There is a reason the swiss have more combined nobel prizes than any other nation.
Went to Switzerland this weekend.
Me and Kevin got up early and buse it to Venlo to make an early train to Switzerland. While on the train we played a couple games of Tragedy! and made some adjustments so it works better. Then we got to switzerland. Our Hostel, the Happy Inn Lodge, was quite close to the train station, which is a major plus. It was pretty late by the time we got there, so we pretty much just had time to get some dinner before it was too late to do anything. The girl that checked us into the hostel was a very atractive swiss girl, who had a perfect american accent. She said it was because her father was canadian, but it was a real trip to meet someone who spoke perfect english with a perfect accent. Then we went to our dorm, called Jungfrua. Jungfrau is a perpetually-unlocked, eight-person, mixed dorm. We took this in stride, and went out on the town in search of adventure (read: dinner.)
We ended up at this silly resteraunt, where everything was too expensive. Everything in Switzerland is too expesnive. They are still on the franc, which is less than a euro, so you would think things would be cheaper, but no. They are just adjusted. Then Higher. McDonalds costs 10-13 francs, which is about 6.5-9 Euro!!!! Ouch. So I got a scnhizzel at this place, and it was decent, and me and Spak talked about transformers for an exorbadant amount of time. Then Spak says "Know what would be great, but we could never do it because it would immediately be censored? Terrorism: the baord game." SO I was like, well, it wouldnt get sensored that fast, but how do you win terroris? You'd have to get the terror alert all the way up... oh wait and then- and then- until we invented the whole board game in basically an evening.
SO we got back to the hostel late at night, cause we were in a cafe until 2:30 talkign about terrorism, and the place is locked. Kevin starts freaking out, and we try every way to get in. I threw a number of snowballs at some guys window, but no matter how we yelled, he just wouldnt condescend to look at us. Kevin was about to give up, but I knew there must be some sollution to this. I walked aroudn the other side of the building, and lo and behold, there was an unlocked door. It led up the stairs and right to our unlocked dorm. Hurrah.
The next day we took a scenic train to Luderbraun. We heard it was nice and had access to the gondolas. We walked for about an hour and 45 minutes through a scenic valey in the alps, and had a general great time. On the walk there, we kept passign all these signs that said Jungfau (the name of our dorm). We passed a Jungfau camp, and other various jungfaus. The guy who worked at the train even had a shirt that said "Junfrau." Eventually, I decied to get to the bottom of it and ask a passing hiker. But then I didn't. So we'l; never know what jungfau means. Oh well. Also, on the way we passed this crazy slide. It was all wet from rain, but Kevin couldnt resist the urge to try it. After getting himself all wet and dirty on a swiss slide, he remarked "Wow, the swiss are way ahead of us on slide technology. I guess with so many mountains around, their kids wouldn't be satisfied with any normal slides." The slide did look really fun and fast, but i had to stay dry, so I decided to just keep on keeping on, without the slide. Then we got to the gondola and took it up to a tiny vilalge called Grimmelwald (population 800). This tiny village still runs on agriculture because nothing has been built there in the past century. The gov. there says that it is a land slide hazard, which is a total lie so they can still survive off live stock. Which is fine by me, cause that place was cool. It was snowing very Idealicly, and we walked up a winding road higher and higher into the Alps. Occasionally, someone would pass us on a sled going down, which we were fascinated by. As we went further and further away from civilization, the scnerey became more and more picturesque until i felt like i was walking through some wintery narnia. It was so crazy with the brook and the snow and the coniferous trees that I really felt like I was in another world.
While in the town we found an open resteraunt where they served fondu, and I fondued it up. It was a very flavorful cheese fondu that sat in my stomach like a rock. For a drink i had something called rivella red. Kevin got rivella blue. They looked exactly alike, but tasted differant. Apparently, mine tasted red and kevin's tasted blue.
On the way back to the gondola stop we saw two little kids filling plastic store bags with snow. We were like... ok... But we followed them to see what they were doing. Eventually, they walked up to a slide. (Me and kevin saw the slide as soon as we walked out of the gondola, and we slid down it. The swiss truly are light years ahead of us in slide technology, and the following paragraph proves it. Even their kids are slide geniuses) So the kids climb to the top of the slide, and pour snow down it. This makes it super fast. Then they sit on the plastic bags. This makes it even faster and *prevents their asses from getting wet*. Genius. This is why the swiss have more nobel prize winners than any other country. We then got into the gondola and took it back down the mountain. Speaking of swiss engineering, the gondola system is nothing to sneeze at either.
We walked back through the same valley and took the trains back to itnerlaken where our stuff was. (we just kept it in the locker in the room where we were no longer staying, then came back with the full knowledge that the room would be unlocked.) After that we kileld another few hours at the cafe where we invented terrorism the board game putting some finishing touches on it. Then we started our train journey back, which was supposed to take from about 9PM to about 9AM the next day. Instead it took from 9PM to about 10PM where we got stuck in Spiez where our train NEVER SHOWED UP even though we BOOKED A COUCHET for 24 EURO!!!!. So we went back to the train station where no one would help us, and resigned to our fate of staying in the station over night. However, soon we were turned out onto the street by a security job who had to shut down the station. This blew emesely, because now we had to kill 5 hours on the streets of spiez, where everythign was closed. So we are walking around, looking for someplace open and or warm, and i see, tada! an ATM vestibule. I use the handy dandy ATM card to get us in, and we are good as golden for the next few hours. Nice. Warm. Vestibuley.
We get on the first train out of there, the 5AM to Venlo, and after a few stops and setting our alarm clocks to wake up for the connection, we are back in the netherlands at about 1PM. I got back to the castle and got to bed at 3PM, and slept until 11AM the next day. the end.
