Interlaken, Home of Extream Sports and Amazng Scenery

We spent 3 days in Interlaken and made sure to use our time as best we could. I know we briefly mentioned what we did but here are the pictures that make everything so much more real. Day one we checked in and went paragliding. It was well worth the money (a lot) and it was good for me because I was terrified of the idea but it was so peaceful and beautiful and surprisingly not scary. It'll still take me a while to warm up to the idea of skydiving but I'd say this is a good start!

Day two we got as close to the "World's Highest Train Station" as we could afford. We got one stop away before prices skyrocketed. We hiked our way down the mountain until we reached a village connected with the train, probably about 5 hours. I totally felt like running and singing "The hills are alive with the sound of music..." with my arms stretched out. Oh wait, I probably did do that! We saw a ton of avalanches too. They sounded like thunder.

Day three we took a train to Grindlewald and planned on a 4 hour hike that was kind of a loop. However, our map was not one that accurately showed elevation gain so after hiking up an insane mountain side for an hour and a half we gave up, collapsed and walked back down never really getting anywhere except halfway up a mountain. Oh well, it was beautiful and it felt so good to be outside enjoying as much of the alps as we could handle. Still, a three hour hike....not too bad.


Suited up, at our take-off location and totally ready to fly!


Action shot. See my instructor behind me trying to get in the picture!


Here's David's action shot. His instructor caught a "thermal" (hot air) and so they were above us.


Here we are, again fascinated by farm animals. Up until this point neither of us realized we had never seen a real life pig before. I vaguely remember seeing baby pigs some where when I was tiny but this is totally different. We just wanted to post it because it makes us laugh. It is just the ugliest thing we have ever seen! And I thought donkeys were ugly!


The mountains and valleys of the alps.


Totally "Sound of Music" worthy. If you look closly, in the upper left corner you can see the highest train station. It is just to the left of the big mountain in the center. That mountain, by the way is Jungfrau (meaning Virgin).


Here is one of our many avalanche shots. This does not do justice.

A Stop In Milan And Then Into Switzerland!

We were literally in Milan for only 24 hours but we loved it. I was such a refreshing break from the madness of Italy and tourists, most of whom don't make it that far north. One thing we noticed about all the cities we visited was that they all had a "Duomo". We had no clue what that meant before but now we couldn't be more sure. Thankfully Switzerland is Duomo free. Oh and if you have no idea what I'm talking about, it is basically a big famous church with an impressive dome - or something like that. Anyways, Milan's duomo was our favorite. We checked that out and then went shopping at our very first H&M Store. For those of you not in the know, H&M is a famous European clothing store that has really trendy and inexpensive clothes and there are only like 3 of these store in the States. So anyways, we updated our wardrobe a tad (I mean we were in Milan...what else were we supposed to do?).

We spent one night and in the morning we headed to Lucerne, Switzerland. So far, if we decided to live anywhere else, it would be Lucerne. It is definitely a city but small so there's close community and it is surrounded by lakes, the alps and real villages with cows that wear bells and farmers dressed in traditional outfits playing the accordion on the front porch. No joke, it truly is amazing! We were there from Oct. 12th - 15th.



The Duomo in Milan.


The most famous postcard shot of Lucerne with the Chapel Bridge behind us.


On the ferry and headed to Mount Rigi for a day of exploring. It was really foggy that day but on top of the mountain it was blue skies and you couldn't see anything below you except white fluff. It was really neat.


Mountain goats on Mount Rigi. Some had huge horns. It was the farm animals that made us realize what city kids we were. Every shaggy cow, goat, pig, sheep, whatever that we came across we would just take a ton of pictures and get all into it. The bells around their necks sound so beautiful and while you hike there is a consistent chime somewhere in the distance.


Standing at the highest peak on Mount Pilatus. They say you can see Austria and France from up here but to be honest, we really didn't know what to look for so we just assume we saw it!


About halfway down Mount Pilatus was a ropes-course and this crazy odd metal toboggan slide that was really long. I was a nervous wreck going down it. Not really my thing.

