Good thing I still haven’t completely unpacked from my EuroTrip because I found out a few days ago that I’ll be taking my first ever business trip – to Taipei, Taiwan.

WHAT?!

Yeah…that was my reaction. Of all the things I’ve done this year, this one is definitely the most random, unexpected and cool. Though it is a business trip, I do have a few days at the end to explore Taipei with two of my co-workers which should be a lot of fun.

I’m glad I have the EuroTrip under my belt to make the prospect of traveling itself less scary, but I don’t think any amount of traveling through Europe will have prepared me for the culture shock I expect to experience.

It’s going to be quite the shock on many levels, actually. Not only am I going to Asia for the first time, but I also get to stay in a HOTEL. And I don’t have to carry a gigantic backpack! And I get my OWN ROOM! After the hostel life, this is definitely going to feel like living in the lap of luxury!

I take off tonight (technically tomorrow, but very, very early in the morning) on an 11+ hour journey across the Pacific and arrive in Taipei on Monday morning, just in time for work. This will also be my longest flight ever, but after 21 hours on a train from Sicily to Venice I think I’ll be able to manage. Business class with food and movies doesn’t hurt either.

Needless to say I’m pretty excited about this trip. Getting to go somewhere I would have never really chosen to go on my own, traveling without worrying about my backpack being stolen or whether my hostel will have rats in the ceiling (yes, it’s happened), and getting to experience a whole new part of the world? Awesome. Oh, and the work part of it should be really interesting and fun too.

I really don’t know what to expect from Taipei itself. I’ve done my usual Flickr browsing to get a sense of the area, but I’m going to wing it. I have 2 things on my to-do list: 1) do the job I’m going there to do and 2) go to the night market.

I think I can fit that all into a week.

I’ll keep you posted! Next stop: Taipei!

Berlin. The last stop. Wow. Where the heck did the time go?

As I mentioned a bit ago, I decided to cut my trip short for a multitude of reasons. I burnt out pretty quickly. I probably should have taken some time just after graduation to just sleep and things before I took off on this adventure, but you live and you learn. I’m still perfectly happy with having traveled for 6 weeks and there isn’t a single place that I say “boo, I wish I’d gotten to go to X before I left” – and I think that’s the ideal point to wrap up my European Adventure.

I knew coming into Berlin that it was going to be a much larger city than what I’d seen during the rest of my trip, but I really wasn’t expecting it to be this modern. It was a lot like New York City at points, but less crowded and generally more pleasant (though drivers are just about the same). I guess it makes sense though, since the figure is something like 70% of the city was destroyed during WWII.

My first night was pretty low-key. After settling in and chatting with my roommates for a long, long while (2 from Israel and 1 from Brazil – it’s about the most diverse room I’ve had! Finally!), I went down to the lounge to check emails and all of that good stuff. I updated my twitter mentioning that I was in Berlin and within seconds I had a message on Facebook Chat from Carly, one of the people I went out to the beer halls with back in Munich. She and her husband Dan had also arrived in Berlin that afternoon! Sweet! We decided to meet up for the walking tour the next morning. I also spoke to Kay to see if he would be around to catch up for lunch or something. We sorted out the details and before I knew it, my entire next day was booked!

Two of my roommates and I went up to the hostel’s bar to take advantage of the free drink they give you at check-in. I went for apple juice. Lame, I know, but they carbonate it in most of the places I’ve tried in Europe. It’s tasty! Anyway – the hostel has a rooftop bar that overlooks the city. It’s a pretty amazing view from up there! The TV Tower, some old buildings that I never actually learned the names of, and all that fun stuff. Soon I was back in my room and in bed. I had to be up early to meet up with Carly and Dan.

With my map in hand, I started the walk to Carly and Dan’s hostel. It didn’t look very far on the map, but I gave myself an extra 30 minutes on top of the estimated 15 minutes it would take to get there. We all know how easily I get lost and we also know how I hate to be late! The walk was actually a lot shorter than I’d anticipated and it was a really neat neighborhood. It reminded me a bit of the Marina in San Francisco. Unfortunately it was so early that the shops were still closed, but I expected to walk back through that neighborhood on my way back to my hostel in afternoon, so I would be able to stop in the Crumpler store then.

Carly, Dan and I walked to the Brandenburg Gate, where our free walking tour started. It was really nice out and the whole place was abuzz about something! We couldn’t exactly tell if they were setting up or taking things down, but there was all sorts of commotion. Anyway – our walking tour set out and we stopped by places like the Brandenburg Gate (where we also saw the Adlon Hotel, where Michael Jackson dangled his baby from the balcony!), the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, some government buildings – both past and present, etc. When we got to a section of the Berlin Wall, it started to drizzle. We walked quickly to our next stop, which I think was the former HQ of the Luftwaffe, along some more roads and BAM. IT STARTED TO POUR. Torrential Downpour. Of course, my rain jacket was neatly stowed in the bottom of my backpack back at the hostel. For some reason or other I always thought it a better idea to carry my other jacket which is nowhere near waterproof. We were getting absolutely drenched. At first I tried to stay dry – or at least keep my camera dry, but eventually I just gave up on that effort and walked as if it were sunny blue skies, still trying to shield my camera, of course.

The guide decided that would be an opportune time for lunch, so we stopped at this restaurant which was now PACKED with tourists from the free walking tour, so we decided to walk down the block a bit until we found this coffee shop that would do the trick. It’s a good thing too, because about 2 minutes after we got to our table inside, it started to rain even harder! We felt so bad for the people on the bike tours who were just standing under any available awning with ponchos that weren’t doing their job very effectively. A quick snack later and with the rain all but gone, we headed back to the rest of our tour and continued on. We didn’t even make it a block before it started to pour again. Our tour guide brought us under a building for some cover as he tried to fill time until the rain calmed. About 10 minutes later he was still blabbing on and all we had to look at were some rain drops and the Mini Cooper store we were standing in front of.

At this point I began texting Kay to organize our meetup. We’d settled on 2PM at the S-Bahn in Potsdamer Platz. While the tour guide was blabbering away, I took a look at my map to see how far our meeting point was from the Mini Cooper store that was keeping us dry. It looked to be about a 10 minute walk, so I decided to leave the tour at that point and hope to make it to Potsdamer Platz before the rain attacked us again. Carly, Dan, Lindsay (another girl we’d met) and I had decided to meet up for dinner the following night and they continued on the tour.

The walk to Potsdamer Platz wasn’t too bad and the rain took pity on me and stayed away for nearly the entire walk! I waited for Kay outside of the giant green S for the S-Bahn. Though we’ve been talking online every once in a while since last summer when I worked at Flickr, we haven’t met in person. We decided to go to this Asian restaurant that Kay knew of. I have no idea where it was – somewhere on the U-Bahn, but it was called Good Times and let me tell you – it was!

This restaurant was definitely one of the highlights of the latter part of my trip and it was so nice to have some proper food for once – food that wasn’t fried or battered. It didn’t have bread or cheese or pasta. It was MADE TO ORDER. Sounds lame, but do you know how exciting it is to be in a real restaurant after eating sandwiches and schnitzel for the last however long? Very! We decided to take a chance and sit outside. They had huge umbrellas up and the rain had stopped for more than 30 minutes at this point, so we thought we’d be OK. The rain, however, had a different idea. It came down just as much as it had earlier, but luckily for us, this time we had this giant umbrella over our heads. And the food was too amazing to let a little water get in the way.

Poor Kay had to translate the entire menu for me, but I settled on some sort of Peanut Chicken and a drink that was called something like a Lime Cooler. Now came the cool parts: The napkins were folded like lotus flowers. Our drinks had real flowers in them (I think it was a hibiscus flower, but I’m not really sure). It was all so amazing! And then there was the actual food! I think my stomach actually sang it was so happy! Real food! Fresh food! Unfried food! Hoorah! Everything about the meal was spectacular and I had excellent company to boot!

Post-lunch, we hopped back on the U-Bahn (I think?) and Kay showed me around for a while. We, of course, took plenty of photos. Soon we found ourselves back in Potsdamer Platz and it was time for dessert. Kay knew of this ice cream place so we went there.

It was every bit as amazing as lunch. Had I known the ice cream was going to be that good, I might have cut back on my lunch! But then again, it probably worked out better this way! After flipping through the menu for longer than I probably should have and looking around at the other tables to see giant martini glasses filled with sundaes and generally large plates and bowls, I decided to get the one with 2-3 flavors (I really wish I could remember the flavors!) and all sorts of in-season fruits. The bowl turned out to be MASSIVE. Like the size of my head. Overflowing with ice cream, fruit, and whipped cream. Amazing. So. Amazing. I honestly considered licking the bowl when I was done, but I decided that it wouldn’t be the most appropriate thing to do in that situation. If only…

After we finished our ice creams, which took quite some time, Kay and I headed back to the S-Bahn and parted ways. It was great to meet him in person and it was definitely the tastiest afternoon of my entire trip! I also got to see some more of Berlin from someone who actually lived there, which was awesome!

