Hi all!
On my last weekend, I wanted to do something crazy fun, something out of the ordinary... I had heard from many people throughout the summer that when you are looking for this kind of fun, go straight to Interlaken, Switzerland. Interlaken is a quiet town in eastern Switzerland that is surrounded by two lakes to the east and west and towering mountains to the north and south. This location is unique because of all the amazing terrain it offers. You can do anything from skydiving, to ice climbing, to whitewater rafting, and much more. I chose two events out of the list and decided on Canyoning and Hang Gliding.
The only tricky thing about this town is that there are only so many places to stay, and I wasn't able to book too far in advance so I ended up staying in a town further down the lake from Interlaken called Iseltwald. The Lake Lodge we stayed at was right on the banks of the glacier melt water with amazing views and cozy rooms (compared to most of the other places I had stayed this summer).
Saturday morning I headed out to go canyoning in the Grimsel canyon about an hour outside of town. Canyoning is a combination of rock climbing, rappelling, zip lines, and swimming all through about a kilometer of a canyon. When we started it was extremely foggy, raining, and cold but luckily they put us all in wet suits, life jackets, and helmets to keep us safe and warm. We started off rappelling into the canyon from the side of a road over 50 meters above which was a scary feat with the fog all around us. We then walked, waded, swam, jumped, slid, and zipped our way across rock formations through the canyon. The total length was only about a kilometer or so, but still the adventure took the better part of 3 hours. There are pictures to come of the whole trip, but it was a bunch of fun and I would definitely recommend it to anyone going to Interlaken.
The only other bad part about Interlaken (and Switzerland in general) is that the food is really expensive so eating out wasn't exactly an option. I managed to find the local grocery store and grab some food and snacks for the weekend though and it didn't turn out too bad at all.
Sunday I had arranged to go Hang Gliding, in the hopes that the fog and bad weather would clear up by then. When I got picked up for the trip out to the take off site, I met Birdman Bernie (The dude in the videos that is flying me around) from Australia and he gave me all the necessary instructions and preparations for taking off while we were still in the last of the fog on top of the mountain. (The videos that he taped are all in the Interlaken album with the pictures) When we were done setting up the hang glider the fog finally lifted in such a short time that it just seemed like luck. We took about 5 running steps and lifted up into the air, quickly ascending over 100 feet above the mountain. The entire ride was crazy to watch from that high up and was actually rather serene until we started diving down towards the lake and making all sorts of sharp turns. I was absolutely thrilled the entire time and after our quick landing I could only think about going up for round 2. Unfortunately, hang gliding is rather expensive so there was only one trip for me this time, but who knows... maybe there will be more later in life!
I then went kayaking when I got back to the hostel so I could explore the lake around me. I paddled to a small island, almost flipped over countless times, avoided the ferry, watched some local kids jump into the lake on a rope swing, and admired the beauty of the surrounding forests and mountains on what turned out to be a windy, but clear and sunny day.
After that, it was still only about 4pm so I decided to catch the ferry I had seen earlier to tour through another town on the other side of the lake called Brienz. The ferry was a spectacular ride with great views and restaurant/bar service on board if you felt like paying for it. Upon arriving in Brienz, I realized that just like all the other towns around the lakes this one was kind of small and didn't have much in it besides a small movie theater and a couple of restaurants. So instead I grapped some ice cream and rode the ferry back to Iseltwald.
I then headed out on Monday morning, but all in all Interlaken is a great area to stay in if you are looking for adventures or if you just want to relax and kick back. 10/10 I would go back (maybe with more money next time... haha).
P.S. - This was my last weekend trip because I have finals coming up next week, but Kris and I will be going out to several cities after finals since we aren't scheduled to fly out until August 11th. Budapest, Vienna, Munich, and Frankfurt here we come!
Cheers!
