Photo Series

   So this was my first photography project here in Florence.  It is supposed to be about our first impression of Florence.  For mine, I decided to take a bus to the outskirts of the city and show the changes in landscape as well as architecture.

Swiss Cheese, Swiss Army Knives, Swiss Alps!

Well this weekend has quite possibly been the most amazing weekend of my life! Shandie, Natalie, and I went to Interlaken, Switzerland with Bus2Alps, a student travel service here in Europe. We left Florence late Thursday night, around midnight, and drove 8 hours on a bus to Interlaken. The ride there was one to remember, the whole bus was full...not an empty seat. Talk about the longest 8 hours of my life, I think I only slept for maybe 45 min. 

           We arrived in Interlaken at 6am and I was so happy to finally get there. We drove through the mountains just as the sun was coming up, it was amazing!  We stayed at Balmer's Herbage, the number one hostel in all of Europe! Balmers had everything, it was great! There were tons of people from all over! We stayed in one of the largest rooms they had, 10 girls total in a room about the size of my room back home! I'll just say it was an experience! There was two bunk beds, two twin beds, and for beds up in the loft. The room was so cute! Our roommates were all Americans studying in Prague so it was cool to meet them.

 
           So once we dropped off our backpacks we headed straight to the front desk to book PARAGLIDING!! Yep...that’s what I said...paragliding! All three of us jumped off a mountain and it was amazing! So, We met up with our pilots and took a van up the side of the mountain. Once we got to the top we had to hike about 5 min in about 10 in of snow! We got to the take off spot, suited up, and ran of the mountain!  That's literally what we did, just ran down a super steep hill until the chute caught the wind and lifted us off the ground!  

           Shandie was the first of us to go! It was hilarious because her first attempt at taking off with her pilot didn't work so well, she completely face planted when running done the mountain in the snow! It was great! However it made me a little nervous for when it became my turn to take off. I was the last of us to take off so I got to see everyone else take off and fly away. When it finally came my turn, I got really nervous for a few seconds but I think adrenaline took over! We started running and before I knew it, I wasn't touching the ground anymore...I was flying! It was absolutely amazing, the best feeling ever! It was so peaceful, quite, and the boat beautiful view I had ever seen. Imagine flying over the Swiss Alps with blue skies and snow covering the mountains...now multiply that by 100 and that was how great it was!  

            We flew right over the city and even got super close to the side of a mountain! There were mountains everywhere I looked and below I could see the two giant lakes the Interlaken sits between! My pilot, Fab, let me even steer, which was awesome! For our decent, he asked if I wanted to do dives and spins and of course I said yes! It was scary but so fun! Then I started getting a little nervous for the landing...but I nailed it! It was so easy, all I had to do was just stand up!  Paragliding was absolutely amazing; I would do it again in a heartbeat if I could!  Hopefully one of these days I can go back!

            After our extreme adventure, we decided to hike up to one of the lakes that Interlaken sits between.  It was an easy hike but still beautiful, I mean, we were in the Swiss Alps, what’s not beautiful!  We hiked for two or three hours and it was so fun, we went along the river then up the cliff to where you could see the whole lake! It started getting dark so we decided to head back for a chocolate tasting we heard about.  IT was pretty cool, we got to watch them make some truffles and other yummy stuff.  I definitely had my fill of Swiss chocolate then!

            The next day we took a train up to a small ski town called Grindelwald.  It was such a great idea, the train was about and hour long and we got to see some incredible views!  Once in Grindelwald, we walked around and shopped, then we decided to take a gondola up the slopes to a restaurant.  It was so fun, we sat on the deck, ordered some beers, and watched the sun hit the mountains, it even started to snow a little bit!  Talk about the most amazing views I have ever seen, you can’t get much better than the Swiss Alps! 

            From there, we took a trail that lead back down to the town.  It literally was part of the ski slopes!  There was snow everywhere up to our knees; we even slid down a few times!  The hike was great, it lead us all around the slopes and through a small village.  It was just like a postcard of Switzerland, there was a dairy farm where we saw cows and everything!  They even had this little self serve fridge where you could pick out a block of cheese and beef jerky!  The Swiss are so trusting, it was so cute!

            Once we reached Grindlewald from our hike, we stopped in this little restaurant and I had a dish called a Rosti, which is a typical Swiss plate that is hash browns, a thick layer of cheese, ham, and a fried egg on top, it was delicious!  Then we just headed home, we were exhausted.  Once we got back to the hostel, our roommates were crazy.  There was at least 15 other people in our room and they were doing who knows what.  It definitely an experience!

            Our last day we just chilled and hung out at Balmer’s, our hostel.  Oh, I almost forgot, we went to this chocolate store where we got some hot chocolate!  It was literally a chunk of chocolate in a glass then melted with hot milk.  It was the best hot chocolate I have ever had! Yummy!  Then we left for our 8 hour bus ride back to Florence, this time it was much more comfortable and we could see all the scenery!  It was beautiful, we could see huge lakes, giant snow covered mountains, and wide green hilly fields.  I loved Switzerland!