I hopped back on the U-2 and headed back to my hostel. I was so incredibly full from an entire afternoon of eating (well, with a good bit of walking thrown in too). I was hoping to take a nap, but instead I decided to take the opportunity to start to pack up some of my things for the trip home. There were a lot of things in my bag that I intended to just throw out before I left – like the t-shirts that were beginning to get holes in them and the pants that were also starting to get some holes and were also a size too big at this point. I kept my jeans and anything that I bought while I was over there, but for the most part my bag was now filled with souvenirs and a few bits of clothing.

The roommates came back and we also had a few new people. We all chatted for a while again and went up to the bar to hang out as we decided whether or not we wanted to go out for the evening. I’m so glad we decided to go up to the bar, though, because right as we got up there, I saw some fireworks in the distance. I’m not sure where they were coming from or why they were going off, but there was some sort of fireworks show and we had an amazing view from the balcony of our hostel. Framed by the TV tower and some old buildings, we caught the last 5-10 minutes of the show. What a great day it was turning out to be – even with all of that rain!

We did decide to go out, but made it about 1 block away to one of the clubs recommended by the hostel. It was…umm… interesting? The crowd was certainly different than we were expecting – a lot grungier and almost had a 1990s Seattle look going on. We decided it wasn’t for us and after heading in a few other directions, we just decided to call it a night.

The next day was my last full day in Berlin and I only had one item on my to-do list: The East Side Gallery. It’s the part of the Berlin wall with all of the graffiti and artwork. I hopped on the train to the Gallery and walked the entire length. I have to say, I was slightly underwhelmed by the graffiti itself, or lack thereof. It had all been repainted in May of this year and it just seemed too new. I was expecting something more like the John Lennon wall in Prague. There were still some spots that were more “aged” – the paint was chipping, there were layers and layers of spray paint, posters had been stuck and peeled away over and over again – but for the most part the “history” of the wall seems to have been painted over which was kind of disappointing.

Before I got there, though, I stumbled across this festival in Alexanderplatz. I’m not entirely sure what the festival was celebrating, but it was a nice little detour on my way to the train station to get to the East Side Gallery. I stopped back there on my way back to get lunch and just kill time before dinner. There were people bungee jumping off of the side of one of the buildings which was pretty cool. I uncharacteristically considered doing it for a bit, but decided against it. Maybe next time. I moseyed my way back home (read: I got lost and basically took the very long way back) and found this neat little shopping center that I got lost in (nothing like getting lost while you’re already lost) but eventually found an Ampelmann store and stopped in to buy myself a cool post card that I’d seen earlier. It turns out that this shopping district eventually led me to the Marina-esque area I’d found on my way to Carly and Dan’s so I finally got to stop into the Crumpler store (I didn’t buy anything) and a few other cute shops.

Dinner was amazing once again (Berlin seems to be a great food city!) and it was the perfect way to end my European Adventure. After chatting with Lindsay, Carly and Dan for a few hours at their hostel, I hopped back on the U-2, back to my bed, and sorted out my transportation for the next morning. I had to be at the airport by 7AM so it was definitely going to be an early start. Luckily for me there’s a bus that goes to the airport and it was only about a 10 minute walk away (well…15 with the two backpacks on). Before I knew it I was on the plane and Newark-bound.

Berlin was one of my favorite cities of the trip. I’m so glad I didn’t cut it out! It’s an incredibly walkable city and it feels really safe, even at night. I would love to be able to live there for a year or two sometime in the future! But for now, it’s back to the good ole’ US of A – a few weeks in NJ and then off to my new life in San Francisco!

What a trip!

I got off of the train from Vienna sometime around 5PM I think. I had directions to the hostel this time, which was helpful, but they weren’t exactly step-by-step, which would have been nice in Prague considering I don’t speak an ounce of Czech. So after getting off of the train, I followed my instructions and found my way to the tram that would take me to my hostel. One problem: I needed a ticket for the train. And the ticket machine only takes Czech Koruna (Crown). Soooo I had to walk all the way back into the station (about 5 minutes and up and down more stairs than I’d prefer) to find an ATM. I was prompted to select how much money I wanted to withdraw: 200, 500, 1000, 1500, 2000. Hmm… 200 sounds good, right? OK, that done I headed back to the machine that sells tram tickets. Down more stairs, up more stairs, and what do you know? The machine only takes coins! All I had was a 200 Crown note. Alllllrighty then.

There was no place for me to just buy a ticket from the window and there were no change machines in sight. Fortunately for me there was a McDonald’s about 20 feet away. I went in, ordered a small thing of fries, got my “free” use of the bathroom (why do you need to pay to pee everywhere in Europe?!) and, coins in hand, I finally got my tram ticket. It was only 1 stop to the hostel and down a block or so. Thankfully because I was getting really sick of carrying my bags.

I was in an 8-bed dorm room and paid the equivalent of a whopping $27 (that’s US Dollars) for 3 nights’ accomodation. That’s $9 a night! That’s spectacular, even if I was stuck with the top bunk…

At this point I was pretty starving. It’s really tough to eat properly on travel days. I went to the hostel restaurant and ordered myself some dinner. As I mentioned before, I was ready to interact with other humans again after my hermit-ish approach to Vienna, so I picked the first table of people that I saw and asked to join them.

It turns out that they were a group of BusAbouters. Ha! We ended up hanging out for the rest of the evening. Apparently that Monday was a public holiday in Prague so there was nothing for us to do but hang around the hostel. A few people went out to the liquor store up the block to get some absinthe and well…that pretty much summed up the evening.

The next morning was a bit painful, but a few of us managed to get up in time for the free walking tour that left from our hostel at 10AM. We saw a whole bunch of Prague, despite the fact that our brains were still in siesta mode. I worry that my sleepiness and general lack of enthusiasm at being up and out that early tainted my appreciation for a lot of the things I saw, but I did end up going by many of the sites again in the next few days so hopefully not all was lost…

At one point we ditched the tour to grab a hot dog type snack from one of the street stalls. Since we skipped breakfast it was a much needed pick-me-up, though I was really worried about my stomach the entire time because it had been a little queasy all day and I wasn’t sure if putting food in it would help or hurt the situation but I decided to give a shot. The hot dog type thing wasn’t the tastiest or most logical snack given the circumstances, but it was the best option at the time. Luckily it didn’t cause much of a problem.

The tour left us off just a bit away from the Charles bridge. We’d all wanted to see the John Lennon wall which was on the other side so we started in that direction. We weren’t entirely sure where the wall was, but we figured we’d just wander until we found it. The bridge was really crowded with tourists, vendors, construction, etc., but we made it over and found ourselves on this really cute street full of more tourists and shops, but at least it was pretty.

A few of the girls needed to use the rest room so we made a pit stop at a McDonald’s on that street. The bunch of us who were waiting had plopped down on the curb until one of the girls came out to tell us they were ordering food. We assumed they were taking it to go, but soon after that another one of the girls came to the door to tell us to join them inside. They were going to sit down to eat. We weren’t entirely pleased with taking this much time at a McDonald’s, but it turns out that the value meal in Prague is absolutely huge and there’s no way you could walk and eat. I suppose it wasn’t that much larger than a value meal at home, but it certainly was cheaper and it came with a .75L bottle of water in addition to the regular drink! I wish the Mickey D’s in the States did that!

Finally, we were off again, in search of the John Lennon wall. We definitely ended up taking the long way, but it was worth it! It was a bit of a shame that people had graffitied over the “original” artwork, but the wall was still really interesting. We, of course, left our own marks there – well, at least as much as our permanent markers were willing to cooperate.

So it turns out that the wall was actually right near the bridge, so we climbed back up and headed for the tram back to the hostel. It’d been a long day of touring around and we were all looking forward to a nap.

That night most of the people that I’d been hanging around with went on a pub crawl. I wasn’t really up for it and my stomach was still being weird, so I decided to stay back at the hostel and just take it easy. I’m realy glad I did. Not only was everyone painfully hungover the next day (some were even still drunk the next morning), but it actually turned out to be a really fun evening at the hostel.

I’d been in the restaurant with everyone getting dinner before they all left for the pub crawl. After they left, as I was walking back to the main building, I saw a bunch of girls in the sand volleyball court just about to start a game. Without even thinking I asked if I could play. I haven’t played volleyball in agessss – I think since my senior year of high school! I was nervous to pick up the ball again, but I guess my muscle memory is pretty long-lasting because it was pretty smooth sailing! We played for a few hours, until it was getting too dark to see. So much fun! I have to find a place to play some sand court volleyball back in NJ and when I move out to CA. I miss it too much!

After a much-needed de-sanding shower, I plopped down in the common area with my laptop until bedtime. It turned out to be a really good day.

The next morning I still wasn’t feeling quite up to par, but a few of us wanted to go on a tour of the castle and had to be in town by 2:00PM. Mind you that everyone had been on the pub crawl that evening and some people didn’t even get back to the hostel until 5AM.

