Simon - CS #8 | Heimwehfluh

After a rather slow morning getting ready, Roman kindly escorted us to the train station. This means we didn't get lost and got there very quickly! It was a lot of fun staying with Roman; though (almost) everybody has been really fun, Roman was different to me since he was our age and still in University. So he seemed a lot more like somebody we would hang out with back home. When we were hanging out with his friends, who were also all our age, it felt a lot more like we just fit in (for all 48 hours that we were in Bern). Anyway, it was really fun! At the end of every CS experience, we force our hosts to take a picture with us. Funnily, they all have essentially the same groan response. Roman wanted to wait until we got to the train station. I told him I knew he was just trying to weasel his way out of it by hoping that I would forget. But, much to his dismay, I didn't forget and we got a picture with him before he gave us some last tips: 1) to sit on the upper level of the train to get better views, 2) if we're going to sleep, do it in the first 20 minutes, because after that it gets really pretty. CouchSurfers are so helpful :)

What I did forget at the train station though is a map. I'm trying to get a map of every city that we visit so that I can put together some homemade wallpaper. It will be sweet, but as of now it will be missing Bern :( My other collections on this trip include plates (of course), as well as coasters (which is growing quite nicely), and beer bottle caps (which is growing slowly because I don't drink that much bottled beer and I only take the cool caps).

The train ride was gorgeous and I continued to fall deeply, madly in love with Switzerland. The train went along the side of Lake Thune and behind Lake Thune were beautiful green hills with small brown houses dotting the landscape. In the foreground, we could see the gorgeous mountains approaching. I managed to not fall asleep (a great accomplishment for She Who Falls Asleep On Moving Objects Without Fail). Simon had said that he would meet us "at the train station" so I was really hoping it wouldn't be hard to find him. When we got to the Interlaken West train station 10 minutes early (yes! early!), we found that the train station was only one room. So we sat and right at 3 o'clock this Aussie guy in a black hat and black sunglasses comes up to us to collect.

Simon. Simon is Aussie which perhaps explains a lot. He is close to 40 years old and he runs a tour company that he started here in Interlaken. His company helps send American (mostly) study abroad students on vacations/trips throughout Europe while they're abroad. So he has traveled a lot and knows a ton of information about things to do in Interlaken and around Europe. He is super laid back, very entertaining, and uses the F word in almost every sentence (or wherever possible). He comes across as an 18 year old that knows a lot more and is being productive with his life. Simon's roommate wasn't home, because he was editing adventure sport videos in Canada, so we lucked out with a huge bed (again!).

As soon as we dropped our stuff off, Simon told us about a 20 minute hike close to his apartment to the top of a hill called Heimwehfluh (so fun to say: try it!). It was only about 3:30 so we had nothing better to do than hike in the beautiful Swiss scenery and were happily out the door within minutes. By 4, an hour after our train arrived, we were at the top of this little hill with a very nice view. Even more immediately exciting though was this carnival-like kids' playground park thing we found. There were tons of toys that made pretending to be 5 years old super fun! They had a zip-line (yeah!) which was really short and that we both thought we were going to break - but we didn't! So we played on that for a while. We also found a hamster ball where you can run like a hamster in a life size little spinny thing. Way harder than it looks. And very difficult to slow down and/or stop. Laura especially took some good tumbles. We got some great pictures to prove our maturity level. We also explored the see-saw, a rocking horse, miniature go-karts, and the long twisty slide. Finally we grew up and climbed to the top of the tower on the hill to get to the real lookout point.

At the top of the tower there was an incredible view of the valley. We could see Lake Thune, Lake Brienze, the river that connects the two, a canal, the town of Interlaken, as well as small houses in the distance. It was so beautiful! We could hardly believe that we'd been there for such a short amount of time and that this great little hike was practically in Simon's backyard! At the top of the tower, we asked a man to take our picture. He turned out to be from Colorado, but had met his Swiss wife while cross-country skiing (cute!) and they now live in Interlaken with their two beautiful blue eyed little girls. The wife and kids went back to the playground, but Laura and I talked to the Colorado Man for probably half an hour. He said it was really nice to speak English again. He speaks with his daughters but he said he used the biggest/longest words in ages with us in that conversation. Finally it started to get a bit windy and was getting closer to the time we said we'd meet Simon to go out to dinner, so we headed down the hill.

We met up with Simon and lounged around his apartment for about an hour. Then he led us through a scenic walk through town in which he proved that he really does pretty much know everybody in Interlaken - it's crazy. On our way we passed by the only 5 star hotel in Interlaken, and out front was parked the world's fastest car. I took a picture of it and got yelled at, but for more details on that see Quotes below. We finally arrived at his favorite "cheap" Thai place. It occurred to me on the hike that his "cheap" might not be our "cheap" so I kind of held my breath. The cheapest thing on the menu was a normal sized portion of food for like 16 CHF. The conversion rate is basically 1 to 1. What! I could get that food on the Ave for like $8! Welcome to Switzerland - where eating will try to bankrupt you...In the expensive food's defense, dinner was delicious.

Back at Simon's we sat around on his couch and watched TV and chatted. Nothing too exciting here so I'll call it a day.


Quotes:
Hilary: "I want to go take a picture of it, but I'm scared I'll get yelled at." (There were two people hovering over the Fastest Car in the World in protection)
Simon: "Aw fuck it, go take a picture."
Hilary: (pulling out camera from across the street)
Simon: "No, you can get closer than that, come on, they're not going to bite!"
Hilary: "They're going to yell at me, I can just feel it!" (I take the picture.)
Men Protecting Car: (grumble-yell at me)
Hilary: "See, I told you so, they're yelling at me!"
Simon: "If they didn't want pictures taken, then they wouldn't have fucking parked it somewhere where we could see it."

"Everybody here unless they're dead or almost dead rides a bike." - Simon, on Interlaken's main method of transit.

"Get in! ... This is Janae. She lives upstairs." - Simon (he knows everybody, including people willing to stop and pick us up off the side of the road that happen to live in his building).

Accomplishments:
Went on our first real hike in Switzerland!

Travel Tip:
Keen's are the way to go. They are pretty much the only shoes you need to travel.


Crossing our fingers for the weather tomorrow...for the last week, everywhere we've been it's said cloudy with sun and a 30% chance of rain, and everyday we've gotten super lucky. Hoping that luck doesn't run out...