And then we hiked up a mountain....

So last weekend Riley organized a hiking trip starting in this cute little mountain town called Kandersteg. Rachel and I , Riley, Mike, Chris, Bruce, Wilms, Taylor and Penny took the train out though Bruce technically missed the train because a ticket machine gouged a hole out of his arm. We waited for him at the other end though. We couldn't leave without him he was so excited about the hike! We settle in for some beer and swiss bread and he showed up eventually.

The beginning of the hike was kinda brutal. It streched my caves just trying to stand on the incline we were climbing. Apparently in all we gained about 1100m elevation and went 15 km. Beautiful scenery all the way along. We found a salamader that taylor named and wanted to keep but didn't... It took us about 5.5 hours to get to where we were going but the slow pace was mostly due to snack, water and shotgun breaks that we were taking.

The "mountain hut" we stayed at turned out to be a newly renovated hotel type building with rooms that could sleep upto 20 people. The manager, Jean-Patrice we found out later, put us in the basement on purpose so we wouldn't disturbe anyone with our antics.... The hotel itself was sittingright on the precipice of what was almost a shear drop into another beautiful valley and town.

That night we had a bit of a party and JP joined us. It was great! I acted as a translator for a bit because he mostly spoke french and german and he gave me this swiss marmotte doll that yodels when you squeeze it and a ligther with the hotel name on it.

They fed us breafast the next morning on a room with a 180 degree view of the valley below. That night there had been a bit of blizzard so when we headed out for the quick hike down to the next town we walked into a winter wonderland. it reminded me of home and a little cold weather was kinda nice after so much profuse sweating...

And then we caught train home!

This is the vetran interns showing us how high the bar has been set....

Sardinia

This was our first real adventure as far as airports go and considering what could have gone wrong i'd say it went rather smoothly!

Our flight left from the basel airport at 8:30 am so we caught the 5:52 train to basel on wednesday morning and then took the bus from the train station to the airport no problem. The flight was a little late departing and since we were flying with Ryanair which is a discount airline, there was no assigned seating and therefore a mad rush at boarding time.

It was 27C when we arrived in Cagliari at 10ish. We rented a two door Fiat 500 for the weekend which will work out to about 45 euros per person for all transportation costs. At this point we were starving so we took the car and then followed the signs to a grocery store where we bought hearty bread, cheese and meat. Standard travel fare!

After leaving the market we got ourselves lost in Cagliari for probably about 45 minutes. It was right around lunchtime and the locals have a siesta when everything is closed that happen to fall right at that time......We finally figured it out though and headed northwest up the island.

We arrived in Bosa within about an hour and a half and had our first dip in the sea and explored what we think may have been a watch tower back in the day. This first place we stopped at wasn't a real beach and mostly was covered with volcanic rock and little seaweed but the rock had little pools in it and it was one f those pools that was my first Mediterranean swimming experience. We continued up until we arrived at a real beach and tried that out as well.

After Bosa We were headed up to Alghero where we had book our first hostel (a little north of Alghero in this sleepy little hamlet). They say that the coast road between Bosa and Alghero is on of the most Beautiful on the island and they weren't mistaken. Along the coast are small mountains which fall right into the sea. The water is emerald colored, especially when the light hits it right, and everything is covered with what looks to be lush greenery even though the climate there seems to lean towards what we saw in arizona.

Google maps failed us a little because it got us to the hamlet but then we had to fend for ourselves. after a little wandering. an old woman finally called down from her balcony to see if we were looking for the hostel...we obviously stuck out like a sore thumb! But she pointed u s in the right direction!

WE had pizza for dinner that night and it's not really worth mentioning because it really wasn't very good..

The next day we headed across the island to Olbia (slightly south of in Porto Taverna). There are vinyards and orchards all accross the island and the roads are tiny and narrow but very cute (i wasn't driving or i might have thought otherwise).

In porto Taverna, we found the most beautiful beach. It sloped gently downwards for hundreds of meters, the sand was white and completely unblemished by driftwood and the larger rocks you often find at the break point of the waves. The water was so clear that when you opened your eyes, even with the salt water, you had several meters of visibility. it was completely impossible to sneak up on anyone because they'd see you coming from a mile away.