Around 8AM, I was woken up by this weird voice. I thought one of the guys had picked up a Czech girl on the crawl and brought her back to the hostel. I wasn’t pleased, to say the least, but then the voice came on again and said the same thing. At this point I noticed the beeping in the background. It was a fire alarm. The voice was telling us something, completely in Czech. No one in the room spoke Czech, but as more and more people awoke, we began to make out some words. Actually, just one word: evacuate.

The people closest to the windows checked outside to see if anyone else was leaving. We didn’t hear many doors opening and closing in the hallway, so we thought maybe the voice was telling us “DON’T evacuate.” We packed up our important items (computers, cameras, passports) and left the room. When we got to the lobby the people at the front desk were telling us, as if we were complete morons, that someone was smoking in their room and set off the fire alarm. No apologies, no “sorry for getting you out of bed by the voice of an infuriating Czech woman”, nothing. We were quite bitter and definitely made our frustration heard “how about some fricking English!?! How were we supposed to know not to leave!? No one here speaks fricking Czech!” etc. Ugh. Unpleasant indeed.

We attempted to go back to sleep, but some people in the room were wide awake (and possibly still drunk), so sleep wasn’t really an option. Eventually we got up – we still wanted to go on the castle tour. We made it in, but while we were waiting for the tour to pick us up we decided that we didn’t actually want to go on a tour and would much rather just walk around at our own pace. The 5 of us headed off in the direction of the tower, but were soon detoured, once again, by McDonald’s. A few of the girls who had been on the pub crawl were starving and wanted to eat before we went any further – thus, we began our quest to find the nearest McDonald’s. We followed the signs and about 20 minutes later we found ourselves at the same exact McDonald’s they’d decided to take a break at yesterday. And we weren’t exactly near the castle anymore.

Post-McDonald’s, two of the girls decided that they weren’t up for sightseeing and went straight back to the hostel. The remaining 3 of us began our hike to the top of the hill. It was not a quick process. Though the hills weren’t too steep, we found ourselves stopping every few minutes or so to regain coordination and a sense of balance (apparently the girls had had a big night). We ran into some friends on the way and sat to chat with them for a while, and, finally, we made it to the top of the hill. The views were amazing. You could see everything from there! It was definitely well worth the walk.

We moseyed around the castle area for a bit, but I’m getting kind of tired of castles, cathedrals, and palaces, so we didn’t go inside. Soon we found ourselves on the way back down the hill. I’ll spare you the details of a certain pit stop we had to make for one of the girls to cure her hangover, so to speak. Always an adventure… :)

One last agenda item was getting souvenirs. I’d picked up some post cards earlier in the day, but I hadn’t found any sort of token item and I needed a gift for someone. I didn’t have much luck, but I figured I could get something in Berlin so I wasn’t too concerned.

Back to the hostel and some more hanging out/napping/internet catching up. Somehow we all (this is about 15 of us now) organized ourselves enough to get on the tram back into town for dinner. Another beer garden, of course. This one was at the top of a hill also, with more views over the city.

We hopped off the tram at the correct stop, and were confronted with a staircase. A really, really, really long stair case. Alright everyone, time to get over your hangover and start climbing! So we did. 100s of steps. And when we got to the top and turned to walk, we were confronted with yet ANOTHER, equally steep set. When we got to the top of that one, yep, you got it, MORE STEPS. This went on for about 4 sets and then just a few mini sets (where mini = 15 steps. It’s all relative). FINALLY at the top, we look around and there’s nothing but a bunch of skateboarders, roller hockey players, and some grass and concrete. No tables, no chairs, no beer, no food. There was a view, but that wasn’t very satisfying considering what we were expecting when we got to the top. We were pointed in another direction by someone at the top of the hill and we started walking. About 20 minutes later, I think, we finally found a beer garden. It wasn’t the right one, though. We kept walking and then…THEN… there it was. I worried it was just an oasis at first, but it turned out that we were in the right spot. Thank god, because I was starving!

We ordered, ate, (yay for caesar salad!) and had fun, but then it started to get pretty cold and we all went in our separate directions – some back to the hostel, some to yet another pub crawl, and others…well I don’t know where they went!

Back at the hostel, another night of just hanging out, packing up, and early an early bed time.

I was planning to catch the 12:40 train out to Berlin, so I got up, packed up the last of my things, and checked out. Earlier I’d decided to take the morning to go back into town to check out the shops again and hopefully pick up some souvenirs. I did, and I found what I wanted, which was good, but I ended up missing my train. Boo. I’d have to wait until 2:40 for the next one, which wasn’t a huge deal.

Overall Prague was a really good time. It’s a gorgeous city with great architecture and cute, winding, cobblestone streets. Though it’s not really the type of city I’d consider moving to at some point in the future, it’s definitely a city I’d like to return to, especially during the fall months.

I wasn’t exactly disappointed by Vienna, but it definitely wasn’t the type of city I expected it to be. It was actually very American. It reminded me a lot of San Francisco and even some parts of NYC at times. Sure it had the cool architecture going for it in places, but overall I was pretty underwhelmed.

Rewinding: My first night in Vienna was pretty mellow. Actually it was very mellow. I went to the grocery store next to the hostel, grabbed myself some yogurt and muesli and pretty much just settled in and sorted out what to do over the next 2 days.

Since I was asleep so dang early (before midnight!), I was also up really early and managed to get up, shower, and be on my way to Schloss Schönbrunn by 9:15AM. Whew! I didn’t want to go into the palace, but I’d heard the gardens were really beautiful, so I figured I’d roam around there for a bit.

One of the guys at the desk at the hostel recommended the garden and said “it’s only half the size it used to be, but it’s still pretty big.” I wasn’t expecting much, but I had two entire days to roam around so I figured I’d check it out. I think the word “garden” was throwing me off, because this certainly wasn’t a garden. It was a park. And, like always, I get lost in parks. This park was no exception.

I wound through the paths for a long while til I found myself at the top of this hill that had pretty neat views of the city. I also stopped at the fountain of Neptune which was turned on for the day only a few minutes after I got there (yeah, that’s how early I was up!)

The park was pretty, but I really wasn’t in the mood to just sit around and take in the scenery so early in the morning. I wanted to be more productive, so I decided to hop on the train back to the main part of town and to the Naschmarkt.

Saturdays are flea market days at the Naschmarkt so I thought that could be entertaining for a while. It was soooooooooooooo crowded though. It was fun to poke around the various tables, but, though the vintage cameras were tempting, I didn’t end up buying anything.

I was, however, in desperate need of some food. I hadn’t eaten yet and it was really, really warm out. I went to the food portion of the market and grabbed myself some cherries (they’re really easy to eat on the go) and some dried banana slices. I also went to the grocery store to grab some drinks – they’re always cheaper there.

Speaking of cheaper: I didn’t know that Red Bull is Austrian and their headquarters is just outside of Salzburg. Consequently, Red Bull is really cheap (well, relative to what we pay in the States). I decided to get a can just because and kept walking.

When I twittered about arriving in Vienna, I got a bunch of responses directing me to the Museum Quartier (the MQ). I’ve avoided museums for this entire trip, so I was going to skip it entirely, but I’m so glad I didn’t! Armed with my cherries, fanta, and tired feet I arrived at the MQ. This was, by far, my favorite part about Vienna.

The MQ is this great little area in the middle of town with lots of museums and public spaces. It’s best known for these weirdly shaped benches that are scattered all throughout the square and seems to be frequented by college-aged people as a hangout spot. There were cafes all around, but I’d read it was best to BYO, so I did. The cafes also pumped music into the square which added to the hangout factor.

So I grabbed a bench. It’s tough to describe the shape of these benches, but they’re designed for lounging. I wasn’t planning on staying for long – perhaps long enough to snap a few photos, drink down my Red Bull, and eat some cherries, but somehow a few minutes turned into a few hours.

I’m a huge fan of public spaces like the MQ – the kind that let you just relax, hang out, and do whatever you want to do, but even if you’re completely alone you still feel like you’re a part of the bigger community. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it just has a great feeling about it.

Anyway…I was feeling particularly reflective that afternoon. I don’t know if it was the music, the people, being surrounded by museums, or finally having time to myself after being with other people for a few weeks, but I grabbed this tiny notebook I’ve been keeping in my backpack and started writing all sorts of stuff – pretty much whatever came to my mind over the course of those 2-3 hours. It was fantastic. I got to just relax and do my own thing, something I could have easily done at home, but I got to experience more of day-to-day Vienna instead of tourist Vienna. I’d take these sorts of experiences over seeing another palace any day.

I was so into my own world as I sat in the MQ that I didn’t really notice just how sunny it was and how tanned I was getting. I didn’t have any sunscreen on and it’d already been a few hours, so I decided it was time to move on.

There were a few more places I had to see (I call them “the usuals – the usual tourist spots where you go, snap a photo of some building or statue, and move on) so I headed in that direction. Snap, snap, snap through some government buildings, past some museums and more government buildings, and then I heard some classical music coming from a park-looking area. I’m always drawn to the music, so I detoured. The park was really crowded – the benches that lined the path were completely full and there seemed to be some sort of commotion. I kept going to see what was up, following the music until I stumbled upon some sort of festival. I couldn’t really tell from the signs, but it looked like some sort of film festival.

