Washington

We are currently on standby for a flight from Dulles to Knoxville that is now leaving at 11:30. I will update the Brussels and Amsterdam adventures soon.

- Ryan

The End of Swiss

Wow… Interlaken was one of the greatest places I’ve ever been too. The hostel we stayed at was great, I ran into some guys I went to middle school with, and canyoning was a lot of fun but not quite as extreme as I had expected (Growing up with property on Lake Keowee in northern South Carolina trained me well for rock slides and cliff jumping). Everyone in Interlaken was friendly and most of the people we were staying with were students in the States or Canada anyways.

On Tuesday morning we boarded the train to Geneva… the city of International Diplomacy. With a short stopover in Basel we were soon at our hostel. This was our first Hostelling International experience and quite frankly I can’t say I have been impressed. The place is essentially built in post-soviet style architecture with concrete walls, simple rooms and a huge empty cafeteria which serves as the dinning and social facilities (some people are currently playing cards and yelling in German next to me). Also last night Kevin had some money stolen out of his wallet. So the hostel is kinda miserable… but Geneva is actually a pretty cool town.

The first afternoon we were here we explored the town and climbed to the bell tower of the Calvinistic “Cathedral?” (not sure what to call it). From there we had great views all across the town. Today we visited the Geneva UN offices. The UN here is the largest office outside of New York, it is here that many of the humanitarian efforts are coordinated along with some demilitarization efforts. Nearly every UN member state has some sort of embassy here and an heir of importance can be felt when strolling down the lake side next to the Four Star Hotels lining the shore (The valet lots at these places can be downright ridiculous… I’ve lost count how many Bentleys, Lamborghinis, and Ferraris I’ve seen).

But I digress… The UN’s main building is housed in the former League of Nations Building built after World War I however the true UN campus extends far beyond the formal Palace of Nations and into the surrounding high rise office buildings. The buildings house everything from the World Health Organization to World Trade Organization offices. Standing in the middle of it all and taking in all the alphabet soup spelled out across the buildings is an experience in itself.

This evening we ran by the grocery store to grab some sandwich making supplies and had a nice dinner in a park overlooking the city. We walked along the shore and went out the end of both break walls. At the end of the east wall is the Geneva Water Fountain which shoots water some 400 feet in the air. It is supposed to be running all the time right now but it’s not. While we were about 20 feet away the water jet came to life and sprayed for about a minute. I tried to get my camera out but didn’t have enough time to focus before the water had receded.

Tomorrow we head to Brussels, and I am looking forward to sharing a waffle dinner with our classmate Ben Southard who is meeting up with us from London. We had everything planned out on which train we needed and just had one stopover in Lyon until we got to the ticket counter. At the international ticket office here in Geneva the attendant informed us that our high-speed train to Brussels from Lyon was booked and the only way we could take the TGV (high-speed) was to buy a regular fare ticket for 179 Swiss Francs (about 160 USD). Obviously that wasn’t going to work. Thankfully he was able to find us a route through Basel. The only catch was that now we are faced with nearly an 11 hour train ride and the only reading material I have is an Economist… needless to say I’m going to know this week’s world news.

So yeah… if you have been keeping up with my travels thank you and I will be home in a week.

Interlaken

Interlaken Switzerland should be on everyone's to do list. The hostel we are staying at is ridiculous; people from all over the states and around the world come here to have a great time. Interlaken is situated between two lakes just north of the alps (hence the name) and is the extreme sport capital of Europe. From our hostel we can book skydiving, hang gliding, paragliding, whitewater rafting and much more. The hostel (Balmer's) is like an all inclusive backpacker's dream. They have a hammock room, game room, TV, wireless internet and best of all the best bar in the city is underneath it all. Last night we made some pork chops for dinner and sailed through happy hour chatting with some folks that went to Sewanne on into the night when we went down to the club for DJ beats well into the morning. Having a club less than 30 yards from my bunk room might become troublesome. The set up really is great and you get to meet everyone and maybe play someone in a game of life size chess. Today we didn't do a whole lot but we explored the city a little more and went to Hooters for dinner (come on... Hooters in Switzerland? I had to go). Tomorrow we're going canyoning (think rappelling but in waterfalls) and given that I make it through unhurt... another night of fun here at Balmers.