Switzerland Adventure: Crossing off items on my Bucket List

Hallo Everyone!!!

I just got back from the best trip I think I will ever take while I'm here in the UK (besides travelling home of course!) and I am still in shock of the wonderful and amazing time I had in Switzerland!!!  The adventure was incredible- and an adventure it sure was!  Hope you enjoy my story!

Sara and I left for Switzerland on Wednesday afternoon.  We had about a 10 hour travel itinerary to get us to Interlaken, Switzerland that would take all afternoon.  Little did we know, we would encounter many roadblocks.  We started off by train to London, which was perfectly fine.  We then took the tube, or London Subway, to the next train station to connect to London Gatwick Airport.  Once at the airport, we made it to our flight.  All of this took 2 hours.  Check, check, check!  We were so surprised how clean and nice the airport was; I fly out of there again later in the semester, so it's good to know!  Our flight leaving was roughly 30 minutes late which caused us some anxiety...we were definitely planning according to our times...
We arrived at Zurich International Airport, or Flugehafen to the Swiss, at 10:50pm, which meant that we had missed the train that we were planning to catch!  We quickly tried to buy our tickets to make another one, but we were so confused we had no idea what we were doing; everything was in German.  Sara asked for help from two women from Switzerland, who helped us not only find our train, but our way to Interlaken!  We were truly blessed so far on our journey.  We finally arrived at our hostel at 1:05am, which means that we were literally travelling for 12 hours.

We woke up the next morning to a foggy day in Interlaken.  We decided to go into town and do some souvenir shopping while waiting for our paragliding adventure- we were SO excited!  However, when we got back to the hostel, the company cancelled due to the fog.  Sara and I were quick to come up with another day adventure- to Lauterbrunen.  In this area, there are a lot of trails and adventures people can go on for little expense.  We chose the Trummelbach falls, which are waterfalls situated inside the mountains in the Alps.  It was an awesome experience!  We did get a little wet, but the pictures we have are just stunning!  The skies were a clear blue, and we even saw some paragliders as we were getting ready to go back for the night.  I was so upset because they were able to go and I wasn't...but we talked with a couple who was from Australia when waiting for the bus.  They said that there was a place to sign up by their hotel in Lauterbrunen, which was good to note.  We spent our evening at a local Irish pub, which was a lot of fun because we got to know the local culture.
The next day, Sara and I were confident we were going to go paragliding.  The skies were not as cloudy and we were ready to go at 10am.  However, the company cancelled again.  I was not going to lose this opportunity.  I asked the lady at the hostel to help us get in contact with the company from Lauterbrunen, and sure enough the owner was driving through Interlaken and would take us up to Schlithorn to attempt to paraglide!  We made it all the way up and he said that we would need a cable car ticket (ONE WAY!!) to get to Murren, which was our take off point.  I was so excited in the cable car!  Sara and I couldn't believe that it was finally going to happen!  We got off at Murren and had to hike about 10 minutes up the mountain on a pretty steep climb.  We finally made it to the top and it was beautiful!  I was told to run until I couldn't feel the ground anymore....And suddenly, I was UP in the air!!!! I was shocked, honestly.  I was soaring through the air and I felt like a kid on Christmas.  The sky and the cold air was just so refreshing and beautiful. You had such a unique view of the ground and the mountains.  I am still thinking about it...and it was absolutely incredible.  I don't think I will ever have anything that thrill seeking happen again in my life, and that's totally fine with me!  When my feet hit the ground, I still felt like I was on cloud nine.  Sara and I spent the rest of the day shopping and enjoying Interlaken.
The next morning, Sara and I took a train back to Zurich so we would have easier access to the airport the next morning.  We had to find our way around a city with ZERO English at all.  It was kind of ridiculous at times, but we found our way to our hostel, which ended up being a death metal bar slash hostel.  Honestly, it was an experience.  Sara and I were the only "normal" looking people in the room.  Everyone else was ready to scream "I HATE YOU" along with the band.  So we ate our dinner and went up to our room to get a good night's sleep.
Sunday morning, we got on our train to the airport.  We finally figured out how Swiss transport worked...after we were there for four days!  We were there early enough to get checked in and have some pretzel bread at the airport (SO GOOD!).  As we were waiting for our flight, we heard a call for a flight for US Airways going to Philadelphia.  Sara and I both looked at each other and were thinking the same thing, "Let's go home".  We saw all of the Americans getting on their flight and that was the first time I felt truly completely homesick.  I figured out I will only be in the airport one more time before I get on my flight to go home.  Thank goodness!  We had a great flight and train ride back to the manor.  Home Sweet Home!

There's the story of Interlaken, Switzerland.  I hope you enjoyed it!  Sorry it took so long to get put up- I had an exam this week and I spent the day with my meet-a-family.
Love,

Taylor <3