At first I thought I’d stumbled into a beer garden, but after seeing the various food stalls lining the square and the types of food people were carrying around, I knew it couldn’t be. I walked about three circuits of the place before I finally settled on something to eat. This wasn’t just festival food, this was really high-quality stuff! It looked to be mostly local restaurants, but the food choices were very international – there was Mexican, American, Japanese, Greek, you name it! Though I’d snacked pretty recently I decided that I couldn’t pass up a spot like this so I decided on some potato wedges and a cherry schnapps type concoction from the American stand. Why was I so unadventurous with my eating? Well it was the 4th of July and I wanted something “American”. I wasn’t hungry enough for an entire burger, so I just got some fries and ketchup and chose the cherry thing because it looked intriguing and I considered it an homage to George Washington. Even while in Europe, I’m a sucker for tradition and cheeziness.

So I sat down with my fries and bizarre cherry drink and just enjoyed the hustle and bustle around me. I have no idea where I was or why those stands were there, but it was fun! If this is how they do festivals in Europe, the festivals in San Francisco could take a few pointers!

Sufficiently stuffed and really exhausted from spending so much time baking in the sun, I decided to head back to the hostel. I’d been walking around for over 8 hours at this point and I was just dead. It was a good kind of dead though. A satisfying kind.

I spent the rest of the evening just hanging around the hostel and trying to organize my life back at home in preparation for my return (doing things like ordering The Sims 3, reactivating my Netflix account, poking are craigslist for an apartment, and looking through Ikea for furniture for said apartment.

When I first got to Vienna I saw a sign saying that you could do a day trip to Bratislava, Slovakia which is only about an hour’s ferry ride from Vienna. I decided that it would be a good thing to do for one of my days in Vienna and planned that for the next morning.

I went to bed early again, but I didn’t get very much sleep that night. Let’s just say that one of the 3 other girls in my room brought some company back with her for the evening and they weren’t exactly discrete about it.

The two other girls in the room and I woke up around the same time and just looked at each other saying “What the eff!?” We decided to go down for breakfast in hopes that the 4th girl would be out of the room before we got back. At some point in the middle of the night while I was kept awake by the rude French girl I realized that the next day was Sunday and that Sunday in Europe basically means “don’t bother leaving your house to do anything besides going for a stroll through the park” because absolutely NOTHING is open. Not even the grocery store!

This led to two things: 1) I didn’t go to Bratislava because what’s the point in going somewhere to be greeted by nothing but gated up storefronts? and 2) I had the BEST BREAKFAST EVER.

Seriously, this breakfast was amazing. It was only 3.70 Euro and was basically a feast. 3 types of bread, butter, cream cheese, jam, nutella, peanut butter, ham, salami, cheese, cucumbers, peppers, hard boiled eggs, cereal, yogurt, muesli, fruit, and I’m sure I could go on for a bit longer. You have to understand the mentality of a backpacker to appreciate why this was so exciting, but in a very short period of time I found myself with a plate piled high with a little bit of nearly everything at the buffet and even went back for seconds. It was probably the most satisfying breakfast I’ve ever had. I managed to hit every single one of my food groups in ONE MEAL. That’s really tough to do around here and it sometimes takes me a few days to accomplish. Breakfast was so filling that I wasn’t even remotely hungry for the next 12 hours! Now that’s a good breakfast.

With nothing really on my agenda for the day I decided to take a lazy day. I felt like I’d gotten everything I wanted to out of Vienna and that even though I didn’t cover EVERYTHING in the city, I was content with what I’d experienced and wasn’t going to go see X building or Y statue just because you’re supposed to.

I ended up spending nearly the entire day in the common area watching Wimbledon with nearly the entire hostel, especially as the final sets came on. I’m not a tennis fan, generally, but that was a really good match.

Post-Wimbledon and now starving, I decided that I needed one more thing before I left Vienna: Wiener Schnitzel. Luckily for me, there’s a restaurant that serves just that right around the corner from the hostel. Off I went. Mmmmm.

The next morning I had yet another wonderful breakfast (not as big this time because I knew I would be spending the day on the train) and went for a little bit of a walk through the shopping district before I got on the train. I’ve been dying for some new clothes lately, but I settled on getting just one tank top to tide me over.

Back to the hostel and on the train to Prague! My last stop before my final city. I’m still completely shocked by just how quickly time can fly!

Though I wouldn’t say that Vienna was one of my favorite cities of the trip, I would say that it’s definitely the type of city I could see myself living in. Perhaps I should start working on my German?

Because I had decided to go to Salzburg at the last minute (I love spontanaeity, especially when traveling!) I had to find myself a hostel – a task that is becoming increasingly difficult as we reach the high season. Hostelworld only listed about 5 hostels in Salzburg, 2 of which didn’t have any ratings at all. The best rated hostel (YoHo) was all booked out. Nathan and I settled on the next best one and booked our beds. It wasn’t in the most central location, but it was better than sleeping on a bench.

While en route we decided that since YoHo is only a few mintues from the train station we’d be arriving in that we’d give it a shot and just walk there in hopes that someone didn’t show up or that someone left early and that there were beds available. After getting a bit lost (seriously, why can’t they put street signs around the train station so that people can orient themselves before they’ve walked 5 blocks in the wrong direction?) we made it to YoHo and surprise, surprise: there were lots of available beds. It turns out that they’re changing their booking system and hostelworld is showing them as booked out even though they’re not. Go us!

YoHo was a really nice spot. Really well-located and the rooms were clean and spacious. That’s pretty much all you could ask for. Our roommates for both nights were also really nice people which makes things even better. Oh…and the best part: They play The Sound of Music every day at 10 AM and also upon request.

After settling into our room Nathan and I decided to go for a wander into the Old Town. We grabbed our maps and set out with no particular destination, which is really the best way to go in my opinion!

Our first stop was a pastry shop. It was the first food shop we’d come across after leaving the hostel and we were both kind of hungry. I got some sort of lemony fluffy roll thing. Mmmmmmm. ANYWAY…

So we ate our pastries and crossed the street to a park. We didn’t know it at the time but it was Mirabell Gardens. The landscaping in that place is absolutely gorgeous! I didn’t exactly realize where I was until I saw the arbor. I wasn’t entirely sure whether or not it was the one they ran through in the movie, but I took a few photos just in case. It turned out that I was right – that was the arbor. And not just that – I’d passed the Do-Re-Mi steps, the fountain they run around, the statues they pull the needle through the thread through and more! This place was a veritable treasure trove of Sound of Music nerdery!

I can’t exactly remember where we went after the park, but it was in the general direction of the Old Town. We crossed the bridge over the Salzach and ta-da, there we were. At first it was a little too touristy and there were way too many American shops lining the streets. It was cute (nicest McDonald’s ever), but it wasn’t what we were looking for. We then stumbled upon this random car tunnel thing by these murals of horses. I didn’t recognize them at first, but it turns out they’re in the movie too. We went through the tunnel (it was intriguing) and didn’t find anything on the other side so we just went right back in the other direction.

More wandering and we came across some more squares, some shops, and some markets, where I stopped off to get an apple-filled pretzel. Soooo tasty. The streets get to be a bit like Venice at times – they wind and weave and you really have no idea where you are, but it was so pretty. So many churches and steeples and it was all just so quaint and picturesque!

At one point we turned a corner out of curiosity and found ourselves in a cemetery – a really beautiful and ornate cemetery. It reminded me of the scene in The Sound of Music where the family is hiding from the Nazis behind some grave stones (and it turns out that the set was modeled after this particular cemetery). We walked through it just admiring how nicely appointed some of these gravestones were and we noticed some windows in the cliff. Nathan mentioned that it would be cool to go up there but we figured that it wasn’t an option. A bit further on, though, Nathan found the entrance to the catacombs. One Euro and you could climb to those windows.

Such amazing views! What a hidden treasure! The catacombs weren’t all that special – it was just some empty crevices in the walls and things, but that really wasn’t the point. I’m pretty sure it was just for the views. What a lucky find!

So…then we wandered some more and found ourselves at the entrance to the funicular that takes you up to the fortress high above Salzburg (the name escapes me at the moment). we decided to go for it. More great views! The fortress itself was really cool (I could definitely live there!), but the museums and things inside weren’t particularly interesting. The only things I did enjoy were the few rooms such as the bedroom (it had a toilet that basically stuck out beyond the main plane of the wall and basically just dropped everything down about 5 stories. Grossss…) and some other rooms that were absolutely beautiful. I wasn’t too interested in the military things that were on display, but it was still a cool mini-trip. We decided to walk down instead of taking the funicular. Those hills are STEEP. Like San Francisco steep. Good thing we decided to take the funicular up.

I’m pretty sure that after the fortress we decided to head back in the direction our hostel. We met our roommates and chatted for a bit and decided to get dinner in the hostel. The six of us ate together and afterwards we decided to go for yet another wander around Salzburg, but this time it was dark out.