After we got our fill of frolicking, we tried to find our hostel. It turned out to be something that reminded my a little more of a resort and the view! Wow, you could see the beautiful beach mentioned above and right offshore there were two smaller islands that lent a certain majesty to the whole scene.

Also there are these gorgeous pink and purple flowering bushes everywhere across the island and we stumbled across a marble quarry during our travels which reminded me greatly of the big white city in lord of the rings. It actually looked to be a similar color of marble as that used in the Duomo di Milano that we saw in Milan....

The next day we had booked a half day snorkeling tour in a small town called Cala Ganone which was about 2 hours south of where we were staying. we got to get all suited up in wetsuits and the took us on a bit of a boat tour along the cliffs near the town. The cliffs and the caves in them are apparently parts of caves systems that stretch for 100 km along the coast and make for great scuba diving and snorkeling. (This is Cala Ganone)

We stopped at a cave where we got to snorkel both around it and in it, the instructor brought a flashlight and showed us anemones and starfish as well as small school of other fish and shrimp type things. There were stalagmites and stalactites in the caves as well and I can quite honestly tell you that being in the dark and having the sunlight filtering through the water into the cave is one of the most beautiful things i had ever seen and is certainly etched into my memory.....

The man that took us out also brought out a dive instructor and two dive students who did there dive while we were snorkeling. Once they got back we piled back into the boat and headed to another cave where we could have done more snorkeling as another dive was happening but instead we swam and lolled on the boat pontoons like some sort of elite Mediterranean models....

Now just a side note about our tour guy. He is Italian and wore a speedo the whole time. His entire body was covered in a pelt of gold tinged hair from being out in the sun to much and as the wind whipped around when driving the boat all the hair undulated like weird sea grass..... but apart from this though, at one point he swam over to one of the cliff faces, free climbed about 25 feet using no obvious hand and foot holds and then executed at 10 point dive... we called him the spider monkey after that.

On the last day we slowly made our way back down the west coast of the island toward Cagliari, stopping for gelato and every beach we could fins. A significant stretch of the road wound it's way along the inside of a mountain range. The rods had more hair pin turns than pretty much anything that i've seen it BC. Let us simply say that i didn't feel that great afterwards....

Arriving back in Cagliari, It took us another hour and some frustration to find the airport. This is sort of our fault since we were using the old drive till you see a sign method, which has never been known for it's efficiency. We decided to forgo staying in a hostel on that last night because our flight left a 6:30 in the morning and the hostel was going to be expensive ....so we figure we got about 2 hours of sleep laying on the floor in the airport....

All in all a successful trip but i will certainly be going to be early tonight!

olivia

GAY PRIDE!

First off, I'm sorry i have been so negligent with my posts. Last weekend I got up to all sorts of adventures and I haven't gotten around to describing them in the detail they deserve until now....

Friday night all the interns got together for a drinking and hanging out night at the Kehl which is the biggest apartment ( though in my opinion, not the best since it's the furthest from the train station and up a huge hill). That was fun but fairly standard.... WE hadn't made any plans for last weekend but there were rumours going around that the Gay Pride Parade was happening in Zurich on Saturday so we thought that would be a fun way to pass the afternoon.

We didn't really plan it all that well and didn't really know where the parade route was but we were walking up BanhofStrasse( TRain station street?) and met the beginning of the parade coming towards us.

This first picture is of a dance troupe that did this one pattern THE WHOLE PARADE ROUTE. They were sweaty as all get out but i don't know if you can tell, they have very muscular legs!

There was costumes and music, (PS> Check out the legs on this guy! they go forever :))
and for a while we just stood beside the road and grooved to the techno that each of the huge float buses was playing. Then we started to work our way up the parade route stopping every once in a while to take in the sights. There was one Bus completely covered in bunches of roses that were then being tossed into the crowd. I did catch one but snapped the stem off in my excitement so it became a button hole rose for the afternoon.

The weather wasn't supposed to be good but up until 2:30ish the worst we got was some drizzling.

