SWITZERLAND!

Switzerland. Collectively, this was our favorite trip yet.

Reasons:
-Everyone spoke English
-Everyone was dressed down
-Water, Sun, Floating
-Mountains, Hiking, Weather
-Canyoning!
-Their motto: “Get Busy Living”

It wouldn’t be fair to try and fit my thoughts on Switzerland into a few short paragraphs. It really isn’t fair to try and explain it at all, because it’s simply indescribable through words and pictures. In fact, I realized once we arrived that my camera was out of batteries--so minimal pictures were taken this week anyway! (This was a blessing however, because it forced me to soak up everything around me rather than worry about taking pictures of everything I saw. Pictures wouldn’t appropriately show the beauty of this place anyway). In brief, it is the liveliest place I’ve ever been to, and definitely has taken the top spot for places to return in the future!

With only two days to spend in Interlaken, we wasted no time when we arrived to go looking around, jumping in Lake Thun, and laying out in the sun. Our main purpose for this trip was our excursion through the canyons of Interlaken on Saturday morning. If you watched the link I posted last week that would be a taste of what we got to experience this weekend! While it was exhilarating and we were sore the next morning, I think we all could have spent the entire day Canyoning instead of just the morning. We felt as if we were only there for half an hour before it was over!

We stayed in a hostel, recommended by Bonnie’s cousin called “Balmers.” This also had so much character with the friendliest staff and neatest atmosphere. It had a ski lodge look to it, which made my a little jealous for those who get to stay there in the winter. They had a hammock room next door which as you can imagine, we took full advantage of both days we were there. I managed to grab two naps there myself! In short, I would be happy to spend the rest of this summer, next summer, and really all of my available time in Switzerland if that was possible.

We caught the first available train on Sunday morning back to Maastricht, and arrived nine hours later in time for dinner at Nora’s and for the World Cup Finals! (Nora’s is our favorite place to eat Maastricht—we consistently eat there three times a week). Unfortunately, Holland couldn’t pull out a win against Spain this year in the finals, and let me tell you—the Netherlands knows it. I’ve never been seen the faces of so many excited people go blank and everyone go silent in unison. People were sad, outraged and frustrated. Cups were thrown, glasses were broken, vocal cords probably paralyzed. We thought we were bummed about the results, but it doesn’t measure up to how the Dutch felt. The streets were filled with trash this morning. The town square was occupied with empty cups and Holland signs that were ripped. It was almost eerie. (For dramatic effect, it started to rain). Maastricht is crying! The well known “Orange Street” which has been overflowing with orange spirited everything since May, was with out life this morning. It’s amazing how huge of a deal a soccer game is to countries everywhere--except the United States. The pride that even my friends and I adopted this summer was clear. We found ourselves yelling at the opposing team, screaming for “our” players to win, and buying and wearing any and all orange! Regardless of the results, it was remarkable that we were able to witness our temporary home, work its way to the finals, the summer we just happened to choose to live here. It made our trip that much better and that much more unique to us. So Holland—Thank you!