Side note: West and I recently had a conversation about city names and how they are pronounced and spelled one way in Europe and another way in America. Is this due to American language? I thought all names kept their respective spelling and pronunciation regardless of language. Interesting! I'll have to look into it when I get back.
Anyway, here is the update on our stay in Switzerland:
West got creeped on by two twelve year old girls in the bathroom. Usually that stereotype is the other way around but this time the roles were reversed. As he was doing his "big business," as the sign on the toilet calls it, a young girl tried the door handle, realized it was locked and pressed her face up to the window glass. West could clearly make out her face so he is sure she could see him. If that wasn't bad enough already she started laughing and ran out of the bathroom. Not two minutes later, she came back with a friend and both girls pressed their faces up to the glass and laughed at West. When he told me this story I was dying of laughter... Him not so much. Haha It just goes to show you - you never know what can happen abroad, or know why the Swiss put windows on the toilet doors! Haha
Lets move on to a topic that is a bit more fun! Canyon jumping is probably one of the coolest, most adrenaline junkie things I've done thus far! (Video Here) I know I speak for both West and I when I say it was amazing and we would do it again in a heart beat. Furthermore, canyon jumping in Switzerland is even better! The scenery is unfathomable and we wouldn't have been able to experience it anywhere else! Grindewald, Switzerland is beautiful. It's full of rolling green hills with small cottages peppered all over the place and a river running through it (like many places in Europe). If you get the chance to visit, do it, even if its not for canyon jumping (although I highly suggest you do that as well)!
Another thing to note about Switzerland is that it's fairly expensive. No, I take that back - it's very expensive. For example: West and I bought two hot chocolates to warm up after our jump because it was raining and chilly and it costed us 7 Swiss Franc... and they were small. Afterward we were told that it was actually cheap because it usually costs 5 for one cup. Silver lining!
Next thing to add to your list of things to do when you visit: high ropes course in the Alps! Very fun, very green and again, unlike anywhere else. We did the third hardest course (so there were two harder ones we could have tried). It costed us $37 Franc each and we could spend the whole day there if we wanted - totally worth it! We had a great time moving, climbing, swinging, jumping, and zip-lining through the trees. When we completed the first course we went backup for more, but this time we did the zip line course. This course consisted of only climbing and zip lines. It was so awesome! By this time we had gotten a hang of the carabeener (sp?) system and were moving through the course quickly, zip line after zip line! It was a great way to spend our morning and it didn't start raining until we left and got to the bottom of the hill! Can you say perfect?
Last thing to note is regarding the local cuisine. First and foremost - try it. They are so intent on making quality food that it was impossible to find a mediocre dish. Everything we had was delicious, down to the fish and chips in the Irish pub! What we noticed, however is that they too, like every place in Europe so far, charge for water - even tap water. So, to keep within a reasonable budget and spend more of our money on food than drinks, we always filled up our water bottles at the hostel and brought them with us. Some places did not like that! We were told to keep our bottles off the tables if we wanted to drink our own water. Usually I would be a bit annoyed about this because we were still spending 40-50 Franc on the meals, however we did as we were suggested since it is in the culture to pay for water here.
P.s. We met a couple on the canyon jumping adventure who have been traveling Europe together for the last month. They met through friends at a multi-day music festival called Tomorrow Land and the next day found each other, walking alone in a crowd of 180,000 people. I think that's a sign! Euro-trip love story! They were such nice people. One from Canada and one from Denmark and they seemed like they had already been together for years. I love seeing the way the universe brings people together! :)
West and I will also have a couple friends to meet up with in Barcelona after sharing a room with them in Switzerland. We talked about the rest of our trips over some drinks and it turns out we will be crossing paths again, so meeting up is a must! It's about to be a party in Barcelona!
We should make it to Venice around 5pm Wednesday our time. Since I don't have wifi on the train this blog will be posted after we get there. My hope is that we will see some beautiful architecture lit up in the night sky, indulge in some delicious Italian food (duh) and explore the city!
More updates later!
Ciao!
Xoxo
**Update:
On the train leaving Venice and should be arriving in Florence around 6:30pm our time.
Venice was very touristy. It has been overtaken with people selling knock-offs on the street (that they plaster "made in Italy" stickers on and forget to remove the "made in China" tag from the inside) and coming up to your table at an outdoor cafe during dinner - very annoying. The canals smell and the casinos are sized like those in a grocery store, yet they have Vegas, club-like entry points. Overall, it still has a LOT of character if you venture deep into the canals and take time away from the main walkways. We had a fun time exploring the character-filled areas, making our way to the Mediterranean Sea and finding delicious homemade pasta for dinner - that's not very hard. Also - the wine glasses we had for dinner were double the normal size - score!
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