The hills are alive with the sound of cow bells....

June 24 - June 30, 2005

Grutzi,

It seems that all my weekends are now booked up until my flight back to Ottawa on August
31st. Here's a sneak preview of some of my up and coming trips: Owingen again, Munchen
with Gusti, Heidelberg to meet the other students in my program, Straussburg with Thorstan,
and of course the rest of Europe with my cousin Anne Marie ;)

Two weeks ago I decided I wanted to go to Switzerland. I went to the train station and
tried to find a cheap train to somewhere high up in Switzerland but all I found was a one
way ticket for 24 euros to Zurich. I really wanted to go hiking in the alps but I decided that
I could probably figure something out after I got to Zurich. I asked a few people if they
were wanting to go to Switzerland but most people didn't have the time or money. However,
Shawn, who is an American in the same program as me decided he would like to go as well.

We left Stuttgart at 2pm and got to Zurich around 5pm. Once there, we asked the tourist
office about places to stay and places to go walking. There were some small hills in the
area but no mountains. On the advice of the tourist office we went to a backpackers hostel
in the heart of the old city. We got the last 2 beds in a dormitory.....it was 31 Swiss
francs per person for just the bed (sheets would have been extra but luckily I had brought
by sleeping bag).....also, the youth hostel on the outskirts of town would have been 40
francs......so I guess we did get a good deal.

Before we left Stuttgart, Shawn did some research and found out that you can borrow (yes,
borrow means FREE) bikes in Zurich. After handing over a 20 franc deposit and our
passports to a, most probably, high/intoxicated man in a small trailor, we rode our bikes
around Zurich See (lake). It did seem a bit sketchy but we assumed that this was a 'make
work' program set up by the government so we would most likely get our precious passports
back. After all we ended up having no problems. That night we walked around downtown and
saw an amazing light show. There was a thunder storm in the distance and you could see the
lightning in the distance, over the hills. Before we made it back to the hostel the storm
caught up with us and we were cooled off with a torrential downpour and some hail.

On Saturday, another hot and sunny morning, Shawn asked someone at the hostel about places
to go hiking in the Alps. We got some info, walked to the train station, got our tickets
to Braunwald (Linthal) then got some food since we really had no idea how small the town
was going to be. We were waiting for our train when we noticed a sign saying it was
cancelled. We found out from an employee that there had been a fire on the train - ...The
Swiss have been having some bad luck with their trains. The Wednesday before our trip to
Switzerland all the trains, in the entire country, were down due to a power failure.
Millions of people were stranded or stuck on a train going nowhere....- Anyways, it wasn't
so bad for us because we hopped on a local S-Bahn that brought us to another station close
by where we started our picturesque train ride. The train went through a valley and
after about half an hour of travel the hills around us turned into snow peaked mountains.
In Linthal we took a train/cable car/funicular type thing to Braunwald. This train, which
had the capacity to carry about 70 people, took us up a very steep slope to a town where
there were no cars, just a few tractors and construction trucks. When we got up to the
village there were accordions being played and we could still see a bit of the mountains
around us however the rain was settling in and the clouds were hanging low. We had found
out earlier that there was a hostel in the village so we went to go find a place to stay.
The adrenaline Hostel (yes that's really a cheesy name), a 2 min walk from the train
station, was not open until 4 o'clock so we decided to see if the youth hostel had space
for us. We kind of figured that the youth hostel would be a little more expensive but
maybe they would let us leave our bags there until 4pm. The youth hostel was way up on the
ski slope so we had to walk about 20 min on a windy steep path and by that time the rain
was picking up. When we finally got to the hostel we were told that they were completely
booked. We were surprised because we were told, that morning, that there was
absolutely no one staying at the Adrenaline hostel. So we left our bags at the youth
hostel, went for a little hike, saw lots of cows grazing on the green ski slopes. Shawn
accidentally grazed one of the electrical cow fences and got a bit of a shock, after that
we were a little more careful.

Later that day we checked in to the Adrenaline hostel. Turns out there was no one at the
hostel....I had flashbacks of my time in Schwatzwald.

The next day we got up early and hiked up to 2000m before noon. There were lots of people
out and we learned, very fast, the traditional Swiss-German greeting: Grutzi (guten tag).
We saw a bunch of rock climbers, lots of cows, ski lifts, waterfalls, blue sky, and alps.

Around 3:30 we started our journey back. It took a total of 8 hours to get back to
Stuttgart/home because in Zurich we decided that we weren't going to pay the 60 francs to
get back to Stuttgart. Instead we got a 17 franc ticket to Schafhausen where there was
supposedly a deutsche bahn ticket booth....however we got there a few minutes too late so we
ended up taking another train to Singen for 6 francs. In Singen (Germany) we got a special
weekend ticket where up to 5 people can travel for 23 euros It took a little time but we did
end up saving some money.

Happy Belated Canada Day! On June 30th another Canadian girl and I organized a Canada Day
Party (we had to do it a day early because some people were leaving town)......there were
5 Canadians, a ton of Americans, some French, German, Italian and Greek......very
multicultural. It was a good time but I'm sure it would have been alot more fun
celebrating in Canada.

Bis spÃter,
Steph