Brian
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Bastille Day Weekend in Paris
Hi everybody,
Now that I'm back from my last weekend trip I need to catch up on some blogging. Two weekends ago was our Paris trip and when we scheduled it we found out that it was Bastille Day on that Saturday! It's basically their day of Independence celebrated on the day the people stormed the Bastille prison back at the start of the French Revolution in 1789. So when we got into town and got settled in our hostel on that Saturday morning, we decided to partake in as many events as we could. Number one, the Louvre had free admission all day so we couldn't pass that up. We walked through as much of the museum as we could manage in the four hours or so that we were inside and saw hundreds of paintings, sculptures, and ancient egyptian artifacts. We had most of it explained to us by the audio guide for the museum which turned out to be a Nintendo 3DS of all things (I got a good laugh out of that one). The Louvre is a massive three story museum with a couple of sub basements for special exhibits and the entire building covers a massive plaza in the center of Paris. There are enough works of art to keep anyone busy for several days or even a week depending on how often you stop to examine different art works. By the end of the day I had seen some of the famed paintings from school art books, including The Oath of the Horatii and Liberty Leading the People. Unfortunately I didn't manage to see the Mona Lisa because they closed that section of the exhibit right as I walked up to it around closing time, but overall the Louvre is a must see if you enjoy almost any kind of art.
Later that evening we had to deal with some rather crappy service at a restaurant that resulted in us leaving after two ridiculously overpriced beers. This ended up being a small theme in our trip which made us realize why Paris is NOT our favorite city. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is really expensive, and a lot of the service was unfriendly, or just plain rude. It may have been simply because we were just another two American tourists, but whatever the reason I didn't appreciate it at all.
On a sweeter note, Saturday night's main attraction was the fireworks over the Eiffel Tower. We showed up about an hour early to find seats, only to discover the place was already packed with what seemed like well over 100,000 people if not more. When the sun finally dipped down around 11pm they started the awesome show of fireworks behind and around the Eiffel Tower, a giant 20 ft. diameter disco ball suspended between the two levels of the tower, and shimmering lights all over the tower's metal skeleton. The funniest part of all of it was that the music choice was almost all American 80's pop music (I guess it hasn't died just yet).
Sunday was our day of walking around the city. We made it up the walking section of the Eiffel Tower (They let you go 2/3 of the way up and then ask for more money to take the elevator to the top... No thank you) and ironically managed to find a cheaper cup of coffee at the restaurant up there than we had anywhere in the park surrounding the tower. We then walked to the Arc de Triomphe and the shopping strip leading away from it (which happened to include several concept car stores which Kris and I couldn't pass up). Next we visited the Cathedral Notre Dame which was an astounding view from the outside but we didn't make it in the building because it was close to closing and the line outside was over an hour long. We then grabbed some beers and a cheap dinner at an Irish Pub and a sandwich place nearby, respectively. Seeing as everything is really expensive in Paris we just decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel after that.
Monday was our last half day in Paris and we spent it walking around the Lafayette Galleries and visiting the Opera house, and the Church of the Madeliene, followed by a trip to a carnival set up on the park of the Louvre museum. We rode the massive and ridiculously fast centrifuge ride that swings you around in a giant circle (with around 5.5g's) and spins your seat upside down at the same time. That was a really fun time and Kris managed to get a short video of it to explain it better. (I'll get him to post it to Youtube later so I can share it) Then we spent the rest of the day lounging in a couple of chairs by the fountains in the Louvre park since, you know, that was FREE.
To sum it up, Paris is fun but really expensive and the people have a tendency to not like tourists at all so it's not my favorite city I've been to.
Brian
Now that I'm back from my last weekend trip I need to catch up on some blogging. Two weekends ago was our Paris trip and when we scheduled it we found out that it was Bastille Day on that Saturday! It's basically their day of Independence celebrated on the day the people stormed the Bastille prison back at the start of the French Revolution in 1789. So when we got into town and got settled in our hostel on that Saturday morning, we decided to partake in as many events as we could. Number one, the Louvre had free admission all day so we couldn't pass that up. We walked through as much of the museum as we could manage in the four hours or so that we were inside and saw hundreds of paintings, sculptures, and ancient egyptian artifacts. We had most of it explained to us by the audio guide for the museum which turned out to be a Nintendo 3DS of all things (I got a good laugh out of that one). The Louvre is a massive three story museum with a couple of sub basements for special exhibits and the entire building covers a massive plaza in the center of Paris. There are enough works of art to keep anyone busy for several days or even a week depending on how often you stop to examine different art works. By the end of the day I had seen some of the famed paintings from school art books, including The Oath of the Horatii and Liberty Leading the People. Unfortunately I didn't manage to see the Mona Lisa because they closed that section of the exhibit right as I walked up to it around closing time, but overall the Louvre is a must see if you enjoy almost any kind of art.