Our Love, Cinque Terre, Italy

We only spent 3 days exploring the five villages that make up the Cinque Terre but we absolutely loved every minute of it. We were there Oct. 6th - 8th and it was our last warm destination. This was our vacation from museums and old churches. We spent the full first day hiking the 11 km. between the villages taking a million pictures unable to fully grasp the beauty surrounding us and sadly, our pictures don't do it justice in most cases. The next 2 days were spent on the beaches. We stayed in a really great place that had a book exchange (we got "The Hobbit") an awesome kitchen and our own room. Plus it was right on the water.



Our fantastic breakfast, probably the best we had eaten in a long time. David bought a juicer in Pisa at a dollar store so we had fresh OJ to boot!


View of Riomaggiore, the most southern of the five villages and where we stayed.


David taking the plunge! After David jumped, the guy up there with him chickened out and climbed down.


The "hike" was a lot more mellow then we expected but it was still gorgeous. This is David and Megan as we descend to the final town, Moterosso (the spelling is probably wrong).


We actually bought this picture...on a postcard after seeing this.


Posing on the hike even though we are all sweaty since we did the hike mid-day.


Once we got to Monterosso, we sat down outside for dinner and right when out food came out, the clouds rolled in and a crazy thunder and lightening storm hit. It got really windy and tree pits were flying into our wine but remember we were still hot and sweaty so we really didn't care. It was really exciting to enjoy muscles and swordfish for the first time with a new friend in the middle of a storm. I mean really, why not?

Florence, Pisa and Venice Photos

Florence was great because our friend Megan kind of acted a a tour guide so we got to learn a ton and have company. Lots of Romanian Gypsies there though. Pisa was cool for a couple hours laying in the grass for a couple hours but no more. Venice was beautiful and we took a ton of pictures but they all look the same so we only posted a couple.



The famous "David" in the Academia Museum in Florence. It was really expensive to get in and there were only 4 other statues there. It was worth it though - a must see. He was HUGE in real life. The people here were really strict with picture taking also. Lame.


A typical Venice "street".


This picture has a story behind it. Several years ago at the Edmonds Arts Festival David and I visted a photographers booth and this picture was on sale. David didn't want to buy it, he wanted to DRAW it. In our bedroom hangs David's drawing of this exact same shot except the red building on the right is freshly painted. We walked over this bridge and we both instantly knew what we were looking at. It was really crazy feeling.


Me, David and Megan were imitating all the international tourists "We Love Pisa!" See the people in the background contorting their bodies to obtain the most creative "holding up the tower" pose!


We all agree that David wins for most creative use of a useless building.

Rome and Vatican Pictures

Okay, so we wanted to do a little back tracking so we could post more pictures. We were in Rome Sept. 28th to Oct. 1st. The main highlights were the Vatican Museum, the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, the Colosseum and everything surrounding it.



The ceiling in the Sistine Chapel with the famous "Creation of Man" in the center. The guards in here were crazy strict about no photos so we had to be sneaky. Who comes all the way to Rome and DOESN'T take pictures?


We hiked up to the top of St. Peter's Basilica to get a good view of the country "Vatican City".


Once we got to the top we needed a few minutes to recuperate before we could enjoy the view!


And here it is. A country within a country. Except no one really lives here. Lots of grass I'm sure you can't play in.


Here is the view of St. Peter's Basilica. We were in that dome. The pillar to the left is a confiscated Egyptian obelisk. There are 40 all over Rome in front of all the important places.


Outside view of the Coliseum (duh!). When you step out from the closest metro stop, this is what you see. It was really "in-your-face-cool".

This is the inside and the floor is missing so you can see all the tunnel ways underneath. They even had elevator type things so that they could raise animals up from unknown places to catch the gladiators off guard.


We are standing in front of Trevi Fountain which was beautiful. This guy asked if he could take our picture for us. Ok. Then he gave me these flowers and asked for money. Ha! We are living off pasta! Yah right.

