Chillin' on the French Riviera, getting adventurous in Switzerland and, let's face it, drinking beer at Oktoberfest!

After our long stay in Barcelona, we were back on the road again and back to the reality of traveling by train... with a lovely 10 hour trip to Nice, France. It was actually quite a beautiful ride, right along the coast. We made friends with two guys (Chris and Gray) along our ride, who were from the states as well. They were from the East Coast and had both gone to culinary school, so they were especially enjoying the cultural experience when it came to trying different foods throughout Europe. We taught them how to play cribbage, which helped to pass some of the time... and by about 7pm, we finally arrived in Nice. The hostel/hotel we had reserved turned out to be pretty ghetto, so we were happy that we had only reserved it for one night. Hey, a bed is a bed, but let's just say that we looked for a new place to stay for the following evening ASAP.

The next morning, after transferring our luggage to our new accommodations, we were off for a nice walk to see the sights. First, we stopped at a local market, where we grabbed a baguette and a packet of sliced cheese. These convenient (and cheap!) little cheese sandwiches have become one of our favorite snacks on this trip. We snacked on the tram ride down to the main part of the city and then we went for a nice, long walk through the city and along the coast. Nice is a very beautiful, with colorful buildings and wonderful tiled sidewalks. We went to the Place Massena, where there was a vintage car show going on. It was such a beautiful open area, of which you sometimes don't see a lot of here in Europe. Next, we strolled along the water. We were surprised to see that the beaches in this area were covered in pebbles rather than sand. There are definitely both pros and cons to this, but one thing's for sure... it's not quite as beautiful as a big sandy beach! The water was crystal clear and there were still quite a few people at the beach, considering the weather was quite nice even though it was now fall time. We amde our way around the marina, where we admired some amazing yachts and some cruise ships too. Then, we caught a bus over to Villefranche, because we'd heard that this area was a local favorite. As soon as we pulled in, we knew why. It was a great little fisherman's cove, lined with narrow streets and covered with little shops and restaurants. There was a perfect, narrow stretch of beach which wrapped around the inside of the cove, where Mike and I spent a 2-3 hours relaxing and soaking up the sun. The water was so refreshing and we enjoyed every last minute of laying around in the sun, because we thought this may be our last chance to soak it up on this trip!

Once we were through at the beach, we grabbed the quick, 20-minute train to Monaco. Within the first 10 seconds of being in Monaco, we quickly realized that it is a very nice place for people with LOTS of money. Even the train station is impressive. One of the first things you see after exiting the train station is the marina. There had to have been over $1B worth of yachts there. Granted, there was a yacht show going on, but I'm sure it's not irregular to see some of these amazing yachts in the marina year round. One of the yachts we saw, just outside of the marina, Mike swears he saw on the Discovery Channel once. The 4 large masts were all automatic in every fashion, along with everything else on the boat. He said it cost about $90M. The casino was definitely amazing to see as well, and even more impressive were the cars pulling up in front of it. We probably took 50 photos alone of the Aston Martins, Bentleys, Mazzeratis, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Rolles Royces we saw. I thought it was a good idea to play just one slot machine to see if we could get lucky while on our trip, but within about 5 minutes, our budget for the day had just decreased by about 20 Euros instead. We decided that we couldn't really afford to do anything while in Monaco, so we made our way back to Nice for dinner and the rest of the evening. The new hostel we were staying at was quite cool. It was formerly a Monastery and the Chapel (which was now the common room) had a huge stained glass window, which was really cool. We went down to the bar for one drink after dinner, and we met a few other people who were from California (near San Diego) and went to Chico State... small world!