Later that evening we had to deal with some rather crappy service at a restaurant that resulted in us leaving after two ridiculously overpriced beers. This ended up being a small theme in our trip which made us realize why Paris is NOT our favorite city. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING is really expensive, and a lot of the service was unfriendly, or just plain rude. It may have been simply because we were just another two American tourists, but whatever the reason I didn't appreciate it at all.
On a sweeter note, Saturday night's main attraction was the fireworks over the Eiffel Tower. We showed up about an hour early to find seats, only to discover the place was already packed with what seemed like well over 100,000 people if not more. When the sun finally dipped down around 11pm they started the awesome show of fireworks behind and around the Eiffel Tower, a giant 20 ft. diameter disco ball suspended between the two levels of the tower, and shimmering lights all over the tower's metal skeleton. The funniest part of all of it was that the music choice was almost all American 80's pop music (I guess it hasn't died just yet).
Sunday was our day of walking around the city. We made it up the walking section of the Eiffel Tower (They let you go 2/3 of the way up and then ask for more money to take the elevator to the top... No thank you) and ironically managed to find a cheaper cup of coffee at the restaurant up there than we had anywhere in the park surrounding the tower. We then walked to the Arc de Triomphe and the shopping strip leading away from it (which happened to include several concept car stores which Kris and I couldn't pass up). Next we visited the Cathedral Notre Dame which was an astounding view from the outside but we didn't make it in the building because it was close to closing and the line outside was over an hour long. We then grabbed some beers and a cheap dinner at an Irish Pub and a sandwich place nearby, respectively. Seeing as everything is really expensive in Paris we just decided to call it a night and head back to the hostel after that.
Monday was our last half day in Paris and we spent it walking around the Lafayette Galleries and visiting the Opera house, and the Church of the Madeliene, followed by a trip to a carnival set up on the park of the Louvre museum. We rode the massive and ridiculously fast centrifuge ride that swings you around in a giant circle (with around 5.5g's) and spins your seat upside down at the same time. That was a really fun time and Kris managed to get a short video of it to explain it better. (I'll get him to post it to Youtube later so I can share it) Then we spent the rest of the day lounging in a couple of chairs by the fountains in the Louvre park since, you know, that was FREE.
To sum it up, Paris is fun but really expensive and the people have a tendency to not like tourists at all so it's not my favorite city I've been to.
Brian
Friday, July 13, 2012
Prague, I'll take the Czech please!
Hey guys,
Once again a busy week at school with two tests so I didn't have too much time to write until now, but here was the synopsis on last weekend in Prague.
Kris and I took a night train (with slightly more comfortable seats than usual) on Friday last week and got into Prague around 10:30am. We managed to get the usual city metro/tram passes and found our way to the Hostel we had booked. The place we stayed at was called the Clown and Bard with a full bar and lounge area for reception which really fit to the "college kid traveling through town" atmosphere. We had a provided breakfast there around 11 and then headed into the Old Town to find a tour of the city. We were planning on doing a New Europe tour which are supposed to be very good, but unfortunately their English speaking guide was sick, so we had to find a different company. We ended up going with a local guide who owned her own company and honestly, I wish the other dude hadn't been sick. Our replacement guide spoke moderately (I'm being nice here) good English and had a decent knowledge of the city's history since she had grown up there. We walked around the Old Town and saw the famous astronomical clock, the remnants of the destroyed town hall where the resistance met during WW II and some other cool sites. After the tour was finished around 4pm, we stopped at a local restaurant for food and drinks. We were able to splurge a little bit this weekend because everything is ridiculously inexpensive compared to most foreign currencies. For example, we each had three beers and a full entree plus and extra side for about 10 euros per person (which by Czech standards is a massive meal). We then headed back to the room to change clothes and prepare for Saturday night.