We are Slackers

So we are kind of feeling like we are slacking on our blog. Its not intentional its just that when you have to pay to use some crappy computer that takes hours to download pictures its just not worth it. And now we are in a place that offers free internet and the computer is HORRIBLE and I cant get any pictures on here. Since it's past midnight, I'm giving up but we hunted down a good internet cafe and we are going to post more pictures and stories from Rome, Venice, Cinque Terre, Milan, Lucerne, Interlaken, Bern, Zurich, Geneva, and Prague. So as you can see, we have our work cut out for us. If it makes you feel any better we are trying to keep journals of everything we do and we can't even keep up with that.


Anyways, enough about the past. We are in Prague right now and arrived here on the 24th after an overnight train from Zurich. We have been moving a lot slower lately. It is like 3 degrees here which is 37 F and overcast. We bought hats, gloves, scarves and leggings (for Heidi obviously) and it is still hard to walk around for more then an hour or two. Everything is still gorgeous and fun its just that we wake up later and go "home" earlier. It's actually quite refreshing.

Prague is nice because we can afford to eat out. However, they are adopting the Euro in 2009 so it will only be cheap for another year. You better make your trip now! I keep scouting grocery stores out of habit, and then happily realize I could care less!

For my birthday (which was on the 25th) we stayed at a nice bed and breakfast which was amazing compared to the dorm rooms we've been sleeping in. We woke up way late and had breakfast at noon. We did some site seeing and then ended the day with a 90 minute Thai massage. It was amazing! The lady actually walked on my back on her knees and twisted us in all these weird positions and totally beat us up...but still it was amazing!

Anyways, we will blame technical difficulties and lack of patience for the absence of pictures.

Cilly, Beautiful Switzerland

Well, I0m standing in a Macintosh store right now because internet is way too expensive (just like everything else here). I'll have to make it quick.

We went to Pisa for acouple hours and that's really all we needed. The next day we went to Cinque Terre and hiked from teh Southern town where we stayed up to the northern most town. It was about 5 hours and we celebrated with muscles and swordfish for a going away dinner with Megan. She headed back to Florence while we stazed in Cinque Terre for a couple days lazing in the hot October sun! Then we went to Milan for 1 daz and did a little shopping and had some amazing Chinese food for dinner.

Then it was off to Lucerne, Switzerland. We instantly fell in love with the place! Our second day there we hiked mt. Rigi and the third daz we hiked mt. Pilatus. We took numerous ferries on the lake, cable cars and cog wheel trains up and down the mountians and got some beautiful views. On mt. Pilatus there is a 1400 meter toboggan slide we did.

Then we went to Interlaken where we went PARAGLIDING! It was so amazing flying over the town and the montains and seeing everything from way up high. We were there 3 dazs and did more hiking up around the Jungfrau regoin. That's where the highest train station in the world is. Way too spendy for us. We could afford the stop before. I felt like I was in the Sound of Music. We saw a bunch of avalanches. Don't worry, we were hiking in NO snow, we were just surrounded by taller mountains that were covered in glaciers. We hiked both days and checked out Grindlewald also. Then off to Bern where we only spent 1 day because it wasn't as exciting as we thought it would be. Now we are in Zurich waiting for my Bible to arrive at the POst Office. I forgot it in Florence and Megan mailed it to us on Thursday so we are hoping Italia Mail is reliable and fast (I doubt it!).

Bikes are free to rent here so we rode all around town until our noses felt like they were going to fall off from the cold. Tomorrow we are thinking about going to Geneva for a day or two while we wait for my Bible. We are ahead of our schedual anyways.

We are having so much fun and we absolutly LOVE Switzerland, by far much more then Greece or Italy. We keep seeing hints of the Seattle area over here and we realize how much we love where we live!

You can be in prayer for our health now that the weather is dropping and most hostels kick you out from 10am to 4pm so we are basically living on the streets, iving and eating out of our back packs. I've had a runny nose and sore throat for about a week now, just waiting for it to leave me alone.

Check back in the next week for tons of awsome pictures! Prauge is on the schedual next, for my birthday on the 25th!

-Heidi

ps. it won't let me spell ceck. Sorry!

