headed downstairs for a pint, before coming back to finish our blogging, and go to sleep. And that was day 2, our first full day in Interlaken.

Random thoughts/observations:

-I'm having fun learning how many ways there are to flush a toilet in Europe.

- This trip is kind of absurdly awesome

-Everybody loves American music

-Wonder if cows get sick of hearing those bells around their neck? (Dammit, every time I move my neck it's that bell ringing again!)

-Aside from the businessmen in Zurich, who can afford this place?

-Is this guy for real?

Other facts:

-We took 15,167 steps