For our Saturday night, we bought tickets to go on 'The Prague Pub Crawl' which was the biggest pub crawl in town, by far! There were around 250 people signed up for the night total, so they split us up into three groups. We went in the second group with some other GTL kids we ran into on the walking tour and had an hour of unlimited drinks at the Pub Crawl Bar followed by a crawl to two different bars, each with a welcome shot (literally the worst vodka I've ever had. I should have just thrown it away and done them a favor) followed by music and dancing at each place. Kris and I had a couple more beers in the night, but nothing too crazy meanwhile everyone around us was going berserk! We ended the night at the biggest club in Central Europe called 'Karlovy Lazny'. This place has five stories of bars, dancing, and loud music with a different theme on each floor. The basement was a typical modern age club with a light up floor and a bar, the first floor was the Ice Bar (which I wish I had the money to get into, but we didn't have free entry to that part) and a Lazer room (the only way I know how to describe it) with all sorts of colored lazers and light decorations shooting around the room. Moving on up, the second floor was an oldies dance club with an even bigger light up floor and plenty of retro decorations everywhere while the third floor was a hip hop club with a bar surrounding a dancing pit with a ceiling of LED lights that flowed over us in coordinated colors and patterns. The fourth floor (I guess this is five and the basement counts as one) was a chill bar area with some slightly less loud music playing and plenty of chairs and couches to lounge out on. Needless to say it was the biggest club I've ever been to and it was crazy fun!
Sunday was the day Kris and I decided to just walk around the city on our own and do some shopping. We first took the tram across the river from the Old Town to see the area we hadn't been to yet. We visited St. Nicholas Cathedral and climbed to the top of the spire which was around 70 meters of stairs. We got some great views of the city and learned the history of how the tower was used by the Communist regime to spy on the locals as well as diplomats and politicians who stayed in town. (Creepy right?) We also read some history about the construction of the tower and how the bell was moved into place. My favorite paragraph I read had a hilarious joke in it about how they got the boys of the town to remember the momentous occasion: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/QvGvFb0Al37K_bVVRIvRztMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink
We then walked across the historic St. Charles Bridge where we browsed through souveneirs, and listened to the local 'Bridge Band' and listened to a couple of songs. They have some songs and performances on YouTube if you want to look them up (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cedRtvynJLU&feature=related).
We then went souvenir shopping at some local stores and noticed that the Bohemians are famous for their glass work. All the shops we went into were astounding and if I could afford anything in there I probably would have jumped on it. Instead I got a nice half liter ceramic beer mug that was rather cheap and looks awesome. I'll have to show it off when I get back haha. We also passed one of the few tourist traps that I let myself fall into... A LEGO MUSEUM! Kris and I couldn't help but reach back to our childhood as we walked through the multi-story musuem with over 2,000 models of many ages of lego sets. Including many of the ones we build as kids! We almost weren't able to leave the top floor solely dedicated to Star Wars models but we finally made it out of there. For the full synopsis of the place check out the ridiculous amount of pictures I took on my Picasa page.
We then walked around and found another place to grab food that was once again really cheap. I had an amazing breaded chicken breast and potato dumplings with assorted veggies and a nice beer to wash it down for the low price of about six euros. The rest of the night wasn't too exciting except for the umteenth Irish Bar we ran into that had 35 Czech Crowns for a large beer, and 50 Crown Jagerbombs. I couldn't resist! but then we called it a night after not too long and got a full night's sleep before taking the bus/train combination 15 hour ride back on Monday. The ride back never seems to work out the way you want it to.
Heading off to Paris for Bastille day tomorrow!
-Brian
Once again a busy week at school with two tests so I didn't have too much time to write until now, but here was the synopsis on last weekend in Prague.
Kris and I took a night train (with slightly more comfortable seats than usual) on Friday last week and got into Prague around 10:30am. We managed to get the usual city metro/tram passes and found our way to the Hostel we had booked. The place we stayed at was called the Clown and Bard with a full bar and lounge area for reception which really fit to the "college kid traveling through town" atmosphere. We had a provided breakfast there around 11 and then headed into the Old Town to find a tour of the city. We were planning on doing a New Europe tour which are supposed to be very good, but unfortunately their English speaking guide was sick, so we had to find a different company. We ended up going with a local guide who owned her own company and honestly, I wish the other dude hadn't been sick. Our replacement guide spoke moderately (I'm being nice here) good English and had a decent knowledge of the city's history since she had grown up there. We walked around the Old Town and saw the famous astronomical clock, the remnants of the destroyed town hall where the resistance met during WW II and some other cool sites. After the tour was finished around 4pm, we stopped at a local restaurant for food and drinks. We were able to splurge a little bit this weekend because everything is ridiculously inexpensive compared to most foreign currencies. For example, we each had three beers and a full entree plus and extra side for about 10 euros per person (which by Czech standards is a massive meal). We then headed back to the room to change clothes and prepare for Saturday night.