We had reached the end of the parade by this time and began backtracking, ie chasing down the last music truck and following the massive group of people that were now trailing the parade.

One of the buses had a foam machine out the back which turned at about five minute intervals and doused anyone behind it as well as turning the road into a soupy grey mass of feet and flowers.( The roomates having a good time....)

Everyone was so happy! It's not that it's a gay parade, it's that it's a love parade and that feeling definitely came across.

Anyway by the time we'd caught up with the best music truck, it started to pour and it took us a really long time to find shelter so we were drenched.....all good though!

As a side note, no pictures of this, but saturday night we decided to go to a club in zurich and somehow we ended up a this weird goth place where no one smiled and they were playing a depeche mode tribute. one girl was actually wearing a shirt that said " i'm only wearing black until i find a darker color" man. So anyway i think we ruined their party with all our peppiness and dancing and laughing and then the german girl with us got us all out of the bar and got our cover back ( which was 18CHF! so that was sweet!) All in all the weirdest night ever but an interesting story.

First Swiss Hike!

Yeterday we headed out on the train early in the morning to Luzern. Luzern was just a point on the Way to a town called Brugenstock where the hike was supposed to start but i have every intention of going back to Luzern at some point to do some exploring since it is a very beautiful city!

The picture was taken on the back of the steamboat that we took accross lake luzern to a fenicular that brought us up to brugenstock....

The train passes that rachel and i bought let us on any and all transportation in switzerland so we could ride around on these boats all day!

At first this hike seemed like more of a walk along a road.It turns out we missed a crucial turn early on but we did end up finding a hikeing path a little later....
the views from the road were still beautiful though. The hike we choose was on a peninsula so there was no way we could get permanently lost. Not that we could get lost in europe at all, there are people everywhere!

We saw lots of swiss cows, some of those bells were huge! When we were in Zurich on Saturday, we found a stall at the flee market that was selling bells and there was one that i'm pretty sure would have been to heavy for me to lift. It's neat though that they make all the bells different sizes so the cows can make there of completely chaotic and discordant music!

We had lunch beside a little church called St. Jost, i think. It was high up on a ridge so we had a beautiful view. There was also a strange litle snack bar beside the church that sold delicious nut pastries. Riley taught me how to ask for one but i was to nervous to try it. Also i had just had a chocolate bar, so a nut pastry was unecessary..... I think the church was a usual stop for walker/hikers since there were several other groups and families there as well.

When we finally came upon a legitimate hiking path we could hear some strange ethreal horn music and as we kept walking we came upon this man practicing with his swiss horn. Riley asked if we could take pictures and he said no problem and played us a little tune. I think we may have made him a little nervous though because it wasn't quite as good as what he had been playing before......

There was a particularly large hill we had to climb at one point and while we were figuring out the path we had the take we walked over to this shack that stood near by. We didn't know what it was and it was all by itself. Thinking i'd see a nice view i stuck my head around the corner to look at the other side of the building and the lake and i come face to face with the most bees i've ever seen except on television. For future reference if you find a little building in the middle of nowhere aproach with caution.... Don't worry i didn't get stung or anything but i did run away, scaredy cat that i am.

This was a view from the top of the ridge, approximately 500m above the lake.



This cute little completely natural rock garden was along the road toward the bee house.

We arrived in the town of Ennetbrogen around 2 and miandered around. We ended up paying 5 CHF to hang out in a beach area with pingpong and volley ball courts. I had a bit of a nap and also had a dip ( very quick mind you as the water, it turns out, is glacier fed) in lake Luzern.
We missed the first boat out of Ennetbrogen because we thought there was going to be another in a hour.
We walked over to Broch which is the neighbouring town and had some delicious icecream in home made waffle cones then played a game of giant chess on the walkway along the river. We decided to take the next boat out that did not go to Luzern but to another city on the other side of the lake. We had some nachos in a Mexican restaurant on the way to the train station and then took the train home. We did get stuck in Arth- Goldau or something for an hour cuz we just missed the train to Zurich but other than that it all ran smoothly!!!
This is a picture of Broch/Ennetbrugen side by side and the second picture is the sun setting on the peninsula ridge that we walked down.