For as much as I love to talk this blogging thing does'nt come natural to me! I am writing now from Falconara, Italy which is on the coast right next to Ancona. We arrived to Bologna, Italy two days ago from Interlochen, Switzerland. And....drumroll....we are now more than halfway through our trip! Time has flown yet we feel like we have seen so much.
As usual let me backtrack a little bit to Switzerland. We left Munich, Germany at 6am arrived to Lucerne, Switzerland around noon. I had been to Lucerne in high school with my parents on a spring break trip and with it being such a small city Danielle and I had planned to only spend a few hours there and then reboard the train to head to Interlochen where we were going to be spending three evenings. Lucerne was just as I remembered...beautiful. Having been to Lucerne I kind of had an idea in my mind of what Interlochen would be like. Let's just say it was 100 time more beautiful and AMAZING than Lucerne. (Mom & Dad- you did not see Switzerland..you saw Lucerne and you have to come back to see INTERLOCHEN then you have seen Switzerlands true beauty---it was completely unreal..I will offer my services as a private tour guide)
Right after checking to our hostel (Balmers Heritage--a very famous backpackers stop) Danielle and I headed straight for the "adventure desk". We booked ourselves for a 6hr. canyoning trip for 8am in the morning and then Danielle (with my encouragement) booked herself for a 450 ft. bungee jump out of a gondola over a lake. We split a pizza that evening for dinner and began to let our imaginations run wild as to what our next day would lead to....
Canyoning...unbelievable...we spent the morning in a gorgeous canyon jumping and sliding into freezing glacier runoff water. It was like nothing I have ever done. We drove an hour from Interlochen to this empty field where they instructed us to put on our wetsuits, life jackets, harnesses and helmets and then they drove us about 5 more minutes up the road and dropped us off a steep road with a huge drop off into the canyon 165 ft. below. Yupp---that is right--we repelled right over the edge of the road into the canyon. I even got to go first since I was the loud crazy one (go figure). From there we went all the way down the canyon---sometimes jumping into blue pools below and other times they literally grapped her lifejacket and swung you down the rockwalls into the canyon. Definitely something I will do again when I have the opportunity! It got me so pumped up that when we got back I even signed up for the whitewater rafting trip the next day at 4pm.
After canyoning we rested and got ready for Danielles big drop! We met the rest of the bungee jumping group and loaded up in the van to ride into the mountains to catch the gondola. As we drove the skies continued to get darker and darker...I am not very good at suspense so let me just say a terrible thunder and lightening storm hit us and Danielle was unable to bungee jump which definitely put a blunder in our evening. That jump is very unique and is only offered on certain evenings so unfortunately Danielle was unable to rebook the excursion. Danielle hit the bed early and I mingled around the hostel playing cards and meeting some really neat fellow travelers.
The next morning we had agreed to take hike up one of the peaks for an aerial view of the mountain range. Right after breakfast we stopped at the adventure desk for a reccomendation of the best overall hike (since we only had time to do one hike in the morning). The gal told us about a neat hike that takes you up to the top of a peak and then you can walk along the top for an awesome view and then bring a gondola down. She mentioned that it was steep but the best halfday hike in the entire area. Thirty minutes later we were on the bus heading to catch the train to take us to the start of the hike.
Okay...lets just say the lady at the adventure desk needs to check her definition of steep. This was not steep---this was directly up hill...UP MOUNTAIN. It was intense. I literally followed Danielle the entire way up the mountain huffing and puffing repeatedly staying that I might not make it to the top. 2 hours later and literally soaked in sweat we shared one of the more beautiful views of the Swiss Alps together. Yes...yes...the hike was 100% percent worth was was waiting for us at the top. Our pictures are unbelievable beautiful yet they do not even begin to do it justice.
With all of this typing you can definitely see how unbelievable Interlochen was---I am trying to keep things short (trust me I am leaving out so many details....those will be shared over dinners when I get home!). Anywho we made it back from the hike literally 45 minutes before I needed to meet for whitewater rafting (which trust me I was even more excited for it after the hot hike...falling out of the raft sounded inticing!). I was busy changing when Danielle entered our room and told me, "I asked at the front desk and WE just need our swimsuits and towels for rafting"...I was so excited that she had decided to join the trip! She said the entire hike she thought about how unbelievable the water would feel. Hahaha
So we headed together to meet our group for rafting. As soon as we got in the van to head to the loading site we immediately wanted a refund...we were stuck in a huge van with about 20 high school students who seemed to believe that the person they were talking to was in a different country and they needed to shout. We were so relieved when all of the vans arrived at the river and the chaperone for the group asked if we could switch rafts because she needed to be in the same group with the students...oh yes, we literally ran to the neighboring raft which was a great group of fellow travelers our age. The entire time our guide was going through all of the training and instructions Danielle and I were focused but not too concerned because we had both been rafting before. We offered to go in the front and totally felt ready. Lets just say I had never rafter class 3 and 4 rapids before---it was crazy intense. We had rapids crashing over our entire raft at points. We were flipping back and forth between following all of the commands that changed every four seconds "paddle right", "stop", "hold on", "GET DOWN". It was a ton of action and a lot of smiles. When we were done with the rafting trip the river entered into the bluest lake I have ever seen with snow-capped mountains surrounding the entire area--it was breathtaking. They let us even jump off the raft into the warm lake and swim to the loading dock.
Writing from Italy I definitely miss Switzerland...I will try to blog again later to fill you in on Italy as it has been neat as well but for right now I must hop in the shower as we spent all day at the beach and I need to get ready for dinner! Lots of Love! More to come soon!
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