Switzerland (7/16/10-7/18/10)

We left Bonn early on Friday morning to catch a train to Interlaken, Switzerland. The train ride was not too bad. I was sitting by an older German lady that spoke no English and we were teaching each other our respective languages using a couple of vocabulary sheets I had from our German lessons. It was very fun and I learned some new words and improved my pronunciation. When we finally got to Interlaken we had to take another train to Lauderbrunen. We were on this train and it turned out that it was a private line and our Eurail passes were not valid. Since we had just arrived in Switzerland, we had no Francs. The ticket checker allowed us to pay him 4 Euros each which was actually cheaper than we were supposed to pay. After getting to Lauderbrunen we went to the grocery store while we were waiting for the bus that had to take us to the Gondola station. In the grocery store we were astounded at the prices of the various goods. We bought a few things and went out and got on the bus which cost 4 Francs one way. We then made it to the gondola station and bought a round trip ticket for 8 Francs and took the Gondola up to Gimmelwald. The views in the Alps are definately more spectacular than anything I've ever seen in the U.S. Our hostel was very nice and not too expensive. It was a very fun place to stay because at night everyone in the hostel just kind of hangs out and plays games and drinks. We met many different people from all over the world as well as quite a few people from the United States. The next day we went canyoning which might have been the most fun thing I've ever done in my life. I had a great time with the guides Donny and Francie and I can't wait to go back and do it again. That night we took it easy in the hostel with everyone and taught some people from other countries American drinking games. I think they liked them because they said their drinking games mostly just consisted of seeing who could drink the most or the fastest. The next day we went hiking, but we underestimated the amount of time it would take to finish the hike and we had to turn back early in order to be on time for our train to Vienna.