Salzburg is also gorgeous at night and it feels incredibly safe. We found some really cool little spots like this shop that sold really ornately decorated Easter eggs and things like that. We also walked over the Mozart bridge (yet another spot from the Do-Re-Mi song!). It was a nice little jaunt and it made me love Salzburg even more.

The next day I was scheduled to go on The Sound of Music tour. I knew it was a tourist trap, but come on. I had to do it. I was scheduled to get the 9AM tour so that I could be back with enough time to explore the city and anything that I missed. I was waiting in the lobby along with six other people. 9:40AM rolled along and still no bus. We finally decided to ask reception what was up. OH. They forgot us. LOVELY. They said we could take the afternoon tour.

So now it’s almost 10AM and I have about 3 hours to kill. Katie, one of the girls also waiting for the tour wanted to go up to the fortress and I knew I wanted to go back to the Old Town just to wander around some more. I ended up showing her the way to the fortress (it’s amazing how quickly you can get oriented to some cities but how lost you will always get in others) and then went off on my own. I don’t know where I went really. I passed the Mozart statue at one point, but that’s the only new spot I can think of.

On my way back, though, I decided to stop off at Mirabell Gardens again so that I could take some more pictures and just maybe plop down on a bench for a few minutes to kill time. I ended up sitting there for about 45 minutes, just people watching and attempting to read some of the book that I had in my backpack. Then I started to get hungry.

Excellent timing, too. Right across the street from Mirabel Gardens is a church and Mirabellplatz whose parking lot had been turned into a market for the day. WIN! It was absolutely packed. I didn’t really know what I wanted, but I ended up getting a pretzel (when in Rome, right?) and a 1/4 kilo of fresh cherries for super cheap. (Side note: I still associate kilos with drug busts. Thanks for the brainwashing, American movies.)

I walked back to the hostel with my snacks, grabbed my laptop, and sat down in the common room to catch the end of the daily showing of The Sound of Music. I love the little moments like that where you’re not doing anything particularly special, but the fact that you’re in a cool place doing something that you don’t normally get a chance to do at home makes it all the more fun and memorable.

Then it was time for the tour. They remembered us this time.

The tour guide was SUCH a cheezball. Really. I don’t think there’s a word in the dictionary to explain this guy. I can probably do a good impression if you see me in person, but wow. The tour itself was…decent I guess. I wasn’t too amazed by it, mostly because the trivia he was telling us wasn’t all that new. I’d heard most of it before – in the Special Features section of the DVD (NOW do you see why I love the special features!?).

It was cool to get to see some of the shooting locations though. Most were from afar (like the I Have Confidence yellow path) and some weren’t accessible any more (like the gazebo), but when we got further into the countryside, in the pouring rain I might add, we did get to stop in this small town where they filmed the wedding scene. The church was really gorgeous and the apple strudel was even better!

Back at the hostel after the tour I met up with some of the people I’d met during the day and we went out to dinner, which was quite tasty. I believe the place was called Indigo. It was in my guidebook and I wouldn’t have gone if these other 3 girls weren’t, but I was hungry and feeling spontaneous (I was just in the common room with my laptop, but luckily I had some money in my pocket) so I went along. It was nice to have something DIFFFERENT to eat. Bread, pasta, and wiener schnitzel get old after a while.

Nathan and I caught up later (he’d been to the Eagle’s Nest for the day) and I spent my evening watching The Sound of Music (the whole thing this time) with about 25 other people in the common room. I hadn’t seen the whole thing in agessss and it was actually pretty cool to watch it in the city in which it was filmed having just seen most of the locations!

The next morning Nathan and I were headed to Vienna. I was sad to leave Salzburg, but there’s really not all that much to do as a tourist, so it was time. I’d love to go back there during the Christmas season though. It seems like the perfect place to spend the holiday!

Lucerne is probably a very cute little town, but since we were there on a Sunday morning and there had been a festival that weekend, the town was pretty much shut down and it smelled of urine and vomit. Fun times…

Liechtenstein was just a stop for funsies – just so we can say we’ve been there. I think we stopped for all of 2 hours, enough to grab some lunch and, if we wanted to pay the 2 Euro, get our passports stamped (I did it. It’s about time I got another stamp!). It, too, was a cute little town (err..country?). Definitely more lively than Lucerne, but still swamped with tourists.

We stayed at the Wombat’s hostel in Munich. It’s in a great location and they have a nifty little common area in their “winter garden” – free wifi, hammocks, and lounge chairs, and closed off from the elements but still feels like it’s outside. I was a fan.

Renae, my roommate in Lauterbrunnen also ended up being my roommate in Munich which was fun. We were in a 6 bed dorm again, but this one was much, much, much larger than our cabin in Switzerland. Like back in Venice and Rome, we managed to form a nice little group of travelers who hung out in the evenings, etc. Completely different people this time, but it was just as fun.

We’d established a meeting time and place: 7:30 in the lobby. We planned to go to the Hofbräuhaus, Munich’s most famous beer hall, for dinner. After some general lazing about (travel days are killer for your energy level. I still don’t get it – you spend an entire day sitting on a bus or train and when you finally arrive at your destination all you really want is a nap. It makes no sense. Anyway…), 7:30 rolled around and we were off to the Hofbräu.

I’m not a fan of beer. It generally takes me quite a long time to finish a bottle and even then I don’t particularly enjoy it. I was kind of skeptical of about going to the Hofbräuhaus because the focus is on the beer – and not just a measley bottle. I would have to suffer through an entire liter of it! I knew it was part of the Munich experience, though, so I decided to go and just see what happpened.

The place itself was really fun, if not a bit over the top. I kept mentioning that it felt like I was having dinner at Epcot. It was a bit TOO authentic. The funny thing is, though, that it turns out that people in Bavaria wear lederhosen ALL THE TIME. Not just in movies or for special occasions. They wear it out to the beer gardens, to go get their morning paper, everywhere! That part was really entertaining.

I read the menu and started to get nervous. No chicken. No veggies. Just beef. And pork. I don’t like beef. I don’t like pork. I don’t drink beer. This was going to be an interesting evening. I could have just ordered an apple strudel and been done with it, but again, I’m all about the experience. So, I hunkered down and ordered what seemed like a beef stew. I figured if it didn’t have the texture of beef and a good amount of broth I might be OK. On the menu I also saw what was described as beer with lemonade: a Radler. When I mentioned it, everyone said “oh, like a chandy?” What the heck is a chandy and how have I never heard of it?

So my beer arrived, all 1 liter of it, and after a hearty “proust,” we all drank up. It wasn’t too bad. The lemonade definitely helped. My dinner wasn’t particularly gross either and after seeing some of the other dishes (pork knuckle?!), I was happy with my selection. Apart from the actual food, we had a lot of fun together. I, once again, was the only American in the bunch which always makes the conversation entertaining when we come across words or topics that I just don’t get. I think I’m nearly fluent in Aussie now, though.

After a quick stop for gelato we all headed back to the hostel and most of us went to sleep. I know I certainly crashed.

The next morning Renae and I planned to do the free walking tour that leaves from our hostel. I didn’t know much about Munich beyond its reputation for beer before arriving and we’d heard good things about the tour. Our tour guide’s name was Ozzie. He was FANTASTIC. A really quality tour where he didn’t treat you like you were an idiot. He was really passionate about Munich, its history and its place in regional and world history. He took everything and applied it to American, Canadian, and Australian histories so that we would have a better understanding of what it was like. It was honestly like sitting in a lecture at Cornell. Not dumbed down and really exhausting by the end.

We stopped for lunch at the Viktualienmarkt where I had a brat and a 1/2 liter of beer. It was the only thing I could figure out how to order (I pointed to the guy in front of me and said I’ll have that too, danke schön). Let’s just say that Munich put me way out of my food comfort zone.

About 3.5 hours later we ended the tour and Renae and I along with another Aussie that we met, Nathan, headed back to the hostel. Big plans for that afternoon: laundry. Desperate times. And let it be known that German washing machines are probably the most confusing appliance on earth. Usability? Ha! Just push a bunch of buttons and hope that you didn’t just agree to send your dirty socks into space.

So that and more lounging around the common areas pretty much filled up the rest of the afternoon. That night at 7:30 the group of us gathered again. This time we wanted to head to one of the Augustiner Brau. We’d learned on the walking tour that there is one that’s much cheaper than the other more touristed breweries, so we set out for that one.

Unfortunately there are two Augstiner’s really close to each other and if you take the wrong side of the fork in the road at the beginning of your walk you end up at the wrong one. That’s what we did, but we didn’t realize it until we sat down.

The prices were painfully high. I’m talking 7.90 Euro for a liter of beer. That’s about 13 bucks. Ick. Not only that but the menu was completely different from the one we’d read earlier (the one that had potato pancakes and apple sauce on it which I was really looking forward to for the entire day). AND, to top it off, our waiter was miserable. He wanted nothing to do with us and basically threw things at us. We decided that we didn’t want to put up with that, finished our beers, paid, and left without any food. Off to the OTHER Augustiner.