Me and Kevin got up early and buse it to Venlo to make an early train to Switzerland. While on the train we played a couple games of Tragedy! and made some adjustments so it works better. Then we got to switzerland. Our Hostel, the Happy Inn Lodge, was quite close to the train station, which is a major plus. It was pretty late by the time we got there, so we pretty much just had time to get some dinner before it was too late to do anything. The girl that checked us into the hostel was a very atractive swiss girl, who had a perfect american accent. She said it was because her father was canadian, but it was a real trip to meet someone who spoke perfect english with a perfect accent. Then we went to our dorm, called Jungfrua. Jungfrau is a perpetually-unlocked, eight-person, mixed dorm. We took this in stride, and went out on the town in search of adventure (read: dinner.)
We ended up at this silly resteraunt, where everything was too expensive. Everything in Switzerland is too expesnive. They are still on the franc, which is less than a euro, so you would think things would be cheaper, but no. They are just adjusted. Then Higher. McDonalds costs 10-13 francs, which is about 6.5-9 Euro!!!! Ouch. So I got a scnhizzel at this place, and it was decent, and me and Spak talked about transformers for an exorbadant amount of time. Then Spak says "Know what would be great, but we could never do it because it would immediately be censored? Terrorism: the baord game." SO I was like, well, it wouldnt get sensored that fast, but how do you win terroris? You'd have to get the terror alert all the way up... oh wait and then- and then- until we invented the whole board game in basically an evening.
SO we got back to the hostel late at night, cause we were in a cafe until 2:30 talkign about terrorism, and the place is locked. Kevin starts freaking out, and we try every way to get in. I threw a number of snowballs at some guys window, but no matter how we yelled, he just wouldnt condescend to look at us. Kevin was about to give up, but I knew there must be some sollution to this. I walked aroudn the other side of the building, and lo and behold, there was an unlocked door. It led up the stairs and right to our unlocked dorm. Hurrah.
The next day we took a scenic train to Luderbraun. We heard it was nice and had access to the gondolas. We walked for about an hour and 45 minutes through a scenic valey in the alps, and had a general great time. On the walk there, we kept passign all these signs that said Jungfau (the name of our dorm). We passed a Jungfau camp, and other various jungfaus. The guy who worked at the train even had a shirt that said "Junfrau." Eventually, I decied to get to the bottom of it and ask a passing hiker. But then I didn't. So we'l; never know what jungfau means. Oh well. Also, on the way we passed this crazy slide. It was all wet from rain, but Kevin couldnt resist the urge to try it. After getting himself all wet and dirty on a swiss slide, he remarked "Wow, the swiss are way ahead of us on slide technology. I guess with so many mountains around, their kids wouldn't be satisfied with any normal slides." The slide did look really fun and fast, but i had to stay dry, so I decided to just keep on keeping on, without the slide. Then we got to the gondola and took it up to a tiny vilalge called Grimmelwald (population 800). This tiny village still runs on agriculture because nothing has been built there in the past century. The gov. there says that it is a land slide hazard, which is a total lie so they can still survive off live stock. Which is fine by me, cause that place was cool. It was snowing very Idealicly, and we walked up a winding road higher and higher into the Alps. Occasionally, someone would pass us on a sled going down, which we were fascinated by. As we went further and further away from civilization, the scnerey became more and more picturesque until i felt like i was walking through some wintery narnia. It was so crazy with the brook and the snow and the coniferous trees that I really felt like I was in another world.
While in the town we found an open resteraunt where they served fondu, and I fondued it up. It was a very flavorful cheese fondu that sat in my stomach like a rock. For a drink i had something called rivella red. Kevin got rivella blue. They looked exactly alike, but tasted differant. Apparently, mine tasted red and kevin's tasted blue.
On the way back to the gondola stop we saw two little kids filling plastic store bags with snow. We were like... ok... But we followed them to see what they were doing. Eventually, they walked up to a slide. (Me and kevin saw the slide as soon as we walked out of the gondola, and we slid down it. The swiss truly are light years ahead of us in slide technology, and the following paragraph proves it. Even their kids are slide geniuses) So the kids climb to the top of the slide, and pour snow down it. This makes it super fast. Then they sit on the plastic bags. This makes it even faster and *prevents their asses from getting wet*. Genius. This is why the swiss have more nobel prize winners than any other country. We then got into the gondola and took it back down the mountain. Speaking of swiss engineering, the gondola system is nothing to sneeze at either.
We walked back through the same valley and took the trains back to itnerlaken where our stuff was. (we just kept it in the locker in the room where we were no longer staying, then came back with the full knowledge that the room would be unlocked.) After that we kileld another few hours at the cafe where we invented terrorism the board game putting some finishing touches on it. Then we started our train journey back, which was supposed to take from about 9PM to about 9AM the next day. Instead it took from 9PM to about 10PM where we got stuck in Spiez where our train NEVER SHOWED UP even though we BOOKED A COUCHET for 24 EURO!!!!. So we went back to the train station where no one would help us, and resigned to our fate of staying in the station over night. However, soon we were turned out onto the street by a security job who had to shut down the station. This blew emesely, because now we had to kill 5 hours on the streets of spiez, where everythign was closed. So we are walking around, looking for someplace open and or warm, and i see, tada! an ATM vestibule. I use the handy dandy ATM card to get us in, and we are good as golden for the next few hours. Nice. Warm. Vestibuley.
We get on the first train out of there, the 5AM to Venlo, and after a few stops and setting our alarm clocks to wake up for the connection, we are back in the netherlands at about 1PM. I got back to the castle and got to bed at 3PM, and slept until 11AM the next day. the end.