The Great Adventure (Part 3)

As a quick detour, I just passed my Norwegian exam. Which is a joke, because I still am at best very unfamiliar with the language. Anyway, back to the task at hand. The next chapter in this imaginatively titled expedition continues where we left off: on the way to Switzerland. The night train was somewhat miserable, in no small part due to the fact that besides us 4 there was one other guy who tried to lay out across 2 seats and was generally a source of mild discomfort. Couple this with a train that seemed to turn more than normal trains and seats that didn't recline more than an inch or so and you have about 2 hours of scattered sleep. Nonetheless, we arrived in Bern tired but excited so we tried to find our hostel. This proved difficult because of the most hilariously imprecise directions I have ever had to follow. The directions told us, among other things, to turn left when we reached the clock tower with the McDonald's on the left. So we did this, but quickly realized we were not in the right place. So we wandered about for a bit longer and eventually found another clock tower with a McDonald's on the left. When we turned left there, we found our hostel! So, I guess all the directions were lacking was a clarification that we should actually turn left at the second clock tower with a McDonald's on the left, but it's certainly not the type of situation where you would expect to need that clarification. We did find our hostel, though, and after a quick crisis where we thought the door was locked but actually Kelley just needed to push the door we managed to store our luggage and go about the business of seeing the town. There were quite a great many fountains in Bern, so that was one thing. There was also a bear pit, which was a second thing. By bear pit, I mean there was a pit with a bear in it in case that needed some explanation. We watched this guy walk around for a while, which was thrilling. The rest of the day was occupied with the same type of sightseeing that has filled the virtual pages of this travelogue to this point. The next day, also known as Day 6, was filled with great excitement though as we sweated our way through the Alps. The previous day we had tried to arrange it so we could leave for Brussels that evening and stay that night, but because of various problems we were forced to take the night train to Brussels on Day 6. The good part of this was that we got to spend the whole day hiking in the mountains. We were a bit concerned because we thought we would have to pay money on top of what we had already paid for our Eurail passes to make it to Lauterbrunnen, but everything turned out OK. The train director person didn't even check our passes or tickets or anything so we saved a great deal of money. I'm a bit conflicted ethically about that, but I am very much in favor of it economically so I'll live with myself. The train ride to Lauterbrunnen was quite beautiful, very Swiss, and not all that long. Then we walked a bit about town and enjoyed the view. Also of note were the cows and goats who all had bells on, of course. At times I thought I was inside a windchime. We went inside one mountain to see a waterfall from inside, and then we went inside another mountain and saw several waterfalls. You would think it would be a lot colder inside mountains with glacial waterfalls, but it really wasn't. In fact, it was downright hot our entire day in the Alps, which was annoying because I brought my fleece and my jacket and had to carry those around the entire day. The next portion of my story takes a slight turn for the worse. We wanted to hike up in the mountains more, instead of just through the valley like we had been doing. So I found a trail. It's important to say I found a trail for reasons that will be explained later. There was a sign at the beginning of the trail that said "experienced hikers only" but we all considered ourselves experienced hikers. This may have been a mistake. The trail was entirely uphill except for about 15 minutes. And uphill in this case meant practically rock climbing or mountaineering or something. I guess mountaineering would be most accurate since we were climbing up a mountain. Anyway, the level of discontent grew in the group as we grew more tired and, because I had in some way chosen the trail, I bore the brunt of the discontent. Sometimes you just have to take blame when blame is due, so I did. It probably wouldn't have been such a problem, but we were completely unprepared. Mentally, physically, and especially waterandfoodally. The water became a special problem the longer that we hiked, but luckily there were troughs on the side of the trail at one point. Sure these were for cattle, but we were dying of thirst so we did what we had to do. It's probably the second time in the last few months that I've risked getting some sort of bacteria, but that's another story. We turned back after about 2 hours of straight uphill and after we realized there was no sign of it stopping. By the time we had reached the apex of our journey, we had risen to the level of a town on the mountain opposite us that we couldn't even see from down in the valley and which required a rather substantial gondola ride to reach. So at least we got a good workout. I had a bar of chocolate back at the train station, which was truly the right item of food at the right time, and then we headed back to Bern to catch our night train to Brussels. And thus our enjoyable time in Switzerland came to an end. And so too will Part 3 of The Great Adventure of the Norway Glenn Travelogue.