The next day, we were off to Switzerland. We had heard lots of great things about Interlaken, so we were really looking forward to it! On our way, we transferred trains in Milan. This was the first time we were actually in Italy, so we figured we should probably take advantage of the Italian food since we wouldn't be back for another month or so. We grabbed a pizza at a restauant near the train station and it was actually really tasty. Here's the only reason I'm really even telling this story: when we got out bill, we had a 6 Euro charge for the pizza (pretty cheap!), a 3 Euro charge for a bottle of water (expensive!), and a 5 Euro charge for a STUPID can of Coca Cola Light (ridiculously expensive!). For anyone who doesn't know the conversioun rate from Euros to Dollars, that was a $7 can of Coke that probably cost them about 10 cents. I was pretty sure he marked it up a bit just because we spoke English, but we were in a hurry to catch our connecting train so we let it be and made up for it by not leaving any tip. I couldn't believe it, but we quickly forgot about it once we started entering the mountain range in Northern Italy on our way to Switzerland. From this point on, our jaws were permanently dropped for about 4 days. Switzerland has got to be one of th emost beautiful place on this planet. We made it into Interlaken after dark the first evening. We still went for a nice little stroll in the chilly mountain air, we loved the change! The next morning, we decided to check out one of the nearby villages, because we had heard about a Sommerrodelbahn, which is a roller luge up in the hills. We enjoyed the train ride to Grindelwald, and after wandering the town for a bit, we caught a short gondola ride to Pfingstegg (where the Sommerrodelbahn is). We admired the views as we climbed higher and higher up in the mountains. When we arrived to the top, we noticed that there was a restaurant with outdoor seating that overlooked the entire valley. We were hungry and we knew we had to take advantage as the view was breathtaking. We enjoyed warm vegetable soup and a meat and cheese platter, which were both ridiculously good! After this, we were good and ready to check out the Sommerrodelbahn we had come all this way for. We each bought a pass for five rides down the 700m (2100ft) roller luge and we were not dissapointed. This was literally like a huge, winding semi-circle slide that you roll down on a roller cart. The cart had a brake you could pull up to slow down, but Mike and I had fun seeing how fast we could go. It wasn't until the last ride, that we each made it down without pulling up the brake...and we were booking it down that thing! The best part about this luge is that there was a lift along the side of it, so you didn't even have to walk back up the hill. This had to be one of the most beautiful spots to place a Sommerrodelbahn, with sweeping views of the Swiss Alps. We were so happy that we made the trip over! Below is a video of my first run down the Sommerrodelbahn:



After our enjoyable trip to the Sommerrodelbahn, we made the trip back to Interlaken. We had wanted to book some outdoor excursions, so once we arrived, we were on a mission to get something booked. We made it to the office just in time before it was closing for the day, and we were talked into a package deal (2 excursions for each of us) that we don't regret one bit! The next morning, we were scheduled to go canyoning. Most of you are probably wondering what canyoning is... it is an extreme sport, where you climb, jump, repel, and slide down through a glacier-fed canyon (with good equipment and a guide of course). For me, it was probably both the scariest and most rewarding thing I've ever done. Mike felt right at home, as he has jumped from 35 feet or higher more than once. When we showed up in the morning, I was elated that there was another girl going on the trip that day! Not that it really made a difference, but somehow it made me feel less crazy for signing up for this. We all loaded up into the van and cruised for about one hour to the canyoning site. We all had come with a bathing suit, and before we began, we got geared up. Our handy dandy canyoning outfit consisted of a wet/dry suit, wet suit booties, a life preserver, a helmet, and a harness (with a slippery tarp-like sliding material for your bum). We went for a short 15-minute hike into the canyon and got started right away! We worked our way down the canyon, abseiling down a 150ft waterfall, jumping off of a 35ft cliff and sliding down natural rock slides that were as long as 80ft or so. It was such an adrenaline rush and unlike anything we'd done before. One of my favorite slides was one that you had to jump into from about 5 feet away. We were standing at the top of a waterfall would jump sideways to get into the slide and fly down into the water. It was a blast! At the end of the trip, we all had lunch together and a few beers before relaxing on the return to Interlaken. The beers tasted especially good after our 4 hour workout.

After showering up, we decided to hit the town for a Swiss Fondue dinner for our last evening in Interlaken. Everything is very expensive in Switzerland, and so we decided to go with soup and an order of fondue (which was still going to cost about $40). Unfortunately, we didn't like the fondue at all, and the service was horrible as well. When we were finally able to ask for our check, it came with a total of $60. Mike was a bit confused and took a closer look at the bill. Upon noticing that he had charged us for 2 orders of fondue, we quickly caught his attention and made him aware of the mistake on the bill. The waiter told us that the price of the fondue was per person ($22ea). We asked to see the menu and it did not note anywhere that you had to pay per person for the fondues. We told him that we only ordered 1 fondue... and we didn't finisht eh fondue he brought out anyway because there was way too much and it sucked. He was upset with us and then said that we didn't say we wanted to share the fondue. He told us that we should have asked why the fondue was so large when it came out. We thought he was crazy.. how are we supposed to know?? It came in one pan! Anyway, we decided to stick strong here and asked him to remove one of the fondues. He wanted to know what he was supposed to do with the extra cheese now because it was made for two people. We apologized, but basically told him that was his problem... because we only ordered one stupid, sucky fondue. Realizing that we weren't giving in, he got upset and crumpled up our bill and told us to leave. We questioned him once more and told him we would pay for our meal, but only for what we ordered... and he repeated that we should just 'get out!' We felt kind of guilty, but we decided that we didn't do anything wrong and we tried to pay for the fair portion of our meal... but instead, we ate for free! Which was really nice after our expensive stay in Interlaken. Needless to say, we slept great that night!

The next morning, we were set up to take part in the second piece of our package deal: Paragliding! Another extreme sport that neither of us had ever participated in! We were looking forward to it, as we had admired others paragliding into the park that was outside our hostel window. We knew that the view must be great, because the paragliders were coming down from high up in the surrounding mountains... and we were exactly right! It only took about 15 minutes to climb the mountain, and the views were unreal! We admired the scenery while our pilots set up the gear on the hill. The town of Interlaken is between two beautiful lakes, hence it's name. These lakes have this awesome tone of aqua blue, which you can tell is runoff from the surrounding glaciers... and it is pristine! Before we knew it, it was time for take off! Mike went first, and I took a video of him running down the hill to catch some air:



Within seconds, he was off and flying away... so I had to catch him! I got set up with my pilot and we ran down the hill as fast as possible when the first gust of wind came up the hill. This had to have been one of the most beautiful places to go paragliding... the scenery was spectacular! We hugged the mountainside to catch the warm air rising from the valley, and we cruised back and forth for as long as the wind would hold us. Mike and I crossed paths a few times, and before I knew it, he and his pilot were spiraling toward the ground. I kept my eye on them to make sure these were tricks they were doing... and, of course, they were. I was lucky enough to catch some good air near the mountainside, so we cruised for a few extra minutes and then made our way down. All in all, it was a great experience! Our only tip would be to take some dramamine before paragliding, because we both felt a little nauseated afterward. :)

All in all, Interlaken turned out to be our adventure stop along our trip. Our budget was fully expended and we were ready to be thrifty for the next few days. As an FYI, the photo packages for these excursions turn out to be ridiculously expensive! Because of this, we decided to buy the photo package of Mike while canyoning, and the photo package of me while paragliding... in case you are wondering why the pics are a bit one-sided.

After our paragliding adventure, we were off to catch the train to Lucerne, Switzerland to relax for a few days. We ended up staying in a little town just outside of Lucerne, called Merlischachen (good luck trying to pronounce that... it's mer - li - shah - khen). We had read online that several people checking into this hotel were given free upgrades. We had booked a bedroom with a shared bathroom, and were hoping to get upgraded when we showed up (since it was not during high season). We waited for the guy at reception to offer an upgrade, but it didn't happen. I decided to give it a whirl instead, and I politely asked, "Any chance there is a special for a couple who recently got engaged?", as I batted my eyelashes at the guy... haha... not really. He took a second to look and then had us follow him to show us the room. As soon as we walked outside, he told us that he had upgraded us to the Honeymoon Suite at no additional cost. HECK YEAH! It was a nice spacious room, and a perfect place for us to relax for a few days. Our last night in Merlischachen, we decided to head into Lucerne for dinner. We checked out the city a bit, and ended up at Rathaus Brewery, along the river. We mostly chose this restaurant because the menu was actually affordable, but it ended up being a pretty good meal. We started by trying a beer broth soup which had pretzel gnocchi in it. It was quite tasty! Mike had some bratwurst and sauerkraut and I had a pretzel sandwich, basically a big doughy pretzel with mustard, meat and cheese. It was a perfect meal to prepare us for the next leg of our trip... OKTOBERFEST in Munich!