For our Saturday night, we bought tickets to go on 'The Prague Pub Crawl' which was the biggest pub crawl in town, by far! There were around 250 people signed up for the night total, so they split us up into three groups. We went in the second group with some other GTL kids we ran into on the walking tour and had an hour of unlimited drinks at the Pub Crawl Bar followed by a crawl to two different bars, each with a welcome shot (literally the worst vodka I've ever had. I should have just thrown it away and done them a favor) followed by music and dancing at each place. Kris and I had a couple more beers in the night, but nothing too crazy meanwhile everyone around us was going berserk! We ended the night at the biggest club in Central Europe called 'Karlovy Lazny'. This place has five stories of bars, dancing, and loud music with a different theme on each floor. The basement was a typical modern age club with a light up floor and a bar, the first floor was the Ice Bar (which I wish I had the money to get into, but we didn't have free entry to that part) and a Lazer room (the only way I know how to describe it) with all sorts of colored lazers and light decorations shooting around the room. Moving on up, the second floor was an oldies dance club with an even bigger light up floor and plenty of retro decorations everywhere while the third floor was a hip hop club with a bar surrounding a dancing pit with a ceiling of LED lights that flowed over us in coordinated colors and patterns. The fourth floor (I guess this is five and the basement counts as one) was a chill bar area with some slightly less loud music playing and plenty of chairs and couches to lounge out on. Needless to say it was the biggest club I've ever been to and it was crazy fun!
Sunday was the day Kris and I decided to just walk around the city on our own and do some shopping. We first took the tram across the river from the Old Town to see the area we hadn't been to yet. We visited St. Nicholas Cathedral and climbed to the top of the spire which was around 70 meters of stairs. We got some great views of the city and learned the history of how the tower was used by the Communist regime to spy on the locals as well as diplomats and politicians who stayed in town. (Creepy right?) We also read some history about the construction of the tower and how the bell was moved into place. My favorite paragraph I read had a hilarious joke in it about how they got the boys of the town to remember the momentous occasion: https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/QvGvFb0Al37K_bVVRIvRztMTjNZETYmyPJy0liipFm0?feat=directlink
We then walked across the historic St. Charles Bridge where we browsed through souveneirs, and listened to the local 'Bridge Band' and listened to a couple of songs. They have some songs and performances on YouTube if you want to look them up (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cedRtvynJLU&feature=related).
We then went souvenir shopping at some local stores and noticed that the Bohemians are famous for their glass work. All the shops we went into were astounding and if I could afford anything in there I probably would have jumped on it. Instead I got a nice half liter ceramic beer mug that was rather cheap and looks awesome. I'll have to show it off when I get back haha. We also passed one of the few tourist traps that I let myself fall into... A LEGO MUSEUM! Kris and I couldn't help but reach back to our childhood as we walked through the multi-story musuem with over 2,000 models of many ages of lego sets. Including many of the ones we build as kids! We almost weren't able to leave the top floor solely dedicated to Star Wars models but we finally made it out of there. For the full synopsis of the place check out the ridiculous amount of pictures I took on my Picasa page.
We then walked around and found another place to grab food that was once again really cheap. I had an amazing breaded chicken breast and potato dumplings with assorted veggies and a nice beer to wash it down for the low price of about six euros. The rest of the night wasn't too exciting except for the umteenth Irish Bar we ran into that had 35 Czech Crowns for a large beer, and 50 Crown Jagerbombs. I couldn't resist! but then we called it a night after not too long and got a full night's sleep before taking the bus/train combination 15 hour ride back on Monday. The ride back never seems to work out the way you want it to.
Heading off to Paris for Bastille day tomorrow!
-Brian
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