Avventure Italiane Del Jake: Ow. Switzerland Hurts.

Doctor: Tell me where it hurts?
Me: Everywhere.

That's pretty much how I felt on Sunday after snowboarding in the Alps. More on that later...

OK, so this relatively unplanned trip turned out pretty well overall. I walked into the train station Friday morning, walked out with my €91,00 train ticket to Interlaken, Switzerland. This was a night train leaving at 23:00 that night, and was the first such train I had been on.

The Train and Spiez, Switzerland

The train ride was relatively uneventful. I went to dinner with my roommate and his friend, and almost was late to the station so I had to catch a taxi. Hopped on the train, met my new roommates for the night and made my bed.

There was a very nice man and his daughter on the train who thought my name was "Kyle" and an Italian Paolo. The first two travelers happened to be from Minnesota, Minneapolis to be exact. The guy was wayyyy overly friendly. I guess I shouldn't complain, but it was almost sickening.

Sleeping on the train was almost non-existant. The train stopping and starting, twisting and turning made it rather difficult to stay asleep. The train staff awoke us at 6:30 to inform us we were nearly to Spiez and gave us breakfast and coffee.

I must say... this is the first time I have actually missed Minnesota's cold. There is something incredibly refreshing about the bitter cold. Maybe its just that the air in Italy is so poor ;)

We waited for our connection in Spiez, and I hopped to the front of the station to take some pictures:

Beautiful. Took the train from Spiez to Interlaken, Paolo gave us his contact information and invited us to dinner if we were ever in the area again. Very nice.

Interlaken, Switzerland and Jungfraujoch

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I honestly should have spent more time in Interlaken exploring. When I arrived I went almost immediately to my hostel, checked in. I wasn't able to go into my room yet, so I locked my valuables in a locker.

I caught the first train to Lauterbrunnen and spent some time wandering that town:

I wandered North of the town a ways, and saw this:

SNOW!!! All of you people that are enjoying the blizzard this week are laughing at me and I'm sure would be glad to give me more of it, but this is the first time I have seen and touched snow since leaving.

After wandering back, I bought a ticket at the train station to go to Jungfraujoch, the highest train station in Europe (at about 11,782 feet). The ticket was 157 Swiss Francs (~$130) but was supposed to be worth it.

Jungfraujoch

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The train ride took about 2.5 hours from Lauterbrunnen, with one connection. The entire view up was absolutely gorgeous and overlooked much the valley I had just explored:

My connection at Kleine Scheidegg has having Snowpen Air during the time I was there. The main event was Bryan Adams, who I watched for some time after I came back:

(BTW, I am going to start posting videos I take as well--much more representative)
There were a few vantage points on the way up, the best being Eigerwand:

The top of the mountain featured quite a few attactions including an Ice Palace which featured various ice sculptures in an ice cave:

Including Euro-Mickey :) I left there, and tried the plateau where I first figured out "uh oh, this is not good--you can't see anything." I headed up to the Sphinx Terrace where I took a few videos:

Somewhat redundant, but you get the point. It was VERY windy and VERY cold up there. I didn't stay out more than a few minutes at a time. I also became famous by being on the Jungfraujoch webcam:

I headed out to the Glacier hoping that the entire trip would not be in vain...

I hiked the path for awhile, and then decided I wasn't going to be able to make it to the end and reach the train on time, so I headed back. When I got back to the entrance, they apparently decided that they didn't want me anymore and had turned off the lights. I entered the totally pitch black hallway, having now adjusted my eyes to the blinding white outside. I made it without impaling myself on any sharp objects in the hallway (i felt around the entire time ;)) and they had locked the gate so I couldn't get out. I got around it, ran to the train and headed back down the mountain.

I switched my train ticket to run through Grindelwald so I could see the other side of the mountain. I stopped off in Grund and took some pictures:

Quite a beautiful city. I then took the train the remainder of the way to Interlaken, taking a few more pics along the way:

I found a Thai restaurant to eat after moving into my room only to come back and find out I had been kicked out of my bed and moved. Fine, fine. I met my new roommates (there were 9 of us in this room), one of which had Tourette Syndrome. Interesting. Most people know this to be the people that randomly blurt out swear words at inappropriate times. This was not the case this time, as he made a "oh!" type sound usually when he was nervous. Another wrong perception now corrected :)

I called it an early night hoping to get some decent sleep.

Sunday -- Snowboarding the Alps

I rented the gear and bought the lift ticket from a local shop for 158 Swiss Francs. I grabbed the train again, headed up to Klein Scheidegg and started off down the "beginners" path. Let's just say I fell the rest of the way down.

I began fairly well, made it about an hour without too many problems and then started to take some rough falls. I think I somehow ended up on a Moderate course, so that may have been part of the problem, along with the fact it was warm enough the sunny parts of the trail were slush and the shaded parts were ice.

Pictures:

About 2 hours in I was ready to go home and be done. I had not been in so much pain in a very long time. Every crashed seemed to hurt my newly bruised knees, elbows and ribs. I eventually made it down the mountain, had some lunch and then headed to the train station. I decided I had had enough of Switzerland and just wanted to go home.

I checked at the train station and the only train leaving was at 23:00, another night train. I bought this ticket (another 160 franc) and decided to spend some time in Berne.

Berne, Switzerland

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I had no idea what to do in Bern. I arrived after the tourist office closed and had not prepared anything. I wandered aimlessly through the streets taking random pictures: