My Future Home

This past weekend I was lucky enough to spend 3 days in Interlaken, Switzerland. Switzerland was always a place I had wanted to vista, but I did not expect it to be this amazing. Upon arriving in Interlaken I already knew I needed to come back.

As we boarded, I began to dread the 7-8 hour bus ride that was about to occur. Luckily, Bus2Alps made us feel right at home with movies such as "We're the Millers" and "Hitch" played the entire way. We checked into our hostel at 3am half awake, only to wake up to a beautiful mountain view from our room the next morning.

Prior to this trip my friends, Jenny and Emma, and I booked slots to paraglide at 8:30 in the morning. While the 4.5 hours of sleep were definitely noticed the next morning, I cannot imagine a better way to start my morning. Paragliding was one of the most amazing things I have ever done in my entire life. While I didn't have the funds to participate in the 500 euro skydiving activity as I originally hoped, I wouldn't trade anything for my paragliding experience.

We woke up around 7 am to get breakfast and prepare ourselves as much as we could. None of us had any idea what we were about to get ourselves into...we got picked up at our hostel and were taken to a shack to trade in our tennis shoes for hiking boots. As we rode up through the mountains with our (hot) British and German guides for 30 minutes, we gathered a few more details about paragliding. Pretty much, we would be attached to one of them with a parachute, and run off a cliff...comforting. While this sounds a bit terrifying to some, I, for some reason, couldn't have been more excited.

We get to a point at the mountain and the roads end. We take our parachutes and walk another 5-10 minutes up the mountain to reach over 10,000 feet up. Of course, my guide decides we should go first. Luckily, all of their comments about how new they are to paragliding and being amateur paragliding guides didn't get to me. The next thing I know, John (my guide) was telling me to run...I run and run and all the sudden, there is no more land below me; I am floating over all of Interlaken and could not be more stunned.

As I flew over the most beautiful city I have ever seen, I was officially experiencing the best and most exciting 12 minutes of my life. We flew over the mountains, lakes, village, and more. As we approached landing, my guide threw in some fun twists, turns and flips to make it even more exciting.   Since we were also doing this at 8:30 am, we got to witness a beautiful sunrise over the Swiss Alps. This experience really cannot be placed into words or pictures or anything, it was just amazing.

The next couple of days included us walking around with our other roommates, exploring, enjoying the scenery, and soaking in the 2 famous lakes that Interlaken resides between. Everywhere you go there is something new to see or something beautiful to look at. Every building is adorable and looks like what you would imagine the North Pole and Santa's workshop to be...it appears as if Elves could pop out singing Christmas carols at any moment (Christmas decorations were still up by the way...SO it was my dream town). The one and only downside to Interlake (and Switzerland in general) is how expensive everything is. While the CHF (frank currency) is almost equivalent to the USD, the cost of meals and everything else is almost doubled, I went broke trying to find food and souvenirs throughout the weekend.
 
Overall, my weekend in Interlaken was the best weekend of my entire life and I am absolutely obsessed with everything about it. I am making it my mission to go back at some point in my life. Thankfully, Bus2Alps made the long bus ride back through a blizzard enjoyable. We drove through 3 hours of straight mountains and winding roads and random caves and just all around beautiful scenery. Even though it was just a bus ride, I cannot get over the amazing scenery and small villages we passed through. "Zoolander" and "Pitch Perfect" during the bus ride also helped...