We found it without much of a problem and somehow along the way we managed to pick up another 6 people. No idea where they came from but we all piled in to the Augustiner and filled their largest table. THIS was the right one and I was so excited to order my potato pancakes.

Given that we’d all already downed 1 liter of beer, I was hesitant to order any more, but they don’t really serve much besides beer in beer halls (whoda thunk it?) so I went for a half liter of the Radler. I’m convinced that Augustiner Brau makes the best Radlers around. They barely tasted like beer and you could easily just chug them down. Don’t worry, I refrained.

By this point we were all a little…well, beered up. Not only does drinking a liter of beer make you a little goofy, but it’s also a LOT of liquid! The food was great, though, and we had a really great time. Especially during the walk home, where, once again, we felt it necessary to point out the differences between American and Aussie accents. We were also invited to a gay party by these guys hanging out of a window above. So many jokes…soooo many. If you ever encounter an Aussie who’s up for it, try getting them to say “god daughter” in a New York accent. It’s hysterical.

Having covered pretty much everything that we wanted to in Munich, we all pretty much spent the next day hanging around the hostel and just chatting, etc. It may seem like I spend a lot of time just “hanging out” but you have no idea how necessary it is for your sanity. Some days you just need to chill out. It is still technically a vacation, after all.

I also spent a good portion of the day trying to sort out the rest of my trip. I had originally planned to go to Berlin the next day, catch the BusAbout to Prague, then train it to Vienna and Salzburg and go home from there, but it turns out that Continental doesn’t fly out of Austria, so I pretty much had to invert the remaining stops on my trip. It turned out that Nathan, the guy we’d met on the walking tour was also going to Salzburg the next day so we planned to catch the train together.

Since it was our last night in Munich, we, of course, had to go out to a beer hall. We all really enjoyed our time at the Hofbräuhaus so we decided to go back, this time to sit in the actual garden. Apart from the cigarette smoke (something I don’t think I’ll really ever get used to) the atmosphere in the garden was really vibrant. There were giant tables of guys in lederhosen singing and drinking and just having a grand ole time.

Sadly, though, it was the last night most of us would be together because from Munich we were pretty much scattering in all different directions. Nathan and I were off to Salzburg, Renae and a bunch of others were off to St. Johann, some were off to Venice, etc. It was kind of sad to see yet another really great group of people split up again after only a few nights, but it was awesome to get to spend some time together. And, if all goes well, we’ll be catching up again on various trips to the States and Australia :).

The next morning we were up and out. Nathan and I said goodbye to the BusAbout bus and headed over to the train station. Off to Salzburg with one mission: The Sound of Music tour.

The morning started out with a late-ish wakeup (that’s about 9AM) and running into everyone in the kitchen for breakfast. Though the day was once again pretty rainy and dreary, we were all determined to make the most of our last day in the most beautiful place on earth.

There were so many options: I could go to Trummelbach. I could go to the top of the mountain to see some of the places where they shot 007. I could go into Interlaken to do some shopping. I could just hike the random trails around the campsite. The list goes on.

Lindsay and Skye were planning to do Trummelbach as well, and after meeting up with one of Simon’s friends, Kirsten, we all decided to go together. Simon and Renae had already gone, so they decided to do the cable car ride up to the top of the mountain and take a 2-3 hour hike down.

The one thing they don’t tell you about Trummelbach: plan to get wet. And, depending on how much it’s rained or how warm it’s been in recent days, plan to get soaked. Luckily for us it had been pretty rainy for the last few days, especially in the afternoons, so even though the skies were blue with a few puffy clouds, we all had our rain gear packed with us.

The “hike” to Trummelbach was about 20 minutes from our campsite. It wasn’t much of a hike though – I’d call it more of a walk, but either way it was beautiful. More cute little Swiss houses and farms and two more waterfalls. The walk was supposed to take about 20 minutes but I think it ended up taking us over 40 because we were dawdling and taking a bunch of photos.

Once we got there it actually didn’t look like much of anything. You take an elevator to the 8th or so level and have two more levels to walk up. This place is really cool. It’s basically the largest (publically accessible) indoor glacier waterfall or something like that. The water is crystal clear and flowing so intensely it carves its way through the rocks and caverns of this cliffside. It’s really cool stuff. (see wikipedia)

So after getting pretty soaked at Trummelbach we headed back to our campsite and split up. Skye and Lindsay were going to the top of the mountain, Kirsten was going to take a nap, and I was kind of undecided. I knew I wanted to get some cool Swiss souvenirs, but I also wanted to go to the top of the mountain. I decided to go the souvenir route and head down to Interlaken where I would also stop at the train station to get a ticket to Munich for the next day.

I packed up my stuff, including my laptop because I was planning to find an Internet cafe in the city and headed out. I didn’t realize that I’d taken so many photos at Trummelbach, so about 5 minutes away from the campsite I noticed that I only had space for one more photo on my CF card. Crap. Luckily I had my laptop with me so I plunked down by one of the waterfalls and started to download my photos.

I’ve been using Picasa during this trip – only because Photoshop and Photo Mechanic are way too expensive to put on my netbook. I don’t particularly like it, but it gets the job done for basic downloading.

A third of the way through the download, I noticed the counter on my camera was moving faster than the counter on the computer. Before I knew it my CF card had been wiped and only 103 photos had made it onto my hard drive. I WAS PISSED. All of my Trummelbach photos. Gone.

I thought about walking back there and just taking all of the photos again, but instead I just got really grumpy. I resigned myself to the fact that the photos were gone and that if I wanted to show someone what Trummelbach looked like, I’m sure SOMEONE will have a photo posted on Flickr. Right? Right. So I walked into Lauterbrunnen, still grumpy but trying to remind myself that it wasn’t the end of the world. At least my paragliding photos were safe.

I had a few purchases in mind for when I got to Interlaken, but I wanted to get an idea of the prices in Lauterbrunnen before I went down so I had a point of comparison. I ended up finding this cute little watch shop on the main road in town and never actually made it to the train station or to Interlaken. I got everything I needed right in there and for the best prices that I’ve seen yet. Win. The lady who owned the shop asked me if I wanted to wear my watch or if I wanted to put it in the box. Considering the luck I’d been having so far that day I opted to keep wearing my now 9-year-old Fossil. My Swiss watch will wait until I get home.

After I’d made all of my purchases there really wasn’t a reason for me to go to Interlaken and the train ticket down there is pretty pricey, so instead I decided to hang out in Lauterbrunnen at the little Internet cafe I’d come to love. Still feeling sorry for myself, I bought an afternoon’s worth of wi-fi and a brownie. I sat down on the porch and pulled out my laptop.

I skipped straight past the emails and social networking things and went straight for Google: “recover photos from CF card.” I was determined to get my photos back. After a few hours of fiddling around with stuff and trying this and that I finally realized that I might be able to do it if I mounted the CF card as a drive via a USB card reader instead of just plugging the USB directly into my camera. Lucky for me the Internet cafe had a reader and I gave it a shot.

306 photos recovered. THANK GOD. I can’t tell you how happy I was to see my .CR2s loading into the folder completely unharmed. The program I used was called PhotoRec and it is absolute MAGIC, I tell you. So amazing.

So I mentioned in my last post that we were planning to have a BBQ. When I wrote that there were about 5 of us in on the plans. By the time the actual BBQ rolled around there were a dozen of us. We’d all decided that we’d each bring whatever sort of meat we wanted to grill and one person would be in charge of the coal and another would make a salad. We’d pay those people back. I went to the butcher in town and got myself a skewer of marinated chicken. I still have no idea what the marinade was, but it was so nice to have some food that I actually cooked for once.

With my photos recovered, my food purchased, and my friends all around my mood went from crap-tacular to un-crap-tacular in no time. Just in time for the BBQ.

The BBQ was so much fun and the salad, potatoes, and chicken were amazing. It was great that we were all able to get together for our last night in Lauterbrunnen to just hang out and reminisce about the cool stuff we did during our stay. It was the last time some of us would be together since from Lauterbrunnen, people seemed to be going in all sorts of directions from Munich to Nice to Barcelona, etc. I think the BBQ will be one of my favorite memories from the trip.

Though I didn’t get to see and do everything that I wanted to during my 5 days here in Switzerland, I still had the most amazing time. The day we arrived I mentioned that I would be perfectly content to just lie down in one of the fields and stare up at the sky for an entire day and do you know what? If it weren’t raining I probably would have. On my third day here, after paragliding and exploring Interlaken I said that if I had to leave the next day I would be perfectly content with how I spent my time here. And I still am. I’m sad to leave, but I’ll definitely return as soon as possible.

A supermarket.

I don’t know if you understand just how great supermarkets are, especially while you’re backpacking. You see – most places I’ve come across have grocery stores. They’re tiny little stores, generally no larger than a 7-11, and sell a decent selection of the basics. Sometimes you’ll find one a little bigger, but for the most part we’re talking just essentials.

