This goes down in the books as one of the most important days of my life. Matt, Nichole and I woke up with every inch of our bodies being sore, but we got ready and checked out of the hostel. We ate another gourmet hostel breakfast - plain cereal. After this we decided to explore all that Interlaken has to offer. In case you were wondering, Interlaken is very, very small. It is a town that is meant for outdoorsy activities like skiing, hiking, cliff jumping, bungee jumping, etc. not so much historical, educational vacations. Therefore the Webers would not deem this a traditional "Heck Educational Vacation" location. The town was gorgeous though and the scenery took my breath away everytime I looked at it. After walking around for a long time we drank some hot chocolate while we waited to do our big event for the day.
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| The Canyon |
The big event for the day is a canyon swing. A CANYON SWING! This consists of a 5 second free fall that turns into a gigantic swing that speeds through a beautiful Swiss glacial canyon. I was terrified! TERRIFIED! My stomach was in my throat and the thought of the canyon swing made me want to cry a little. While we waited we met three other people (studying in Florence) that were doing the canyon swing with us. Thankfully they were equally as scared as me. It was a little tough being around Matt and Nichole who were so excited. I felt better knowing that I wasn't the only one petrified about this canyon swing. The truck to take us to the canyon swing picked us up and took us the the destination. Within the van we met two more jumpers. These girls were thrill seekers and they were in Nichole and Matt's camp of excitement. After the drive we found out that there were 4 more people in our jumping group and that we needed to hike up a mountain in order to do the swing. Looking back the hike was actually the most dangerous part of the whole day. The mountain was covered in snow and ice so it was extremely difficult to make it up the mountain. During the entire trecherous hike I tried to avoid thinking about the jump by making chit chat with the girls from Florence. At the top of the mountain we got strapped into our harnesses and took some pictures with the professional photographer. Instead of being strapped in by the owner of the canyon swing, I was strapped in by his 13 year old son. That made me even more nervous. Like beyond nervous! Also my pictures were mostly just me fighting back tears, with a mix of trying to look excited. After everyone was strapped in and had their pictures taken we walked down to the platform in order to take the jump. I was placed in the middle of the whole group since I was the biggest scaredy cat of everyone. The first 3 guys jumped and it was at this point I couldn't hold back the tears, I started to cry. Everyone in the group tried to make me feel better and support me through it. The 2 thrill seeking girls jumped next - they of course had no problem. Then it was Matt's turn - he also jumped with a lot of ease. Then it was my turn, I step up to the platform and the guy working the platform could see all of the fear in my eyes, so he hands me a bottle of vodka and say "drink!" and what did I do? I drank. Instead of describing my jump I will let the video speak for itself:
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| Phi Gamma Nu helps people conquer Phearss |
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| Making new friends |
Although I was petrified, this event ended up being the one of the coolest and exhilarating things of my entire life. I ended up being the person in the group that loved the jump the most - kinda ironic right? After everyone in the group jumped we all headed back to our hostels. Nichole, Matt and I were starving so we went to eat some pasta at a restaurante close to the hostel. We ended up running into the girls that jumped with us and we got to know them a little better. After dinner we hightailed it to the train station in order to catch a train to Zurich. When we go to Zurich we struggled a little to find our hostel. Also side note: tons of people smoke in the Zurich train station. That didn't help my cough that I was develpoing. After arriving at our hostel we relaxed a little before heading out to check out the bar scene of Zurich. While in the hostel we met a brother and sister who were backpacking around Europe. And guess where they were from. ST LOUIS! What a small world. It was really nice to meet someone from my hometown and chat about things that were very familiar. In addition to the brother and sister we made friends with a guy from Chile take was a journey to find the woman he fell in love with a couple of years ago. After getting a chance to know them we ended up going to a bar. The nightlife in Zurich is definitely different that Dublin nightlife but it was nice to be out with Nichole and Matt. We drank a couple of drinks and then decided to call it a night
Cheers,
Jenny
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