switzerland

Monday:
Today our tour company Top Deck had an optional activity for a train ride up to Jungfrau which is one of the main summits of the Bernese Alps.
It’s 3,466 meters above sea level on the boundary between the cantons of Bern and Valais, halfway between Interlaken (where we were staying) and Fiesch.

Even after I’ve explained all that, I didn’t actually go haha!
It cost like over $200 NZD just to take the train up and back down and I couldn’t spend that much money for those views. My budget for my world wide trip just wouldn’t allow it!
Especially to see some snowy mountains that I can get a picture of online.

Jungfraujoch - Top of Europe

(But yes, I know it’s more for the experience)

Instead, Kara, Kelly & I got ready and went for a walk down to the local town of Interlaken.
I didn’t bring my jacket (just my hoodie) with me so I jogged half of the way to warm myself up as it was freezing!
We browsed a few shops and I bought a magnet. It was far too expensive in Switzerland to buy anything else to take home.

Around lunch time we went to Hooters as I’d never been before and had lunch.
We shared nachos and chicken strips and curly fries.
The nachos would have been great it they had more beans on them! 😣

We also went to this really nice chocolate shop and I had the nicest white chocolate passion fruit mousse chocolate!

There were a couple of really yummy cake stores but I restrained myself from all the goodies!!

When we were done looking around we headed back to the hotel and had a stop off at the supermarket to buy lots of Swiss chocolate. 🍫
The girls then had a nap while I did some room exercise 😁
I’ve become so much less toned than I was when I left home so I was feeling a bit yuck about myself. I bought out the 30 day ab challenge and did crunches and toe touches on my bedroom floor 😥
It must have worked a little bit because I woke up the next morning with slightly sore abs haha.

I also wrote a blog and listened to a bit of music. We weren’t really in a place where there was lots happening so it was nice just to chill out for a bit.

When I went downstairs, I bumped into another girl on my trip Ashleigh and she told me how she’d gotten an outfit for Oktoberfest down the road at the Lidhl supermarket.

Oktoberfest is this beer festival in Germany and we’re going to be there when it’s happening but everyone dresses up! I’ve heard outfits are really expensive in Germany so it was good to know that the supermarket was selling some cheap knock off versions of the outfits.

Me and the girls walked down to the supermarket and as Kelly already had one, Kara and I bought the same outfit. They only had Pink or Blue colors to choose from so I got the pink. However mine is quite long though so I’ll see about shortening it if I get the chance.

We didn’t really do too much for the rest of the day. We met everyone for dinner which was Chicken and veges AND we got some apple strudel for dessert, yum! I love it when we get dessert. (Which is why I have to start doing more sit ups)

Happy hour was happening again at the bar underground so we went to that and I used up my last 5 francs of Swiss money on 2 large ciders. I left pretty early after that (around 12pm) and went back to bed for a semi-early night.

Overall it was a pretty chilled out day in Switzerland.
It’s such a beautiful place and everything is so picturesque, the grass is so green, the roads are nice and the streets are clean.
Apart from being it being so beautiful, I felt we were in are pretty quiet place with not much to do. Plus it’s so expensive I couldn’t ever live there.

They do have stuff to do like rafting and helicopter tours etc… so if you like really nice views and adventure sports you’d love Switzerland. Unfortunately we hadn’t had anything planned through Top Deck to do stuff like that.

This won’t be a very long blog because I didn’t do much but sit on a bus.

When I woke up on my last day in Paris, Kara, Kelly and I took our bags down stairs for the bus and then went out for a breakfast at a cafe for our last morning.
We have provided breakfasts on Top Deck already but we weren’t too keen on it as it was just your typical cereals and breads. They didn’t even have croissants!

Instead, we went down the road and got a table outside a French Cafe and ordered breakfast. It was about €8 each and we got a croissant, piece of baguette, a hot chocolate/coffee and a glass of orange juice. (a bit expensive for New Zealand terms)

When it was about 9am we headed back to the hostel to catch the bus to Switzerland.
I sat at the front (I love sitting there, you can see everything!) But ended up sleeping for the first few hours haha.

We all played a game on the bus ‘2 truths and a lie’ where everyone has to go up one by one and say 2 truths about them and 1 lie but we have to guess what one is the lie.
My lie was that I was home schooled until I was 12 haha. I think I used the same one on my Contiki trip as well when we played that game.

By the end of doing like 40 people I started to drift off and not pay much attention. Some of them were pretty funny though.

We had a stop off for lunch where we had a similar lunch to that of the Eiffel Tower picnic.
There was a chicken salad and coleslaw with crackers and cheese and a chocolate loaf bread thing.
By this stage I still hadn’t had any hot food! I was craaaaving something warm in my tummy!

I did take lots of pictures of our little Top deck mascot, Maggie. She was loving it at the picnic.

When we got back on the bus, I was DJ so I sat up the front with our driver Antonio. I wanted to sleep but he said I had to stay awake and talk to him so as not to be boring. 😣

Switzerland was like a 7 hour coach drive from Paris but it took us about 9 hours because of us stopping for toilet breaks and 2 food stops.

We eventually arrived at our hotel around 6.30pm.

Well, it wasn’t really a hotel. It felt like an a couple of older houses made into rooms, similarly set up like a hostel (4-6 people in each room) and we shared the bathrooms.
They did have an underground bar and kitchen however and a Jacuzzi, hammock area, dining area etc.

I went straight to my room once I was off the bus.
I was sharing with 3 other girls who I hadn’t really talked to before which was fine. I was missing my 2 K girls though! (Kara and Kelly)
I was in desperate need of a hair wash so washed my hair and re-did my make up which ended up making me late for dinner.
I only missed out on the cheese fondue though, and apparantly it wasn’t that nice so I wasn’t too bothered.

Dinner was pork sausage with vegetables which I didn’t actually mind.

After dinner we all headed down the the club where they had a happy hour going for us. 2 beers (or ciders yay!) For 5 Swiss franc.
(Probably ends up being around $11 NZ but it’s cheap for Swizzerland)

The Swiss get paid really well here I heard. The minimum wage is around €22 because the cost of living is so high. Their health care is really good too apparently and I’ve actually never seen one homeless person since I’ve been here.
It’s a really tidy, clean, green, nice country.
Not to mention it being very safe, even if they let everyone here own a gun.

Anyways, we danced the night away (well I did until 1.30am) and then went back to my room after I couldn’t stop coughing from being sick earlier in the week.

Next blog: 1st full day in Switzerland

ThePassportPrincess

A solo girls travel around the world

Day 47 – Switzerland