But the thing is – in each an every city I’ve visited so far, it seems that the locals don’t consider VEGETABLES to be essentials. Try finding some lettuce in the grocery store. Good luck. And if you do manage to find yourself a bag salad, odds are it’s going to be really limp and brown. At least that’s been my luck.

So when I came across this giant co-op just across the street from Interlaken Ost, I swear the clouds opened up and the angels started to sing. Even though my train was scheduled to leave in about 10 minutes I made a quick turn right and headed straight for the entrance.

There it was: the produce section. The produce section alone was larger than any grocery store I’ve been to in the last 3+ weeks. There were bananas, strawberries, apples, nectarines, cherries, carrots, celery…well…I could continue but I’m going to hope that you can imagine for yourself the contents of a proper produce section. I was so excited. And REALLY hungry. I hadn’t eaten all day really for fear of getting sick while paragliding. I grabbed a basket and dug in. In a few minutes time I’d stocked up on bananas, strawberries, nectarines, salad, dressing, and a bottle of “multifruit” juice. I could have stopped there, but I was hungry. So I walked into the store a little bit further.

That’s when I came across the yogurt section. Yes, an entire SECTION of yogurt and dairy-like products. I’ve never seen so many types of yogurt and if I’d had a refridgerator at my disposal you could guarantee that my basket would have been filled to the brim, but unfortunately I was only able to get one. The cheapest, of course, but it would do the trick as an accompaniment to my muesli back at the campsite.

I also procured some jelly, a few slices of bread, some fanta, and some chocolate (of course). It was a lot of food, but like I said, I was hungry. And I hadn’t had fresh fruits or veggies in a while. At least it wasn’t an entire basket of bread and cheese. Oh how I’m sick of bread and cheese.

I checked out and headed back to the train station, eager to start picking away at my purchases. I settled on a nectarine to hold me over until I got back to the camp. It was a good day. Paragliding, fruits, vegetables, and Switzerland. It’s the simple things.

Back at the camp site I ate my salad and yogurt and hung around with some friends, planning our evening. There’s a bar at the campsite called the Bomb Shelter (it is an actual bomb shelter) and it was going to open that night for the first time during our stay. This place is legendary. When you mention to other travelers that you’re going to Lauterbrunnen and staying at Camping Jungfrau they all talk about the Bomb Shelter.

The evening turned out to be epic.

Starting out with a few mixed drinks in the sitting room before the Bomb Shelter opened, and then off to the actual Bomb Shelter. The place was PACKED and really, really, REALLY warm. The Contiki buses had arrived earlier in the day (which is why the Bomb Shelter was opened) and everyone in it was already pretty messy. The music was good though and we were having a lot of fun.

At one point, in the middle of a song, they turned off the music and the bartender pointed to the TV. He put on Billie Jean and everyone went back to dancing, confused as to why he didn’t just let the other song finish. We went over to the TV to see what was going on.

Michael Jackson died. Well, sort of. For a while there reports were mixed. “BREAKING: tmz.com reports Michael Jackson has died of a cardiac arrest” then another flash: “BREAKING: LATimes reports Michael Jackson is in a coma following a cardiac arrest,” etc. etc. etc.

Everyone around the TV was shocked. And confused. And generally unsure about how to react. Some people just stared and looked devastated, others cried, and others were too drunk to really process what was going on around them, but it was surreal. A few more Michael Jackson songs came on and though the TV was still running, everyone went back to trying to enjoy the evening, checking the TV periodically to see if anything else had developed.

For the rest of the evening and the next day, you’d hear people just say “Michael Jackson died??!” in the most confused of tones. How are you supposed to react to the death of someone who was basically an icon of your childhood, who you’ve never met, but for some reason you feel a great saddness over? I don’t think anyone’s quite figured it out just yet.

Despite the sad news of the evening, we did have a lot of fun. Lots of dancing, singing, laughing, and photos. Sometime around 1:30 in the morning (I think?) we decided to call it quits and headed back for our cabins. Renae and I were STARVING and thought it a good idea to chow down on the bread, jam, peanut butter, and nutella we had saved in our room. I should mention here that we also had 2 roommates who had come to the Bomb Shelter with us but who decided to leave early and go to sleep.

It was SO HOT in our room. Remember the heater I mentioned a while ago? The one that toasted my bread? It was on and you could really cook something in our room it was so warm. So we opened up the windows.

Our cabin is in a pretty central spot and lots of people were walking by and waving as we sat at the table next to the windows trying to cool down and devoured our bread. At one point these two people we didn’t know came up to the window. The girl asked if she lived in our cabin. We informed her that no, she did not. She inquired about our food and we said that if she could provide some nutella (we’d finished ours) that we would provide the bread. The two walked away and we didn’t expect to see them again.

But they came back. A knock at the door and nutella in hand. We couldn’t send them away, so we invited them in to our tiny cabin and we continued on with our picnic. More people would stop at the window to chat. It was a lot of fun.

Until one of our roommates woke up. It was about 2-2:30AM at this point and she got out of bed, put on a jacket and said “You know, revenge can be a real bitch at 6:30 in the morning.” Apparently we’d pissed her off.

That was our cue to pack up and go to bed. We sent our new friends home and were asleep before our roommate returned. She continued to hold her grudge in the morning and though we tried to pretend to be asleep we could hear to intentionally slamming doors and making all sorts of noise just out of spite. They caught the bus at 8, but we couldn’t get back to sleep.

I’d been having some internet withdrawal so I decided to head into town to this internet cafe I’d found and park it there for the morning. I brought my muesli with me, bought a yogurt from the mini co-op in town and set up shop on the front porch, overlooking the mountains. It was a bit chilly, but if I were in Ithaca I would have considered it a warm day, so I tried to treat it as such.

I think my latest tweet sums it up the best:
“sitting on the patio of a cafe in switz. with my yogurt, muesli, and laptop looking at the alps only a stone’s throw away. this is the life.”

After a few hours of sorting out where I’m going next (Munich) and how I would get there (train), I decided to head back to the campsite to take a nap. It was a cold and rainy day, I was feeling slightly off from the night before (I think it was the 4-5 slices of nutella and jam on bread, because I felt fine otherwise) and I hadn’t slept well in the last few nights thanks to 1) a snoring roommate, 2) being nervous about paragliding, and 3) being nervous that the other roommate would kill us in the middle of the night for waking her.

I woke up just before 5PM absolutely famished. It was POURING out. I’m talking buckets and buckets of rain falling from the sky. Those of you familiar with my love of thunderstorms will understand my excitement when the first claps of thunder came rolling through the valley. I’ve never heard thunder so loud, but it was echoing off of the mountains on either side of us. So cool. Then we had a couple bits of lightning and even more rain. If it were slightly warmer I probably would have run out and frolicked for old times sake, but it was pretty chilly and the last thing I want is a cold right now. I settled for the drops that hit me between my cabin and the kitchen.

Dinner time was dinner time – the usual antics. We all got together to hang out, chat about our days and how uneventful they were (we’d all been to the Bomb Shelter the night before). Renae and I actually had the most productive day of all. Most of our other friends didn’t wake up or leave their cabins until after 4PM. We’d already gotten up, showered, gone into town, had breakfast, read, sorted out online things, and took a 4-5 hour nap in that time. Go us.

After dinner we all went back to our own cabins to stay warm and dry and just relax. It was the kind of day where you wish you had your favorite pair of sweatpants, a nice blanket, a comfy couch, a hot chocolate, and either a book or a movie, or both, and you just snuggle up and lounge around all day. But we didn’t have any of that, so we had to settle for hostel sheets, itchy wool blankets, and books.

I finished reading The Last Lecture which turned out to be a really good book and then went to bed.

Big plans for my last day in Switzerland, but it turns out that today has decided to be cold and rainy too. I don’t know if I’ll make it to Trummelbach Falls, but I’ll go for a walk, maybe head back into Interlaken to pick up some final souvenirs, and then we’re all getting together for a BBQ.

Today I ran off the side of a mountain. The technical term is paragliding, but I think that term is far too tame. You’re basically running off the side of a mountain util the ground falls out from under you and the float your way over mountains and trees and the city of Interlaken held up by nothing more than a bunch of strings and a few yards of fabric.

I’m not much of a dare devil. I even gave up skateboarding after about 3 hours because I was scared of falling and breaking my arm or something, but for some reason when they showed a video of paragliding on the Bus as one of the many options for activities in Lauterbrunnen, paragliding piqued my interest and without really putting much thought into it I signed up and paid. The panic didn’t really set in until this morning.

I was nervous all morning. Not “oh my god I’m going to die” nervous, more like nervous about the unknown. Will I get sick? Will I flip out about about being so high? Will I be able to stick the landing or will I tumble and flip until I’m wrapped up in the parachute like a burrito? That sort of thing.

