Heidi, hey mama, and a slippery secret...

  Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland
Thursday, September 15, 2005

We are here in stunning Lauterbrunnen, - no need for a hair check today folks I CAN HIDE IT IN A BEANIE!! muhahaha. we are staying in a campsite located in this little township at the bottom of Jungfrau. its totally postcard perfect - not too cold... ok maybe a little cold, but the cabins are really cosy! after a warm brekkie, and flapping our dishes dry (we have no tea towels so we do the dish flap to get them dry - its rather entertaining) we headed up the mountain. The train ride up was quite nice, we made stops inside the mountain on the way up to take a few shots and then carried on - that was pretty cool. as it turns out this was Anne's first encounter with snow so an executive decision was made to make a snowman as soon as we could. Fiona warned us that you can become quite out of breath because of the altitude, but i was still shocked how exhausting it was to walk around!! we had a wee play in the snow,  rode toboggans, had a completely unstaged snowfight, and made the most pathetic looking but completely awesome snowman before deciding to head up the sphinx.

the sphinx is the official highest point you can go without requiring oxygen tanks and such - the view from the top was beautiful and we couldn't of had a more amazing day with the weather,  had ourselves a hot chocolate, got our passports stamped to show we had made it up, and raided the candy store for lindt chocolate which anne and i have become quite addicted to...mmmm... we hopped back into the lift and made our way down into the ice palace. its exactly the way its named, everything is made of ice, and you need good gripping shoes to walk around without stacking it. lucky for me i did.. not so lucky for Anne who was  clinging to anything that didn't move to remain gracefully upright. it was really cool though, somebody had a lot of time on there hands to make this stuff.
we all reconvened back at the train and headed back down the mountain... Anne and I started snoozing halfway down... actually most people did - something about the altitude again - it really screws with you! Oh and a special mention has to go out to the lady who got on the train and completely missed her seat when she sat down - I'm sorry but that was dam funny!!
 
The afternoon was once again ours to plan, so Anne and I went for a wander about the town in search for a badge for my pack, and somewhere with internet - which for the record charge extortionist prices!!! On the way back to the campsite Fiona (our tour leader) bumped into us and asked if we wanted to go the 'secret' way back to the campsite - naturally we were intrigued and agreed to go. So we ended up next to a refurbished playground, and one very old slide from what I can only assume was the old playground, it went down into the trees coming out near a car park opposite our campground... and the reason Fiona wanted us to see - so we could test it out before she made everyone else do it late in the evening. Picture a long slide - got that? Now remove the section where the stairs should be and put a gap between where the slide starts and the platform you stand on when you are waiting for your turn? This is what Fiona wanted us to risk our lives on. Awesome. We did though. I went first but lost momentum due to my jeans - anticlimax huh. Then Anne got on, she flew straight down and almost bailed off the side where it curves - so freaking funny - what's more Fiona got a picture of the brilliant moment.  
For dinner that night we were treated to a traditional Swiss FONDUE, and some questionable meat product in the form of a sausage. Anne and I had a few drinks and went back to the cabin to change out of our slightly muddy clothes from the slide fiasco - Anne had a huge brown patch down her butt and her leg which was quite amusing.... Then we all headed up to a local bar.... The locals in lauterbrunnen are... tolerant ... you know I'm not ever sure they are that - you see we were having a great time getting our groove on, drinking, probably being a little too rambunctious... when its dawned on us that they might want us to leave.. and their tactic to ambush us out of their bar??? Repeatedly playing Hey Mama. At first we fought back - stood our ground - getting down to the tunes... but it got too much and the locals appeared to be moments away from cracking heads.... We headed back down to the campsite via the 'secret slide' which I chose to avoid a second time round - Anne was game - and did not look like a spaz this time!! a good night overall really...
 
We are off to Avignon bright and early tomorrow for more misadventures... I'm loving this so far!!

till next time viewers!