Around The World In Katie Days

I had spent most of the day traveling on trains to reach Interlaken Switzerland, about 6 hrs and 3 different trains. Normally these days seem like a waste but since it was pouring down rain I didn’t feel as I was wasting that much time. I was able to catch up on some of my journal and read one of my books On my train from Zurich to Bern I met a Serbian girl who now lives in Switzerland. We talked a lot of the weather and her life now in Switzerland. She was a dentist and seemed to like it on most days. She really loves the city now and says she couldn’t imagine living in a small town again, however she said she would like better weather. She loved New York and was planning on going to visit again in the fall. Its times like this when I am happy I travel alone sometimes. Like I have said before had I been with people on the train I probably would have never met her. So its great to put yourself out there to actually meet local people and connect with them on a different level than you normally would when you are out and about. When I arrived finally in Interlaken I had no problem finding the hostel, it all came back to me rather easily. Same hostel, same walk as two years ago when I was there before. This is one city I don’t think I will ever have enough of. There is so much to do, so many places to explore near the town and just a culture of adventurous youth that I am drawn to. I love it. Once I check in, I have the special a burger and a beer. Everything is quite expensive in Switzerland so you have to watch your budget. I begin to socialize with some guys and soon enough Meghan and Lauren join me, shortly after Fabian the Swiss gent from Basel joins as well. At this time I didn’t know what trouble lay ahead, I was just interested in meeting a guy from switzerland and his eyes were quite easy to get caught up in. He was riding his motorbike down from Basel and headed to southern Switzerland, so he made a pit stop in Interlaken where some of his buddies worked. His friends were all sky diving instructors and he himself had about 500 jumps behind him. Of course all of this intrigued me. The hostel we were at had a night club in the basement open to locals, so on a saturday night it was quite the place to be. The girls had made some friends from Montreal which they were hanging out with and I spent most of the time talking to Fabian and his friends. He was rather nice, but had some crazy dance moves. I didn’t know how to keep up. At some point we did the robot. Oh silly Swiss. I attempted to teach him line dancing and he tried teaching me some swiss step. It was all rather hopeless as there was not much room to dance. He then tried grinding which made me lose interest really quick. Eventually I had to run away, outside back through the club and sneek into my room to lose him. Oh what a night.

Today is a big day! I am to meet my German friends from Madrid today. They have arranged to meet me at the train station in Augsburg ( where they go to university) and from there they will drive me to Fussen, to see the castle. However by 8 am the rained had not ceased so I wonder what kind of adventure is in store for me. I am always up for just about anything and with good company, nothing can go wrong. It is a struggle to get to the train by 8 since I was up late talking but it is well worth the sleepiness. I catch the trains with out any problems and soon enough I am reunited with my german friends from Barvaria. I was a bit nervous at first since its been a while since we hung out but I figured that would all go away once we started talking. Of course it did and they greeted me with hugs. We had some coffee and breakfast at the train station before we set off for our adventure. We took two separate cars since they all lived in different places and were headed to their parents homes afterwards. I rode with Anita and we had some really good conversations about the difference of driving in Germany and the states. I was surprised to learn that all of them had cars, since it is not that common in europe. As anita explained it, her town was too small for good public transportation therefore a car was needed for work. Interesting I thought as that is the case for most of the states. The view was great as we drove through part of the mountains and passed lots of farms and little cottages. This view of Germany reminded me a lot of Switzerland and I was just smiling from ear to ear. I could picture myself living in a small town in the south of Germany. Maybe one day. We arrive to Philipps house and he has left his key. His mother had to run the keys over. The house was a typical cute house and I learned that they rent most of the rooms out to guests since it is 3 stories and fairly large. He lives very close to the castle so we drop one car off and combine into one. At the castle we meet up with Resi, another girl who belongs to their program at the university. I really enjoyed chatting with her. She bought us tickets to enter the castle and we had to wait till our time to enter. Of course since I was with locals we took the back way up through the mountains rather than the typical paved path. It was a short little hike but I enjoyed getting out into nature a little. We passed a little area with lots of rocks stacked on top of each other, something like rock snowmen. I attempted to build one, at first I made a small one but I tried to make a bigger one and failed miserably. My new friends laughed at me and told me just to put one rock on top of one already built and take a picture with it. It was only lightly raining at the time so it was not too bad. By the time we get up to the castle we have an hour to burn. Everyone is starting to get sleepy just waiting around. The rain starts to pick up really fast so we seek shelter. We sit around talking about schools and religion constantly comparing the two and talking about families and what we want from life. It is an enjoyable conversation. They blame me for the weather, of course its the American who brought bad weather. We all start joking around and things are becoming more natural talking to them. It is time for our castle tour, and we head off. Just as we are waiting in line Philipp’s mom calls and he has to go help her fix her car. So now it is just the four of us. we go through the castle and its pretty nice. Rather extravagant, very filled and the rooms seem a bit too much. It is interesting to see though as everything relates to a legend of some sort, just like a fairy tale. The view from the castle is gorgeous and some of it faces the mountains and others overlook the town below and the hills. I sure would feel like a princess living there. I can not believe that my friends paid to go there, to listen to a tour in english, to a place they have seen before. They really are great hosts. After the castle we are all hungry, soaking wet, and cold. Not a good combination. We met back up with Phillip and headed off to get food. We went to a local place and have some schnitzel and fries. It tasted great!! I really love all the meat here in Barvaria. We had some hot chocolate to warm us up and we contemplated our next plan of action. The decision was been made, we shall go to a public bath and suana place to warm up. Great idea, however I have no suit. At seven they inform me that there is no suit required, however I’m not sure I have reached this level of comfort yet. Especially when they all have suits. I ended up buying a swim suit at the bath place for not too much. Ironically it is the opposite colors of Anita’s suit. The guys joke that we are sisters, matching suits and we also have matching shoes. After the suit situation is solved we go jump in. It feels so good to be in a warm body of water after standing in rain all day. It was also my first public bath experience. It really reminds me of a pool with just super warm water and different pools all over. We go to the one outside for a while which is nice to have the rain coming down while relaxing in the warm water. We switched baths several times, they all contain different levels of salt and different temperatures, but they don’t differ drastically. It starts getting late so Anita had to leave for a birthday party in her home town. Now its just me and the guys. Oh boy. It didn’t end up being too weird and we all just continued on with conversations. We went into the relaxing room at one point which was just fantastic. It was dark with water running, some relaxing music playing and in a cave like room. My whole body was relaxed with in five minutes. It felt absolutely great to be so relaxed on a backpacking trip . We went back to a bath for a little while and then decided it was time to head home. We said out goodbyes and Philipp drove me to the train station. I was just in complete happiness the whole ride home. What a great day, with very friendly people. Hopefully they will come visit me one day! After arriving back to Munich, I had to get a coffee to warm my body up along with some great bratworsts Oh Munich I am going to truly miss your meat. At the hostel I just talked to a few people in my room, heard about a program called bus-about that I would like to research a little more, and basically relaxed till it was bed time.