Days 9 & 10: Out of the Alps and into Rome

Yesterday we woke up at a liesurely hour to experience our last day in Switzerland. We had decided to go up to a little town called Gimmelwald with our roomates that we had been hanging out with at our hostel. To get to the town we had to take a train from Interlaken to Lauterbrunnen, a bus from there to Stechtelberg, and finally a tram up to Gimmelwald.

We set out for this series of connections about noon, and waited for the train amongst an overzealous group of German \ Eastern European metalheads who were in town for a festival featuring Slipknot and Korn (who knew those bands were still bands?). The kids were carrying around mini-kegs of Interlakens local beer and creating a general rucks in the station square. It seemed pretty contrary to the chilled-out Interlaken spirit to be hosting a metal-fest, but what did we care -- we were jumping town.

We headed up on the train, bus, and tram to Gimmelwald. Each stop toward our destination became more Swiss than the next. Interlaken is a little touristy, but is a great location and only has about 4,000 actual residents. Gimmelwald, on the other hand, has about 100 residents, doesnt allow motor vehicles, and features a lot of goats.

The trip away from civilization was well worth the 30CHF (roughly equivalent to US dollars) round trip. The train ride up drove into a valley between two dramatic mountains on either side, and passed waterfalls that ran over cliff edges and turned into mist hundreds of feet below. As if that wasnt enough beautiful scenery, the view from the top of the tram car in Gimmelwald left that all in the dust. I wish I had more pictures but my camera kind of died. I cant do justice describing it, but just picture looking out from an incredibly steep mountainside at about 5,000 feet into a gorge-like canyon, then over to an opposing cliff face that rose up 9.000 feet -- another 4,000 from even our high vantage point. Needless to say it was probably the best natural scene Ive ever been able to look at, and wont be forgotten anytime soon.

From Gimmelwald we hiked up to Murren, a slightly larger and slightly higher mountain town, then took the same series of transportation back down to home base at Interlaken.

That night we were planning on taking it easy with our friends from the hostel, and maybe meeting up with the girls for dinner since they they were coming into Interlaken just as we were leaving. We went to meet them at their hostel, but couldnt find them. We figured they had just gone to dinner on their own, but it turns out that was an optimistic guess. Long story short, they had had quite the day of train antics trying to come from Brussels, and wouldnt be in till 1 a.m. I stayed up and met them at the train station when they finally arrived. Not exactly how we thought it might work out, but good to see everyone for a few minutes regardless.


The next morning (today) we had planned to leave Interlaken for Rome. It turns out the train fiascoes werent over, though. We woke up early and barely got our first train. Phew. But that wasnt the problem. The problem was that we had some worldly-challenged sorority girls from California in front of us in line to get off at our connecting stop. They couldnt figure out how to open the door in time to exit the train, so we were all stuck on it as it drove away from our stop. Great. We ended up missing all of our connections, going 2 hours way out of the way, and ultimately getting here 3 or so hours late.

But now were finally here in Rome, at a hostel way outside of the city commotion. However, were moving to another tomorrow so it should be a little more exciting then. We didnt have time to do much beside find our accomodations after we got here, but we did end up going out for take-out pizza and getting gelato afterward. I ate one huge square piece with tomato sauce and mushrooms, another huge piece with mozarella and some weird meat, and then a delicious cup of strattiocello, which according to Kate is kind of like cookies n creme. (Good recommendation) It was delicious, and served the purpose of filling me up to an unreasonable level. The reason behind this scheme of stuffing myself was that in Switzerland I had to use somebodys Swiss Army Knife to punch a new hole in my belt, since the skinniest one wasnt holding my pants up anymore. Yikes. After I realized that, though, I did some push-ups, pull-ups, and part of the P90X ab workout (come on, youve seen the informercials) with our roomate Bruno, who had somehow acquired the whole instructional video. I guess when I get back, my mom will face the challenge of nuturing her loving son back onto his belts skinniest built-in setting and off the makeshift notch.

Well, gotta run for now. Im so tired I could fall asleep right here, even though I did all day on the train anyway. Were waking up sort of early to try to get into the Vatican without a ridiculous wait, so I need all the hours I can get!