Week 2 (2)

This weekend was our first traveling free weekend and a group of us decided to go to Interlaken, Switzerland. This city is by far the most beautiful city I have ever visited. Not only are there 2 crystal blue lakes that juxtapose the city, but it is also enclosed on almost all sides by the Swiss Alps. These two lakes are essentially reservoirs of the water that melts off of the alps, so even though it was the middle of the summer, what should be the hottest time of the year, the water was still impossible to leisurely swim in without a wetsuit. During my time in Switzerland, aside from exploring the city of Interlaken, I went white water rafting (down the flow of the melting ice) and hiking through part of the alps. This was not my first time hiking a mountain so this was not too new and awe-inspiring as was rafting. The experience of rafting was very fun as well as a great work out. We rafted a total of an hour and a half. There is simply no comparison to paddling down a river running between the Swiss Alps enjoying the ice cold water in a warm and cozy wetsuit. Since our time in Switzerland was somewhat limited, everything had to happen at a fairly face passed manner. Our mountain hike was up the smallest peak in the Swiss Alps, Harder Kulm. This peak, where we capture a short video blog was at 1322m and had a spectacular view of the city of Interlaken. Unfortunately, with all these amazing sceneries came a hefty price.  Not only does the country use a different type of currency (Swiss Franks, about 1.06 to 1 USD) but also prices everything extremely high. A pizza easily goes for 22-30 Franks, Big Mac meal 11.50, McDonalds (Basic) Hamburger 2.50, and even Döner, a relatively cheap turkish food (about 3.5 Euros in most of Europe), was 8 Franks. Overall, I felt that two days was the perfect amount of time to spend in Switzerland, to enjoy enough of the city and overpay for everything for just a short amount of time.