European Aventure - Day 7

We woke up this morning as the Swiss Sunshine was beaming in the un-curtained window. The only reason I got up was because Jeff kept running in and out of our creepy room reminding us it was food time. I think the only reason he cared was cause Walter served European sized portions and he wanted our share. The one bad thing with a Euro-breakfast is that some of the people don’t like butter and Jam on bread as much as Is do. So instead of having enough for three pieces of bread, I only had enough for 1. the hot chocolate was also exquisite and fresh out of a special Swiss ‘chocolate cow’.

Today was our day to make our climb up to the Jungfraujoch, which is the saddle between the Jungfrau and the Monch Mountains,. It started off being somewhat overcast, but the other two were hopeful that it would be clear by the time we got to the top. The whole train ride up we were traveling at an angle. The train was equipped with a third wheel, which was a gear that gripped the track extra well. In all the ride was about 1 hour and 45 minutes. Half of which was done just inside the face of the Eiger Mountain. On that part of the trip, the train made 2 pit stops so people could go to look out points that look out of the face of the mountain. The top was super cool. The second the train stopped it was like opening the gates at Disneyland. First we went to the ice caves that had treated me and my brother so well before. There were these tunnels carved into this glacier 10 meters below the surface. It was really slick and cold as you could image, after all, we were inside of an enormous ice cube 11,700 feet above sea level. The Ice caves were cool, but not as cool as last time when me and Joe were there. these caves were only ½ as big, and some of the big sculptures weren’t there, like the one that 'bought' us lunch.

Next we visited the Swiss Plateau, one of the caves led us to the outside were we could look out to a glacier on one side, and the a cloud-covered valley on the other side. Up there it was really windy and super cold. Good thing I brought my jacket. My hands would freeze just taking pictures. By the entrance to the caves there was a hill that everyone would slip on, except me. The combination of sunshine, sliding shoes and heavy cold winds made that area 'The Ice Slide of Death'. The first time I went down it I was behind an old man. I didn’t think he could take the inevitable spill, so me being invincible, just grabbed his coat and backpack with out him knowing, and I would ‘help’ correct his movements both steering him and holding him up. I didn’t make it back in time to help Jeffery though. He, like everyone else, felt safe about walking near the guide rope (which was slickest part) and the guy behind him slipped and took a bunch of people out, just like bowling pins. There were a lot of Indians up on the top of the mountain too. A lot of Indians. Enough in fact visit there that they have a Bollywood Curry Restaurant.

We also went up to the observation deck, where all the research is done. We wandered around outside where the air was cool, windless, and sunny. The observatory itself is 11 stories above where the plateau is, but is connected by part of the net of tunnels. After that the kids were hungry so we had to stop and eat at the cafeteria there. a bit more than my wallet wanted to pay, but my tummy had more of a say at that point. After that Ryan had to send a postcard while I collected some Glacier snow samples. The train ride on the way down was really full. We all had to sit in the entry way. I slept as much as I could.

As soon as we came out of the mountain tunnel it was completely foggy. Good thing we took all those pictures earlier. We made a pit stop there where we switched trains. They had a huge frying pan there cooking up bratwurst, sauerkraut, and Roesti (potatoes). We all got some, or should I say I got some and they all helped themselves. As they were drooling in the sauerkraut, I heard an announcement over the loudspeaker telling us the next train down was leaving in one minute. So I assumed they wanted to make that train as much as I would, but I had for forgotten that they don’t understand everything over the loudspeakers that I do, so I quickly explained that we didn’t have any more time to take pictures of ourselves eating bratwurst.

At this time we had a few extra hours to kill, and weren’t sure what town to spend our evening in. There was an option of three or four different places but we opted for the quickest and easiest town which was on the way back to our place. I was pushing for an early dinner and early bed, but Plewe had a set eating schedule and he still had an hour before his schedule would let him eat, so we wandered around this little Swiss village for a while we bought some chocolate, and hiked to a waterfall too. I was almost indifferent to it all cause I had been there before with my brother, but they hadn’t so I just played along. I think I was annoyed with the cloud cover too. That definitely didn’t help my majestic attitude.

We found a quaint little place to eat not to far from our train station. It had lots of people so it had to be good (according to Jeff). They made us wait 20 minutes cause of the business there. That didn’t make the ‘great food conisur’ “Jeff” happy. Don’t they know who he is?! I made him humbly wait just around the corner, as his opinion went from ‘looks great’ to ‘how disrespectful’. And “how can they even stay in business”! When the time was up they still didn’t have anything free so we waited some more. Plewe gave them a 10 minute time limit to seat us, but at 8 min. we decided to leave anyway. We went to a place just up the road that didn’t speak any English. We got Schnitzel and cheese bread. The schnitzel came with fries, or should I say ‘fried-salt-sticks’, with a a little potato in the middle’. Just the amount of salt alone scarred my mouth, then the temperature of these extra salty potato sticks finished the job, leaving second degree burns on the roof of my mouth and tongue. Only after the pain hit my conciseness is when I realized I shouldn’t have let myself get so hungry. It was one of those times where I knew it was bad for me, but I couldn’t stop. And to finish up the evening the true Euro-style, we had a hot chocolate night cap as well. After all, we were sitting at the edge of a gravel patio in the heart of Switzerland, looking up to some of the most spectacular views anywhere. It almost seems unreal.

So towards the end of the evening we generally knew that the bus came to the train station once an hour. We hadn’t seen it yet that hour, so I hurried the guys away from our delightful dinner to hustling into play (yes another one). I check the bus schedule and it said the bus shouldn’t be there in like 10 minutes. But that wasn’t entirely logical cause we hadn’t seen it go past the other way yet. And that posed a problem cause Swiss buses don’t operate behind schedule. So after the second and third times I check the schedule I realized that the bus dust get a dinner bread, cause it didn’t come that hour. So yes we had to wait 1:50 minutes for the next bus. I figured it would suck, but what else could we do. So jeff, in an angry like parental fashion decided to put his foot down and said “fine, we’ll walk there!” In order to punish us or something. But both Ryan and I almost in unison said “Hell No!” “It looks like I’m waiting here for the next bus”. Both as we slowly sat down, stretched our legs out, reclined our heads, hands behind threads, and let out the sigh of “I’m about to wait 1hr. and 50 minutes for a bus”. And so we waited.

So what I learned there was to check the important Bus/train/gondola schedules in advanced, rather than meandering aimlessly then planning on a schedule to work out when you haven’t even checked it. IN our long wait we had time to plan out tomorrow. We were trekking to Venice tomorrow. Luckily some of the girls that Plewe was trying to pick-up on gave us a Euro Rail train schedule book so we could check out times n stuff of all trains all over Europe. Good job Ryan.