switzerland

from austria we headed to switzerland. as previously mentioned, our last day in salzburg was a little rough. after the mozart dinner concert we pulled our luggage out of our locker and hung out in a heated waiting area until our night train arrived at 12:45 a.m.

for some reason i was really excited about taking a night train when we were planning the trip. this may have something to do with the fact that i've always loved squeezing myself into tight places (my dad would take me & my sibs to boat shows when we were little, and we'd always wedge ourselves into the tiny bunks and pretend we lived there), but really -- what was i thinking?

to begin with, the train schedule was awful (we arrived at 6 a.m.) and when it pulled up i was SERIOUSLY having second thoughts. when we opened the door to our tiny little room and it was dark and already full of four sleeping, smelly men -- i couldn't believe i had chosen this! i stayed awake most of the trip listening to snoring and thinking about all the bed bugs and lice i could be catching. i didn't even take off my shoes...i just shoved myself into my 6' by 2' bunk and waited for the sunlight.

after all that, switzerland was SUCH a nice relief. we were exhausted after having met our trip's halfway point -- tired of touring museums, tired of checking into new hotels, especially tired of entertaining ourselves.

so when we arrived in interlaken and it looked like THIS, we were thrilled:







can it BE any more gorgeous? switzerland is green, clean, crisp and amazing. after all the noisy dirty cities we'd been in, interlaken was an incredible change.

we were wasted when we got there after the train experience, but our awesome hostel let us shower and hang out until our rooms were ready.



the hostel was great -- super professional, clean and with great amenities. they even gave us free mini golf passes, which we put to good use.



we wanted to take the railcars up to jungfrau (one of the highest mountains in europe) but it cost 165 euro PER person! no thanks. we just admired it from afar instead:



switzerland proved to be just the relaxing break we needed. after the mini golf, we took naps, hung out in the hostel TV room watching CNN international and chocolat, walked through the tiny town admiring army knives and chocolate shops, and went out for official swiss fondue:



we were fully relaxed and ready for paris by the next day!