Climb every mountain
Trip Start
Unknown
1
8
16
Trip End
Ongoing
Lauterbrunnen, Swiss Alps, Switzerland
Saturday, April 9, 2011
We went to make our reservations at the train station, and the man told us that that day was the day of the Snowpen Air- an open air concert with James Blunt and Kool and the Gang as well as several other Musical groups. Ok, we thought, no problem, at least we will be able to see the sights. We just wanted to get to the top of europe. He sold us the tickets and then strongly recommended we come down the mountain early, around 3. Still, we didn't think this would be a problem. We go over to the track, and notice a lot of people waiting around. And then we see the train. A very tiny train. And a whole lot of people. We tried to get on that train, and it was completely full. So someone directs us to another train behind this one, and so we go to that one, it is completely full too, but they make room for us. Then we get pushed in and even more people get in. We are packed like sardines. For some reason I did not get claustrophobic. There was a lady standing in front of me, who spoke exellent English. She told us more about what was going on in the concert, how she liked living in Switzerland. She was very nice and easy to talk to. As we are riding, standing so close to each other it is insane, the view is incredible. But we look over to Daniel, and he looks like he is not doing as well. In fact as we go on he is getting paler and paler. We stopped at a tiny little platform and one person got off. Then he says he is feeling sick. So we decided to get off. Which was probably a good thing because it was just so packed in there. He said he probably wouldn't have made it much further. But the great thing thought all this, was that in the other car, two women hang their heads out and asked in German if we were ok. I tried to tell them in broken german, then they told Daniel to eat some chocolate, that this was altitude sickness and sugar helps. So we start going though our bags and I have sugarless gum, and Chelsea has a lifesaver. Then the lady hangs out a new bottle of coke and asks if he would try it. And a minute later another lady hands out a handful of chocolate. So nice!!
Daniel got to feeling better after being in the open air and having the chocolate and coke. We waited about 30 min and another train came up. This train was crowded but not as much as the first one. We weren't smushed together. It was much better.
So we rode on up to kleine scheidugg, and find ourselves in the middle of Swiss-stock. People are everywhere. Amazingly enough, we find a nice free and clean public WC, and make our way through the crowd. A little crazy, but the people weren't too drunk yet.
So then our little red train comes and we find nice comfy seats. We sit down. My ears actually pop all the way up. Towards the end, I start feeling really dizzy. Not sick, but dizzy. And when we get to the stop, I find it very hard to get up. I make it into the building. There are lots of glass windows looking out into beautiful scenery, it is just incredible we are on top of the world. But I also feel very out of breath, my heart is pounding as if I just ran a mile but my body doesn't feel like it. My head is just spinning. I sit down and rest for a bit. The guys decide we need to eat, so we have to climb a flight of stairs to get there. This about takes me down, it is so hard to get a breath. We get into the restaurant, which is insanely expensive, but also very gourmet and good. We decide to split one menu- one serving. The first course is a garlic and herb cream soup with morels. It is good, but I don't want to eat too much of it, because the garlic is very strong. I am starting to feel better. Te second course is a large portion of veal steak, asparagus, and new potatoes. They also bring us an orange hollinase sauce. It is very good. And plenty for both Brandon and i. I am feeling much better at this point. Then they bring us dessert, which is a beautiful plate of a custard type cup, a small tartlet of shortbread covered in strawberries, and other cut strawberries. It was very artfully designed.
After we finished lunch I all of a sudden felt like I could just fall asleep right there, I couldn't even thing about getting up. I think what happened is that all the blood with the little oxygen was trying to go to my stomach, and that left very little oxygen to go anywhere else. Finally felt a little better, enough to explore. We went out to the plateau, outside. It was incredibly cold, windy, and beautiful. Snow everywhere. Some ice, so it was scary to get too near the edge.
After this we went down to the ice palace. They carved out in the glacier a fun mix of ice creatures, tunnels, and holes. It was so much fun, because we were ice skating through the whole thing. So much fun. At one place they had frozen the little squirrel acorn thingie. We skated around the ice palace for a bit. Then went to the spinx, another look out place. This was in another area, a higher altitude area. I started feeling bad again. But Brandon saw incredibly beautiful sights.
We came down the mountain, we all slept. It wasn't until we were back to the kleine scheidugg, we woke up. We made it to another little train and rode back to our place.
After a little rest, we decided to go find fondue. We found it, but it was quite expensive! Our waiter was from Britain, and he spoke very clear English. He told us about the strange fences we saw on the top of the mountains. He told us a funny story of how they turn off the waterfall at night and then turn it back on in the morning. (in reality they do turn on a spotlight a 6pm and turn it off at 11)
We enjoyed our swiss fondue. Daniel had roesti, which is like a hash brown casserole type with a marinara sauce, cheese and bacon. The fondue had both bread and potatoes to dip into it. It also came with little cups of different spices we could either stir in or mix in on our plate.
Finally we came back to our wonderful room and talked with the kids a bit. They were excited to talk, showed us the Eiffel tower we had given them.
We hung out a bit after that, watched some funny you tube videos, and then went and sat on the balcony. All the lights were out and it was just dark, we could see the stars clearly. We even saw a shooting star. It was so bright. So beautiful.
