“Ah Speitz”

So I am finally getting my Switzerland post up! We had an absolutely amazzzzzing time. One of the most beautiful and unique places I have ever been. (and the most expensive, but we’ll stick to the positives!). Some of this might be repetitive from one of my earlier posts right when I had gotten into Switzerland, but oh well. We got back from Morocco Tuesday Feb 2^nd ran home ate and then headed to the bus station at midnight. We took a taxi to the bus station because all of the city buses were done. On the way we kept going through green lights through all of the stop lights and chris was sitting in the front bouncing up and down cheering VERDE LUZES VERDE LUZES (which is green lights in Spanish). The taxi driver thought we were the weirdest Americans in the world probably. So we got to the bus station and jumped on our 5 hour bus ride. Then we hopped on a plane from Madrid to Milan, Italy. When we landed a trumpet song came on and then proceeded to congratulate us for flying with ryanair, and they are proud to present their 90% on time depart and arrival- ironic because on our way back they were two hours late… they didn’t play the song the second time. But anywho, we got into Milan and went to the train station to purchase what we thought were going to be “cheap tickets”, turns out they were going to be 56 euro one way to Speitz. And another 10 or so to Interlaken. But regardless, we had no choice, we had to get there somehow and that was the only way. I decided I was going to be the ring leader and buy my ticket first. I went up to the counter and asked for one ticket to Spits please. All of my group just died laughing at me. It’s pronounced Spaeitz- like flights. So the rest of the trip the ongoing joke was, whenever something went wrong someone would say, “Ah spits!” We also tried to use our ISIC cards which were supposedly supposed to get us discounts at a lot of airports and train stations, but not one of them did, but we continued to ask every single place we went and they would give us the most disturbed look, say no with an obvious glare and then we would reply, ah spits. After long hours of travel, we finally arrived in Interlaken and found our hostel very quick. It was late at night and we were really hungry so we walked around the city to see if anything was open. On one of the streets Robert (King of Karma) Tried throwing a snowball at us girls but continued to slip on the ice and fall on his back (which already has two herniated discs). I mention the king of karma because when we were in Africa, Robert laid on a tombstone, took a picture on it and then when walking away from it to see the picture, he stepped in poop. We all suffered the consequences of that one because he made the whole bus smell. – back to Switzerland- we finally found food at mcdonalds which ended up being anywhere from 12 to 17 dollars per meal, but we had never been so happy to pay for food in our lives. With all of the food from spain and morocco, it felt sooooo good to eat Mc Donalds- we called it the most satisfying meal yet. We went to bed pretty early that night because the guys were going to go to the mountain to ski the next morning. The next day (Thursday) the boys went to the mountain to hit the sloped and figure everything out so it was easier for us the next day- and us girls stayed back and had an amazing day to ourselves. We started out by walking around the cute little town enclosed by mountains- just shopped a little and took some pictures but then we went to the grocery store and had so much fun. We got lunch meat, bread, chips, wine and other snacks and went back to our hostel and made ourselves a great lunch! We later went back and got noodles and sauce and other stuff for dinner and we had dinner waiting for the boys when they got back. When the boys finally did arrive they were so exhausted but also so hungry. That night we went and saw live music at one of the pubs- but ended up losing Robert. Some guys from the hostel made him come with them to different pubs and meet new people- they said he wouldn’t have the same experience hanging out with us. We finally found Robert and when chris picked him up on his shoulder to bring him with us Robert simply yelled, “I can’t! I am becoming a man!” Robert wanted to go back in so we followed him and met a bunch of men from the swiss army- cool because of all the products of swiss army. Caitlin had a little blonde moment of her own and thanked all the men for all they did- not realizing that they weren’t fighting for our country hahaha. We went to bed pretty early that night because we set our alarms for 6 am the next morning. We got ourselves up with a great struggle but knew that what lied ahead was totally worth it! We had to go buy our train and lift tickets, rent all of our equipment and find our meeting spots before we could finally all go off on our adventure! So snowboarding was my choice of snow recreation, and I chose this on account of that fact that I had done it once before and I had never skied before. It took me a little while to get the hang of it but I found different tricks in order for me to get down the hill with keeping a steady pace and not falling every five seconds…well I still fell every five seconds but at least I was on a consistent track. Caitlin and I got to the bottom of the first beginners mountain and we decided to go to the very top-one of the highest mountains in Europe and go for it! It was literally blizzarding up there- when I say literally I mean it- they shut down the hill after we went on it. Sand and snow was flying in my face as I attempted to get down it- some guy who was a snowboarder instructor in the US stopped to give me a few tips too- so at least I made a new friend. We got to the bottom and it was already time for lunch. We were thinking ahead and had made sandwiches for lunch- we ate lunch and then decided to go down the main mountain as a group all the way down- snowboard through town and all the way down to where we rented the gear- this trip was the most amazing time of my life. The scenery was absolutely amazing- trees all around the path- it was just us going down this mountain so we just screwed around and enjoyed being in the mountains- they would all get to the bottom of one hill- wait for me to cruise by and crash-get up again- and then we would go on to the next one. When we would hit flat land the skiers with us would have to give us one of their poles to hold on to so that we wouldn’t have to take off our boards and one time chris handed Caitlin his while he was riding by- she grabbed it and the momentum of her being stopped – stopped him and he flew into a ravine. So after the most amazing day in the snow- we came back and I made spaghetti for everyone!!! The way back was about as crazy as the way there- because of our 2 hour accidental layover – so we didn’t get to the Madrid airport until all the buses and flights were done- Robert goes, “it’s okay, we’ll just stay in the airport hostel”, when we got to the airport we put all of our bags by a wall and laid down to sleep- Caitlin announced to us that she thought there was actually an airport hostel. I have ten times more blonde moments but I love when someone else shares them with me :). So after this novel- we finally made it back safe and had memories to last a lifetime.