The Train to Switzerland: Monday, Sept. 14

Dear Friends and Family,

It turns out that getting to Switzerland from Prague takes lots of connections and a long time. So, we ended up having to wake up at four to catch our 5:06 train out of Prague. My favorite conductor so far has been the one on that train. He was kind of old, with completely white hair, a moustache, a blue hat (like the one from Polar Express), a blue uniform, and wire rimmed half moon glasses. All other conductors have been disappointments compared to him.

The train rides were uneventful, with all of us trying to sleep at various points, sometimes succeeding, but mostly failing. It was also rainy all day. While we had an hour stop in Nuremberg, we were too tired to do anything in the town (we also had our bags which were really heavy). Instead, we stayed in the train station and bought some bread, which was incredible. (Apparently the Germans are famous for their bread.) We did, however, leave Frankfurt, when we had an hour and a half stop there. But, we didn’t go very far. We went about a block to the nearest bar. We decided to sit outside underneath the umbrellas. While it was just really cloudy when we left the train station, it started pouring while we were sitting there. Luckily, it let up just as we needed to leave. While we were there we tried a wheat beer and a light beer. The wheat beer was really good and was the first to go. But the light beer was good too. We played a round of cribbage, which I obviously won (please feel free to make fun of Lee), before we headed back to the train.

On our train to Interlaken, we ended up sitting next to a really nice lady. She was originally from the middle of Germany, but now lives in Basel, Switzerland. She spent lots of time talking to us, giving us lots of information about the area. Apparently, at the time, we were between the Black Forest of Germany and the border of France, the Rhine river (I think, don’t quote me). She explained some of the differences between the North and the South, including the economies of both.

We finally arrived in Interlaken and made it to our hostel. We shared a six bed room with three Koreans, who has just gone Paragliding that day. Our hostel was actually above a bar, so after we had settled in, we went downstairs and tried a few different beers. We tried the local light, the local dark, and the local cloudy. These were my favorite beers of the journey so far and of the three, the cloudy was my favorite. I know it sounds a little sketchy, but it was really good. Also, while were in the bar, they had the US Open on TV. Apparently Roger Federer (an AMAZING Swiss tennis star), was playing in the final of the US Open. While almost everyone in the bar had their eyes glued to the screen, the crowd was no where as rowdy as I would have thought.

Since food is an important part of this trip, I thought I should mention that we didn’t really have meals for this day, but instead had lots of small snacks throughout the day. The day before, we had gone to a Czech mini-mart and bought food for our day of travel. Lee had found the need to buy lots of cookies, which we only just finished eating Friday. To be fair, most of them were really good and were all new to us. Other than cookies, we ate bread, cheese, nuts, and granola bars.

Love,
Rosalie