Italy: Headed North

So we have definitely realized that you could spend a very long time exploring all of Italy. We saw Naples with side trips to the ancient cities of Pompeii and Heracleum. Pompeii was buried in volcanic ash and Heracleum is more recently discovered and much less excavated because it was buried in lava and is much better preserved because of it.

The pizza in Naples is unbelievable even though everyone is very skimpy with toppings (3 olives and 5 slices of salami! What?). The pizza elsewhere is over priced and terrible in comparison. Italian food really isn't that great. We sought out a very cute, authentic, local spot and spent a lot of money and the food made us wish we were at Old Spaghetti Factory spending much less money. That's too bad.

We are trying to learn how to not expect anything. It's hard, but it's worse when you don't get what you expect. We should be writing down all the lessons we have learned but it seems daunting.

Rome was insane and packed with tourists. We saw all the major stuff and then ran for our lives to Florence which is mellow in comparison yet still packed to the gills with tourists. Rome was awesome though. We saw the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel, St. Peter's Basilica, the largest church (ever I think) and of course the Colosseum and everything around there.

Gelatto in Italy is so amazing. I will never eat ice cream again! We found a place that makes Champagne Gellato-with real Champagne so it melts pretty quickly but is so wonderful.

Today we are in Florence. We are camping and our tent mate is a girl named Megan. We met her IN Patras, Greece almost 2 weeks ago-she was in the ticket line for the ferry in front of us. We said our hellos and re-met once we got off the boat in Bari, Italy. We traveled together to the train station and parted ways. We went to Naples and she went to Rome. On 9/28 we arrived in Rome and saw her sitting at a bus stop in front of our camp site. She had been staying there and was leaving to Florence. On 10/2 we showed up in Florence at our campsite and opened the tent door to see Megan in our room! It was all random but awesome. Yesterday she took us with her all over Florence and gave us an amazing tour of some of the greatest art. She is an art history major and I think we wouldn't have appreciated this place as much without her.

Tomorrow all three of us are going to go on a day trip to Pisa to check out the leaning tower. Then it's off the the Cinque Terra coast where we will probably be visited by Megan again (she is staying in Florence).

That's all for now!

Pictures...a long time coming

WARNING!!! THESE PICTURES AREN'T IN ORDER, WE DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO FIX THEM ALL.

START AT THE BOTTOM

HOPE YOU ENJOY THEM

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Us eating or campsite made gourmet dinner. It was Italian made pasta with pesto, panccetta, and olives. The olives filled with garlic are by far the best.

This is Positano!!!! Our favorite beach spot so far. It was BEAUTIFUL. Half way between Sorrento and Amalfi. We are defiantly coming back here.

This is me holding a pizza in Amalfi.

More Pompeii in the rain.

Here is the cabin we stayed in during an outrageous thunder storm.

Beautiful view of Sorrento, Italy. Where we camped.

Drinking fountain powered by an aqueduct in the street of Pompeii. You can see on the right of the face a dip in the stone. That was made from years of Pomeiians grasping on there to get a drink of water.

Preserved corpse of a slave (notice the thick belt) in Pompeii. All his bones are still in place.

Ruins of Pompeii in the rain guided by the racist Italian.

The Famous sunset of Oia. Sorry for the neck ache

Me in Oia.

Santorini sun rise as we prepared for a rocky ride back to Athens.

Heidi eating the deliciously beautiful sunset in Santorini.

The famous red beach, which wasn't that cool by the way.

This is me at the southern most tip of Santorini.

The moderate party of Greece. He is on his way to the Parliament.

Turn your head for a very amusing pic of us celebrating with the Athenians, the practice of Democracy. This is it's origins. P.S. the President/Prime Minister was re-elected.

Picture perfect shot of Fira. A main, but still small town in Santorini.

Athens

The view from the Acropolis of Mars Hill.

This is were Paul declared to the Greeks that Jesus is God. Acts 17. Also known as Mars Hill (Ares Apogus)

The Sea of Galilee, we only were able to spend a short time here because of the Jewish New Year, all the buses home stopped running early.

View form our hostel in Nazareth (the old town). Very common neighborhood in Arabic fashion.


The Acropolis is going to be covered in scaffolding until 2010. Boo. It was still amazing though