Like an idiot I booked my flight for 12:15PM, so I had the ENTIRE morning to just let my mind ponder the what ifs. I should have just gotten it over and done with at the 8:30AM flight, but I did NOT want to be up that early! I started reading The Last Lecture – a book that my neighbors at home gave me just before I left for the airport. I was hoping it would put me in the “you only live once” mindset that I knew I would need to actually go through with it. I also found myself thinking back to RYLA in 2004 and had various moments running through my head like the trust falls and the ropes course. It still sometimes surprises me when, even 5 years down the road, I find myself thinking back to RYLA and using it to help me make decisions or for motivation. Some things just stick with you.

I was picked up from the campsite with some other people I’ve become friends with who were going white water rafting for the day. I was the only one going paragliding. Yay?

For some reason or other the shuttle from the campsite was so much earlier than than the actual flight so I had a lot of time to kill in Interlaken. I walked up and down the main strip of shops for over an hour trying to distract myself by looking for post cards and a magnet for my Gram.

At around 1:45PM I went back to the meeting point where they had me put on a pair of hiking boots and ditched my backpack in a locker. They let me bring my point and shoot and we hopped in the van to go up the mountain.

We get to the top of the mountain and it’s just sort of a patch of grass where they laid out all of the parachutes (there were 5 of us jumping I think), gave us shell jackets to put on (thank god! it was cold up there!) and hooked us into our harnesses.

I was the third one to go off, which was good. The only thing was that a cross-wind hit just as we (we being me and Tom, the pilot I was attached to) started to run. It pushed us off to the side so we had to have two running starts instead of one and had to pull a quick turn to avoid the treetops, but after that we were good to go.

It. Was. Amazing. Not just the feeling of flying, but the view and the scenery and the fresh air. Absolutely spectacular. We circled around for a while over the forest and a small hillside town and then Tom said “ok let’s go back up” and he tugged on something and all of a sudden the trees became reallllllly tiny below us.

I was, of course, snapping away with my camera and trying to capture as much as possible. I even shot a few quick videos. We did some loops, some sharp turns, some general floating around and some dips VERY close to the trees. After a gut check (literally – Tom wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to get sick from the twists and turns. I was feeling fine.) we did some crazy drop where we were basically free-falling for a tiny bit, kind of like when an airplane drops down a bit and you’re lifted off of your seat. That was, by far, the scariest part. Well, that and when Tommy decided to do some “look no hands!” moves.

The flight was 20 minutes, but it felt like an eternity. I’d do it again in a heartbeat, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to find any place that’ll beat paragliding in the Alps. It was definitely one of, if not the coolest experiences of my life. I’m so glad I got up the guts to do it!

I’m not much of an outdoorsy person – I don’t like bugs or animals, I’m not really all that into white water rafting or rock climbing and I don’t particularly enjoy completely “roughing it,” but I learned in my last few years at Cornell that I really enjoy just throwing on my camera and taking a walk through nature. Not trailblazing or anything like that, but just a slow wander around some trails, through some trees, maybe along the water, just relaxing and getting away from all of the busy-ness of life. I took these walks once a week or so, even in the dead of winter. I ran into deer, I walked through knee-deep snow, and puddle-jumped when it all melted away, but I loved my walks.

It turns out that I’m not a huge fan of cities, something that really surprised me considering that I’m not a nature girl by any stretch of the imagination. I prefer “structured nature” – you know, where all of the trails have been marked, the paths have been carved out, and the scenery still every bit as wonderful.

That’s exactly where I am right now.

The campsite we’re staying in is called Camping Jungfrau. It’s in a town called Lauterbrunnen which is right next to Interlaken. Like Siena and Orvieto in Italy, it’s everything you expect a small Swiss town to be. A sloping, bright green hillside sprinkled with adorable houses with brown roofs, shuttered windows and colorfully-flowered window boxes, backdropped by the most beautiful tree-lined and snow-capped mountains you’ve ever seen. I would move to this little valley in the Swiss Alps in a heartbeat.

In the 18 hours since I arrived, for the entire 10 or so hours where I wasn’t sleeping I’m pretty sure that I looked like a tourist on his or her first visit to NYC – you know the look: camera around the neck, head tilted upwards looking at the skyscrapers, running into things because you’re not looking at what’s in front of you as you walk, just what’s above you. Replace the Empire State Building with some snow-capped mountains and that just about sums up my time here so far.

After dinner in the campsite’s restaurant (I had the Lauterbrunner Rosti, which is a local dish made up of shredded potatoes and onions (like a latke or hashbrowns) with swiss cheese melted on top, bacon on top of that, and a sunny side up egg on top of that.) and then we went to this local pub with some of the BusAbout guides. We were promised Swiss line dancing, but apparently that sort of thing doesn’t happen on Tuesday nights. Drat. I was in bed early and up around 7AM, quite surprisingly. I guess nature can do that to you.

This morning, Renae, one of my roommates and yet another Aussie on the BusAbout circuit and I went for a walk into town to see what we could do about breakfast. I’d already had some bananas and nutella on pseudo-toast (I say pseudo-toast because the heater in our room is so warm that I actually used it to toast my bread. It wasn’t browned, but it was toasted!), but I was still kind of hungry and wanted to see what I would be able to find for dinner later. I also needed to look into getting a pair of proper shoes since all I have with me are tevas and a pair of keen mary janes, neither of which are well-suited for hiking or pretty much anything else you do when you’re hanging out in the Swiss Alps.

I found a nice pair of hiking sneakers in an outdoors shop in town for 99 Swiss Francs. They’re pretty standard hiking sneakers and they get the job done. Another thing to carry, but hey, I wasn’t about to miss out on hiking up to a waterfall just because I didn’t think to pack decent shoes. They ended up being quite comfy after I walked in them for about 10 minutes.

I also procured a good sized bag of muesli and a yogurt for a snack. I’d never really had muesli before but if I can find it when I get home I think it’s going to replace my Just Bunches as my yogurt topping of choice.

ANNNYWAYYY… so back to the campsite to eat. I caught up on blog posts (finally) and then Renae went off to hike Trummelbach Falls with a friend. I wasn’t really up for Trummelbach just yet – partly because I wanted to break my shoes in on something less intense and partly because I wanted to figure out where I’m going after Lauterbrunnen – so instead I hung around and chatted with Natalie online.

I’d heard about a trail near the campsite where you basically hike up the side of the mountain to the waterfall and I thought I’d check that out. I really don’t like hiking with other people for some reason. I’d much rather go at my own pace and not feel guilty about stopping every 5 seconds to take a photo. I strapped my camera on and off I went. I stopped about 1/2 way through the trail to call my mom (I’ve been trying to check in via phone about once a week and thought it would be entertaining to call from the side of the mountain) and then made my way to the top. The trail stopped more suddenly than I was expecting and the wind was blowing the waterfall in the other direction, but it was still a gorgeous walk, and only mildly petrifying. I’m not afraid of heights for the most part, but the rocks were pretty slippery and though they tried to carve some steps into them it wasn’t really all that helpful. I was gripping onto the handrails for dear life, especially on the way down.

Luckily right when I got to the top, a guy and his son also reached the end. Normally I would turn the camera around on myself, but given that I wanted to hold onto the railing and not really move once I was balanced, I handed the camera over to the guy, gestured to the mountain behind me, and smiled. As soon as I can get an internet connection that photo is going to be my new facebook default. It’s not the best photo ever, but I’m proud of the fact that I managed to hike up there by myself without chickening out and come on – it’s the Swiss Alps! (I know I keep saying that, but really, this place is AMAZING).

After that I went back to my room, had lunch with Renae and another Aussie named Simon (yay for MORE Nutella) and then chatted with Simon about geeky things for an hour or so (he used to work for a web dev house in Australia).

A bunch of us got together for dinner and I FINALLY got a salad. This place thankfully has a kitchen so we’ve been able to make “proper” meals. Well, as proper as you can get using only foods that don’t need to be refrigerated. Dinner took a couple of hours between all of the cooking (Simon did most of that), talking, eating, talking, cleaning up, etc. and instead of heading back into our cabins for the night we all decided to hike up to the waterfall (this would be my second time).

Thing is – by this point it’s getting dark out. They don’t turn on the lights in the tunnel that covers one part of the trail and it is DARK. They shine some flood lights up at the waterfall itself which is helpful, but for a while you’re just walking in complete darkness. Normally I would break out my iPhone, fire up the flashlight app and walk through with no problem. But I’m in Europe and my iPhone is basically only useful as an iPod and the occasional alarm clock, so it generally stays in my room. I had to improvise. Luckily I had my camera, which has a decent flash on it. Sweet.

The falls were so different at night. Not only was it falling straight down this time thanks to the lack of wind, but the view was completely different. The mountains I could see earlier in the day were almost fogged over, save for a few bits where the snow was actually orange thanks to the sun setting. The lights in the little towns and villages below were just starting to come on and there was a nice mist from the water slightly clouding our view. Amazing.

We made it out of the tunnel and down the trail.

The one downfall of Switzerland is that the Internet is really expensive in the cafes and at the campsite. Apart from that I don’t see how anyone could NOT like this place. I love it so much I just extended my stay from 3 nights to 5. It’s that great.

Tomorrow, though, will be another adventure entirely. Read on :)