Is he REALLY the head of the Kwiki mart?

We left Munich early Friday morning. The last night spent in the hostel we drank happy hour beers with our friend Peter from Athlone. We didn´t get a picture with him, he was headed out and we were headed to bed early.

We caught our train to Interlaken, Switzerland without hassle because our hostel was basically right across from the train station. We stocked up on food from the train station and prepared ourselves for a 7.5 hour journey through the Swiss Alps. It wasn´t really hard preparation, per say, but it was going to be our longest train journey yet.

We arrived in Interlaken around 4 p.m. greeted by the most breathtaking sights. It was hard to imagine the storm clouds in the distance were not actually storm clouds, but mountains. The peaks were so high it was hard to tell where the mountains ended and the sky began. We tried to take pictures along the way because we had no idea what we were about to see when we arrived in Interlaken, let alone on Saturday when we attempted to hike a few of them.

Our hostel was the best hostel we´ll ever stay in, Balmers Herberge. It had a games room with a free pool table, a large screen tv where you could rent movies and watch on the couches, a reading room, a huge bar/restaurant/night club that opened til 2 am a beer garden that over looked the alps, everything! We took adavantage of eveything there, including the two happy hours a day! We loved it so much that we booked another night. We checked out the prices of Bern and Lucerne and decided our budget couldn´t cope. Oh well, suppose we´ll have to suffer at Balmers!

We meet people there that felt like lifelong friends, however odd it was to say at the end of the night see ya, have a nice life! Mostly Aussies, a few Canadians, and two Americans. Troy and Sharnee from Western Australia, Jenoa Swan from the Gold Coast, Jordan from Toronto, Altaf and Oliver from New York. We were at the hostel for a weekend, as most people were, so we had a few nights with these great people to laugh and drink and learn more about the world. We exchanged emails and facebook info, so who knows, maybe there´ll be a few more happy hours in the future together! Here´s hoping.

Saturday: we hiked up to Mürren. We got a good night´s sleep, ate a good breakfast, filled up bottles of water, and put some sandwiches in our bags, I rented hiking boots, we had a good map in hand, and off we went. We got a train from Interlaken up to Lauterbrunnen. From there, we followed signs to Mürren. The first sign we saw said Mürren 2 hours and 40 minutes thatta way.

Dermot started hitch-hiking 50 metres up the hill as I was panting beside him thinking is it really this slanty the whole way up? He put his thumb down as we saw there were to be no more cars past this point and I drank half my water bottle. Up it is then.

It was hot, but clear. As strenuous as it was it was so rewarding to see the village below us get smaller and smaller and the mountains in the distance get closer and closer. There were two points on the trail that actually sloped and I screamed in excitement. Though it wasn´t upon reflection the highlight of the trail! Look at the pictures we posted. We took so many. They were wonderful little excuses to stop and take a breath and drink some of the Alpine water in our water bottles that our hostel ran through their taps.

At one point during the trail we were a bit confused. We came to a walled field that looked like some farmer´s property we´d have to trespass upon. We continued through the gate hoping it was our trail. A biker along the way assured us that this was the way to Mürren, that UP is the way to Mürren. Halfway through the farmer´s fields we stopped to hear the music. It sounded like a thousand wood chimes, but Dermot said it was the cowbells:

We stopped in Winteregg, yes, that´s what the village was called to eat some sandwiches and watch two mountain men de-barking a log - which will probably be used to build a house I´m sure, all the houses in Switzerland are timber-framed, like little matchbox houses. We started to notice during the climb that the air was gradually getting cooler. It was when we stopped to sit in the shade that we realized it was FREEZING. We put our packs back on our back and howled because our sweat had turned to icicles.

From Winteregg we had about 40 minutes to go, and thank the heavens above it was downhill. Those mountains that 2 hours ago seemed so distant and so high were now to the left of us, at our side, all the way to the town of Mürren. You could extend your arm and try to grab them, so to speak, go-go Gadget arms.

We arrived in Mürren where we payed a fortune to go up to the highest peak in the Jungfrau region: Schiltorn via the cable cars or as they´re called here funiculars. I was terrified the whole way up and down but it was worth it for the views. I kept thinking as I was looking around the funicular that there were pregnant women onboard, old people, little kids, people in wheelchairs, a few puppy dogs, God wouldn´t kill us, right?

When we came back down from Schiltorn to Mürren we decided to take public transportation back to Interlaken. We set out to walk back... fuck that! Climbing up to Mürren was the hardest thing we´ve ever done, and although the journey back would be shorter and downhill, nothing seemed more appealing than sitting down in a train and resting our weary selves.

Okay, so basically, Switzerland was amazing. Despite not going to Lucerne or Bern as anticipated I think we really experienced the essence of that country. We´ll be back, definitely.

Loads of pictures have been posted! We´re in Salzburg at the moment, Vienna is at the weekend. We´ll post more about Austria later. Until then, G´day mate!