OOOH Oktoberfest... where to begin. As we arrived to Munich, it was easy to see that Oktoberfest had taken over the town. There were guys walking around in Lederhosen and ladies in their Dirndl. At first, it seemed weird to us, but by the end of the weekend, we were thinking about buying a set for ourselves. We were crashing on the floor of Mike's friends hotel room... which we were happy to see that it was a nice, new hotel. We were staying quite close to the festival, so once we dropped our bags off, we headed over to check it out. It was everything that we had hoped for, and more. People everywhere, drunk people...everywhere, and food...everywhere. It was like a big fair, but with the main focus on massive beer tents. We quickly found our way to the bratwurst stand, and thoroughly enjoyed some cheesy bratwurst with mustard. It wa probably a good thing we were only in Munich for 3 days, because we had one of these every single day. Next, we wandered the festival and, as it was getting dark, we decided to ride the big carpet slide so we could get a view from up above the action. It was short-lived, but fun and then we made our way to our first beer at Oktoberfest. It came out of a rotating carousel, which you had to get on before you would be served. Easier said than done. Once we got up there, we paid for our beers and we were confused as to why we had to pay for the glass that the beer came in as well. We later found out that there was a glass return booth where you could get your glass deposit back... novel idea. We hung out with some young German guys who we met there and tried to understand their English for a good hour or so, and then we were off to meet up with Mike's friend from England, Sam (the guy who got shit on and egged in the same day... you remember, right?). Sam and his friends had been out for a bit longer than we had, so you can imagine that they were a mess when we showed up. For some reason, we all decided to go to a club downtown to dance for a while and you can probably imagine what happened.... one of the drunk people in our group pissed off the wrong guy and some of the guys in our group got kicked out... so we followed. We decided it was a good time to call it a night and we made our way back to the hotel with intentions of getting up early to reserve a seat in the beer tent in the morning.

Again... you can probably imagine what happened...we slept in a bit, and still took our chances to get into a tent at about noon. You wouldn't think every beer tent which holds about 7,000 people each would be full at noon would you? WRONG! Most of the tents weren't even letting people in... and if you could get in, you probably had to wait for at least 2 hours. I guess the last weekend of Oktoberfest is the busiest weekend of all. We waited for a while and then decided it just wan't worth it. We were going to come back in the morning to see if we could get into a tent before leaving, so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon checking out Munich. We ended up at a great Italian restaurant that evening and we decided to take it easy that night since we had a big day ahead of us. The next day, we were at the Lowenbrau tent at 9:30am. We had a train to catch at 1:15pm, so we had a few hours to enjoy the true Oktoberfest festivies... which we took full advantage of. We met some really cool Australian guys at our table and we each enjoyed 3 liters of beer (which we later realized was almost 9 cans of beer - although 1 of mine was a shandy - half lemonade, half beer). We were having such a good time, that we weren't sure if we would make the train that we were planning to catch. We headed out of the festival at 1pm and made our way to the train station. We got the to station and our train was still there, but our luggage was in storage, so Mike when to pick it up while I went to find the train and waited for him. Within a few minutes, our train pulled away from the station... and we were not on it. I was waiting there after the train left, and I suddenly realized that Mike might not be able to find me because the track our train was on probably was listed on the departure board any longer. I thought I'd check to see if he was still in line for our luggage, but he wasn't there. Meanwhile, he had come back and seen another train that was leaving for Berlin (where we were heading) and he put on luggage on and began to look for me. Luckily, we ran into each other with about ten minutes to spare... and we caught the 1:40pm train to Berlin. Another helpful tip from us: don't go to Oktoberfest and drink 3 liters of beer before getting on a 6 hour train ride... uuuugggghhhh. We slowly made our way to Berlin, where we were looking forward to some R&R, along with some good historical visits. We decided that we would go back to Munich at the end of our trip as well, since we didn't get to see much of the city with the craziness of Oktoberfest!

Cheers and more to come soon!
Love, Mike and Kristin