So, Venice ended with a nice Italian dinner (tourist menu, of course) along with some gelato. I even got to try clams and mussels, which I had never had before. Pretty cool. Venice was nice, just extremely touristy. That evening, on our way to dinner, we also decided to spring for a gondola ride. We had heard they were expensive... and they are. So we instead took a Traghetto... or a water taxi. THOSE only cost 50 Euro cent. So, we got to cross the Grand Canal in Venice at sunset for really really cheap. It was awesome. As much fun as Venice was, I was excited to go to Switzerland, where we finally ran into...
RAIN! RAIN!
Yes, as soon as we entered Switzerland on August 3, we ran into a rainstorm in the Alps. This was the first rain I had seen since June 17 in Madrid, so it was a BIG DEAL. We were excited on the train, but then our excitement faded when we realized that our hostel was 15 minutes away... and Ashley's umbrella was broken. So, we hiked in the rain to the hostel, got there, and immediately found the supermarket... we needed cheap wine.
We made some friends with our roommates, Lari from Finland, and Gregor from Slovenia, and we partied with them and all of the other hostelgoers all night. The entire night, we only heard one thing... CANYONING. GO CANYONING. SO MUCH FUN. IT CHANGED MY LIFE... et cetera. It seemed too expensive, so the next morning, Ashley, Lari, Gregor and I took a train and a mountain gondola (a lot of gondolas!) up the mountain to visit a small Swiss town. The views of the Alps were awesome... and a lot cheaper than the 150 Euro it cost to go to the highest peak in Interlaken. We got some cheese, some bread, and picnicked with an awesome view.
Switzerland kind of looks fake. Everyone is blonde, everywhere looks like a postcard, and you expect goats to come out from every corner. Even more, every store sells Swiss Army Knives, and there are Swiss flags EVERYWHERE. These people are proud. Not to mention, the temperature was about 70 degrees... perfect for two people who have been in the Mediterranean for two months.
That night, we went to a traditional Swiss restaurant and had fondue and rösti... which is basically glorified hash browns. Our service was terrible... so we got comped a liter and a half of Swiss beer. Pretty good night, if you ask me. We went back to the bar, and kept hearing...CANYONING. CANYONING. Which led us to...
Wednesday morning. I wake up, and ask Ashley if she wants to go canyoning. Of course, she says yes... so we both drop some cash down on a 5 hour tour through a Swiss Alps canyon. One thing I learned from canyoning... wetsuits... neither comfortable nor flattering. Also, we kind of had no clue what we were in for. Our guides drove us to a cliff, started getting out ropes, and told us that we were rappelling down the cliff...of course we were, right? We rappel down, and then are subjected to a series of cliff dives, natural water slides, and vertical climbs. At one point, they tell us a jump is optional... so of course, I have to do it. About 35 feet in the air, there's a small ledge... guess where I jumped from? When I hit the water, I'm pretty sure it knocked the wind out of me. Pretty scary. After that, we had some interesting jumps and slides, and then a zipline where halfway through, we let go, and fell into the water. It was an awesome experience, and beautiful, but it was one of the more dare-devily things I've done in my life.
Canyoning... takes a lot out of you. That night, I didn't go out, but I stayed in the hostel because my back KILLED. I took some sleeping pills, and went to bed (but not until after a good hour of debating a hospital visit in the Swiss Alps). The next morning, my CHEST hurt. And my arms. Basically, everywhere. Lots of aching. Good thing we had a 7 hour train trip ahead of us! I slept A LOT on the train... something I usually can't do. But, when we got to Munich, our hostel was about 3 minutes from the train station, and the walk wasn't bad.
We checked in, and went to the Glockenspiel for the 5:00 show. I guess old clock towers aren't as... technologically advanced as we're used to... the thing was so slow (but incredibly authentic... apart from the other 3,000 tourists watching the show). When we were done with the clock, we went and got cheap sushi (which was delicious!) and then returned to the hostel for happy hour. Of all people, we end up meeting a guy from Cincinnati, and he promises to take us to a beer hall.
We ended up at an indoor beer hall, and ordered some GIANT beers and pretzels with a cheese ball. I feel like German cuisine is the most similar to our regular Christmas Eve party spread... sausages, cheese balls, beer, JAEGERMEISTER... etc. Anwyway, we met another traveler there who was by herself... and she said she had been to a pretty cool beer hall that "is a little touristy, but still pretty cool." Turns out, the "kind of touristy" beer hall was the Hofbraühaus, and we had beer and pretzels there too. We're talking leiderhosen, German band, the whole deal. Jason, the Cincinnati guy, took us upstairs, where Hitler made one of his first speeches. Creepy. Then, we returned to the hostel, and geared up for a free tour of Munich in the morning.
We met our tour guide at 11 AM in the hostel lobby, and he took us EVERYWHERE you'd want to go in Munich. He's only working for tips, so he was pretty thorough. Munich was pretty hard hit by WWII, so only 4 buildings in the whole city are original. Everything else was extensively photodocumented by the Nazis in preparation for total destruction, and Munich was rebuilt in the traditional style, whereas Berlin took on a more modern look. Basically, Munich is fabricated to look old, but nothing is really over 60 years old. Nevertheless, its awesome. I'll explain more in my photo album when I get home about the stuff we saw there. Our tour ended in the second largest beer garden in the world... the English Garden. We met some students from Michigan that had been on our tour, and we hung out with them for the rest of the night (I know, Ohio State and Michigan kids hanging out together...peacefully. WEIRD). We went to a über-traditional Bavarian restaurant, where we had 1.5 L of beer, 1/2 of a duck, a pork knuckle, and more roast pork. I have never seen that much meat on a plate in my life... we couldn't eat it all...plus, I kind of have a cold from canyoning, so I wasn't very hungry.
Today, we went to Dachau, one of the first concentration camps. We all split up to explore on our own, and I got to see all of the site and the museum in about 3 hours. I'll write more about it in my next entry, I only have 30 seconds left!
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