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

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.)

Planes, Tranes, and Travel Notes

We’re here!! And by “here” I mean HERE, Interlaken Switzerland! Here’s rundown of our journey from Minnesota to Switzerland:

The plane:

Generally a great flight—it went quickly, despite the fact that neither of us were able successfully sleep much. We hit up the in-flight trivia right away, which was awesome, but would have been more awesome if it wasn’t just Jacob, me, and some guy named John in the 32nd row playing. I watched Date Night with Tina Fey and Steve Carrell—weird movie, not at all what I would have thought. I’d give that a 2 on the old Netflix rating. We both did a little music listening, a little reading, and lot of trying to sleep.

Just barely made the connecting flight to Zurich. Had to go through security again in Amsterdam, which would have been okay, except they literally took apart my carry-on. We ended up running to the gate and OF COURSE it was the last gate in the concourse. Sweatily, we boarded the plane amongst a sea of over- cologned, hair slicked-back businessmen. We were definitely the most underdressed on the plane. Who knew? Good Flight though and we arrived ahead of “shed-yul.”

The train:

Since we will be flying out of Zurich at the end of our trip, we decided to skip sight-seeing in Zurich and get straight to Interlaken. We chose the train with only 1 transfer in Bern. The views were magnificent, especially as we approached Thun, Spiez, and Interlaken. Dark green mountains, puffy white clouds, and a lake so blue that it actually made me wonder if I was on some Disney Swiss-themed amusement park ride (I still think that may be the case).




Travel notes:

1-hour layover in Amsterdam is not enough time. Had the security line been any longer we would have been SOTL.

-Our bags are lot heavier now that we are carrying them “for realsies” instead of testing them out in my living room and pretending to walk the streets of a European city.

-Despite leaving extra space in my bag, once I added all my carry-on stuff, I realized that I probably over-packed. And Jacob is ALREADY talking about sending books back.

-Learning more about the logistics of bag-packing. When you’re staying in a hotel with a shared bathroom, it’s best to have your slip on shoes easily accessible—going to have to do a bit of a repack tonight I think.

Well that’s about it. More on our Interlaken adventures soon, hopefully!

P.S. Sad that the Vikings lost. Kinda glad we missed that one.

Guten Tag from Interlaken

Our first night in Europe is in Interlaken. Interlaken, which I hear means between two lakes, is aptly named, as it is between two lakes. Very blue lakes. Some of the bluest water I've ever seen. Like 2000 Flushes blue.

You could say we had our first picnic in - or perhaps above - Europe on the plane from Amsterdam to Zurich. Just over an hour, we were provided a sandwich with one half pastrami and cheese, one half strawberry cream cheese on organic bread. As a beverage, I had a Coke - a real coke, the way it should be, with real sugar. None of that high fructose corn syrup here. So good.

We were literally sweating it as we had to run from our overseas flight to our transfer to Zurich. We had about 30 minutes to get from the tarmac bus to the gate, so we got our morning jog in from security to the gate just as the sun was rising in Amsterdam. So, yeah, an hour is not enough time between an arrival and a transfer, overseas.

Alright more info from Karina on this, including train window shots!

Sipping my last sips of a great Minnesota beer, trying to kill mosquitoes

And we're live! Welcome to Via Picnic! More info on the name of this blog, what we're doing here exactly, and a general introduction can be found on our inaugural post.

It's our last night in Minnesota, and we're off to Zurich tomorrow. (The Alps!!) Thanks to everyone who played a part in our send-off this last week or so. It's hard to say goodbye, but it makes the hello that much sweeter. Or something. We'll miss everyone a great deal, seriously. (Except you, Mr. Mosquito. Aww, just kidding, c'mere you! **WHAP**...dead.)

Today has been full of packing, flu shots, more goodbyes, and tummies full of pizza. The least fun part is the packing. Packing for three months is hard! Karina's already on her second try. I've just got a bunch of shirts rolled up like cinnamon rolls, laying around the room. I count this as progress.

It'll all work out. Right? Right???

Anyway, see you on the flip side. Leave a comment!! Let us know you're reading!!