48 Hours Interlaken

48 Hours Interlaken

This weekend was one that I will take with me for a long, long time. We spent the weekend in Interlaken, Switzerland at a hostel located in the city. The town of Interlaken is located in the Bernese Oberland region of the Swiss Alps and is absolutely beautiful. The town is surrounded by mountains on almost all sides, including one that was still covered in snow this time of year. It was quite a journey from Bonn to Interlaken, and we didn’t get into town until around midnight. The first night we just walked around the city, which while it was quite a tourist town was still relatively calm and peaceful at night. The next morning I woke up to a beautiful surprise of the mountains that were hidden by the darkness the night before.

Our morning started off with a nice tram ride up the Harder Kulm mountain from a station next to the Aar River which runs alongside the town. On top of the mountain there was a large deck and restaurant that overlooked the town below. The view from the deck was beyond breathtaking. The town sits between two lakes, Lake Thun and Lake Brienz with the river connecting the two, and in the background the peaks of the Alps could be seen for as far as the eye could see. We then hiked down 3.4 miles of steep, rocky trail that had countless picturesque views and was also a pretty good workout. After this first hike, I felt as if the trip had already been a success but we also had a lot of the weekend left. Later in the day, we went on a rafting trip down a glacier fed river that flowed into the Lake. It was an awesome ride with several fast moving rapids and great views. We all put on several wet suit layers because the water coming from the glacier was freezing but it was a nice to hop in every once in a while after a long spell of rowing. It was also really neat that six of us from the program were on the boat all working together to get down the river.

Sunday was a day that I most certainly will never forget. Alex, Shannon, and myself planned a sky-diving trip on Friday before we left Bonn and after 2 days of suspenseful waiting, today was finally the day. The first part of the day we just checked out of our hostel and grabbed some lunch. Every hour after lunch I got more and more excited about our adventure to come (I’m not really sure excited would be the correct word for Alex and Shannon). When we finally took off to go out to the sky diving hanger and get some lessons on how to skydive I was quite excited. There was a front coming in when we got to the hanger though so it was a quick process once we got all our gear on and learned the art of skydiving. Next thing I knew we were in the air and on the way up to 13000 feet. I could tell with every 1000 feet when got higher in the air Alex and to some extent Shannon and myself got a little more nervous. Finally at our target altitude, Alex was the first one to jump, well maybe be thrown is the better way to put it out of the plane. I heard her scream as she fell like a rock out of the sky towards the Earth. Now with quite sweaty palms, I thought to myself, that’s it, I have to jump now there is no way I will ever live it down if I don’t go and a girl that I know did right in front of me. The free fall out of the plane was something that I am not sure anyone has the words for. It was an experience like no other and I will hang on to this weekend for a long, long time.