Bärner Fasnacht

Pictures from Carnival in Berne!

Whitetail to the Jura

Although my skiing background is far from extensive,  I was determined to try my skills out while in Switzerland since I refused to leave a country where skiing is the national sport without at least trying it out. Every weekend the trains are filled with individuals, couples and families all making their way out to either the nearby Jura mountains or to the more well-known Alps. Since I am what you would consider a skier in training I decided that the Jura might be a more logical choice for my skill level, so my friend Katherine and I decided to take a day trip to La Dole which is part of the Jura mountain range, and sits on the border of France and Switzerland. The journey to the slopes only took us about 45 minutes, and after renting my gear for the day we were ready to go.

Now my ski experiences have mostly been at the Whitetail resort in Mercersburg Pennsylvania, which definitely is not the most advanced or expansive of resorts, but one thing I can always rely on is that I will be able to make it up the mountain safely via a chair lift. The first thing I noticed when we approached the slopes was the contraption the skiers were using to get up the mountain. It wasn't my trusty chair lift, but instead it looked like a metal ball attached to a metal pole. Katherine had gone skiing once with her host family already, so she was ready to go, but I stood on the side for a few minutes trying to figure out how exactly to use this successfully. After watching a few people gracefully hop onto the ball/pole contraption I figured that I would just have to try it and see what happened. I cautiously edged up to the front of the line and when it was my turn I grabbed a pole, placed it between my legs and leaned back. What I wasn't expecting was for the pole to jerk into place without warning and carry me up the mountain whether I was ready or not. Apparently I wasn't ready, because after about one minute of awkwardly trying to keep the metal pole in place I lost control and fell off to the side. Luckily I could see part of the downhill slope, so  I took off my skis and went on a little hike through the woods to get to the slope. I had about a 60-40 success fail rate by the end of the day, so I figure that's not too shabby for a skier trained in the mountains of Mercersburg Pennsylvania. 

UPDATES!

So in an effort to update this quickly, so that I can get back on track with this blogging thing, I am going to switch over to bullet format for this post. I am going to keep things short and sweet, and from now on I plan to become a diligent blogger......plan being the main word in that sentence.

1. A few weeks ago I went to Interlaken with four of my friends, and after a great deal of research we had our hearts set on sledging down the Alps via the world's longest known "sledge path." What our research didn't tell us was that we would have to hike up a mountain (not just any mountain, but an ALP), for 2.5 hours before we reached the beginning of a the sledge run. In addition, we couldn't rent our sledge at the top of the mountain, but would have the pleasure of dragging the sledge along behind us as we trekked up through the Alps. Once we made it to the top we were elated for approximately 5 minutes, until we started the sledging experience. In Switzerland they apparently don't have the same safety regulations as they do in the United States, because not only were we sledging down an alp on a sled without brakes or any device for steering, but we had about a 50% chance of making it down the mountain without sledging off a cliff, since there weren't any retaining bars and the path was about as wide as two sleds. After about an hour of stop and go sledging (using our feet and hands as breaks) we made it to a restaurant. It had gotten substantially colder so we decided to make a quick pit stop and make sure that we were on the right path. After some amazing hot chocolate we asked the waiter whether we were going the right way to get back to our destination in the town of Grindewald. He told us that the rest of the sledging path wasn't open due to lack of snow, so we would either have to take the bus or walk down. As cheap college students we obviously weren't going to pay the 22 swiss francs for the bus, so we decided to make our way down the mountain by foot (still dragging our sledges). Once it got dark we realized this might not be the best idea and to make a long story short we hailed down the bus, hopped on and found out that after an hour and a half of walking we had saved a whole 5 francs, so we only had to pay 17 francs for the rest of the bus ride. Definitely an exciting way to experience the Alps and gave me the opportunity to see the Swiss version of sledging.

2. Next, I got to spend four jam packed days in Paris. We stayed in a beautiful hotel, and had an amazing view of the Eiffel Tower from our rooms! I absolutely loved the city, but it was extremely difficult to see everything in such a short amount of time. I got to meet up with my friend, Hadley, who is studying abroad there. She showed me around the Latin quarter and made sure that I tried a nutella and banana crepe which would definitely become my go-to food if I was spending the semester there. Overall, Paris was an absolutely gorgeous city with more impressive building, monuments and museums than I can count.

3. After the four day stint in Paris a bunch of my friends and I flew to Barcelona for the weekend. This city was such a switch from Paris, and the pace of life was much more relaxing. It was nice to feel 60 degree weather, see the beach and have a more relaxing travel experience. Some highlights from this trip include biking along the Mediterranean Ocean, getting a second piercing on the streets of Barcelona, getting food for a picnic from the most amazing farmers market I have ever seen, and seeing Gaudi's garden on a beautiful sunny day. Barcelona was an incredible city and made me want to see more of spain.

So those are my quick updates on the past few weeks, and I plan to be much more on top of it from here on out!