Interlaken, giorno I: Flying Baboo, fondue, and exchange rates

18 marzo 2009

Never in my life has my entire body been so sore–hands and feet included, with an exception of maybe my ears–and never in my life have I had such a bad sunburn on my face. And yet, never in my life have I had such an incredible, intense, probably unmatched (for many, many years at least) snowboarding experience. The Alps were completely and absolutely gorgeous. Everyone on the trails knew what level they were at and stuck to it, meaning no beginners on their first days saying, "Hey, I can kind of stand on this board, I must be good enough to go on an expert slope!" Trails were more of a suggestion than a rule, and if there was a trail, there was most likely fresh powder everywhere around it dying to be carved. The high wasn't quite like the thrill of skydiving, but the heart-pumping, eye-popping rush of a free-fall was probably the closest I felt to the seven straight hours of snowboarding I did last weekend in the Swiss Alps.

*****Friday******
Spending the night in Rome Thursday so we wouldn't have to wake up at some ungodly hour like 5 a.m. was probably one of the best things we could have done. Though the hostel made for a bit of a strange experience, we had a place to sleep right near Termini so we could basically just hop on a train to Fiumicino.

At 7:22 a.m, our train pulled out of the station towards the airport. I sat with Nick's cousin, who was just finishing her visit in Italy for her spring break. Alex (aka Simone, I'll probably use it interchanably) and Nick sat together a-ways down. A few minutes into the train ride, Simone came over to us.

"You're not going to believe this," he said.

"...," we said.

Simone had left his jacket, in the pocket of which was his camera, in the hostel. I had remembered seeing it on top of the armoire in our room, but hadn't said anything because I figured it was eye-level for him. And, as a coat, not really something you'd forget. But that's exactly what happened, and Nick took his role as jacket-savior and stopped back at the hostel to retrieve it after he said his goodbyes to us at the airport and before heading back to Viterbo. He collected, camera and all, but it meant it was up to me to take photos for the weekend. Not that it was a problem; I probably would've taken at least as many photos anyway.

We arrived at the airport a couple hours early, so we had time to chill and get a coffee before boarding. The funny thing I've noticed about European airports: I want to hold my hands up in peace signs and say "I'm not a crook" every time I board and leave a plane. In all the flights I've taken around Europe so far, passengers have to walk outside and either into a bus that takes us to or just walk directly up to the plane. We climb a staircase to get on the airplane that's always just chilling somewhere on the tarmac. It's a pretty different experience than any flight at home.

Flybaboo, the airline we were taking to Switzerland, was an ever stranger experience. As we got off the bus to the plane, before me stood the smallest, most decorated and most-propellored flight I've ever been on. The plane only held 74 passengers, I later learned from some info wedged into the seat pocket. We sat right over the wings and the propellors both there and back, during which we spent much time discussing how Flybaboo could afford to be such a nice airline when the flight was less than half full on the way there and not much more so on the way back.

It seriously was the nicest flight I've had, though. It takes about an hour and a half to get between Fiumicino in Italy and Geneva in Switzerland. But during that time, Flybaboo gives all it's passengers mini bottles of Evian water, a mini sandwich with meat (if you so choose), a mini veggie sandwich, a dessert of some kind (pudding with apple bits on the way there, a clementine on the way back), coffee or tea, and a Toblerone that would probably be referred to as "fun-sized" in the US.

Plus, the chairs were roomy enough and I didn't feel like the seat in front of me was just grazing my nose like I did on the Ryanair flights to Barcelona. Honestly, with the airplane as sparsely packed as it was, they must be staying in business with overflowing flights to their other locations. Otherwise, I have no idea how they can afford to be so nice. Still, if I ever need to get somewhere in France or to any of their other locations in the future, I'm definitely flying Baboo.

Once we landed in Geneva, we ran for the train that we weren't sure if we'd make. We thought we only had a few minutes to catch our three-hour ride to Interlaken, but when we found the train station connected to the airport, the nice French-speaking lady at the ticket counter showed us we had a cushy half hour to kill. So we picked up some surprisingly good Greek sandwiches (olive bread, veggies, lots of feta cheese, mmmm) at a little cafe in the station. And we got our first Swiss Francs (CHF) as change, because Switzerland turned up their noses to the Euro.

A note about some aspects of Swiss culture: The CHF are kind of ridiculous to me. All coins from one cent to five CHF are silver and have the exact same designs on them. The only thing that varies is their size, which generally makes sense if you exclude the fact that the 1/2 CHF coin is smaller than the one cent. The bills look kind of like monopoly money with giant faces on them. I just don't understand the coin system though; I can see that taking years to figure out and a need to check every coin to find the right denomination, even for people who live there their whole lives. Also, Switzerland is divided into French and German speaking parts. It's funny how much of a language comes back to you when you're surrounded by it and sometimes need to know it. Still, I was dumbfounded by how the train company had managed to find enough ticket takers such that every one we encountered was able to ask us, "Deutsh? Frances? English? Espanol?" etc until he found a language in which he could tell us to let him check our passports.

The train ride was calm and went smoothly. An foursome of Brits, two men and two women probably in their 30s, sat in the seats behind us and helped us change trains to get to Interlaken, since they had the same destination. The view from through the windows of the train was breathtaking, just like the view from the airplane had been. But when we got of the train and finally saw those huge, massive, snowy, grassy, rocky and tree-covered mountains in person, that was it. I knew that the one weekend would not be nearly enough. And still, right now, I know that while I crossed off my life goal to ski the Swiss Alps, I have a new goal to replace it, and that's to return and board for at least a straight week.

We checked into our hostel/bar. The hostel part was called the Happy Inn Lodge, which was appropriate because they must've had everyone who worked there pass a test proving they could smile for hours on end before they were hired. (At least, that went for everyone but the woman working the breakfast shift, but she was another story.)

Since we still had a bit of daylight, we decided to walk around. I photographed every mountain I saw, as will be visible on Flickr. We were starved, and the Sandwich Bar recommended by Hostelworld was right next to our hostel so we stopped in for sandwiches. Alex got a swiss cheese one, of course, which I tried and was the first time I've really enjoyed swiss cheese. I guess I've just never had real swiss cheese before and that's why it's never been good. I ordered brie and nuts with lettuce and tomato. I know food tastes better when you're hungry, but as simple a sandwich as it was, it tasted incredible.

After some stops at the tourist center to orient ourselves and prepare for Saturday and sufficient exploring around town, we went back to the hostel's bar for a beer before dinner. Of course I can't recall the name of it now, but we tried the dunkel (dark) version of the beer brewed in Interlaken and it was fantastic. Sitting in the room when we got back was our soon-to-be snowboarding buddy Justin, a 24-year-old US soldier stationed near Venice for the next few years and taking a weekend off for some serious snowboarding before he bought a house and got serious with life. He was heading towards a nap and we were heading towards the bar downstairs, so we told him we'd see him later and set off.

We stopped at the brasserie downstairs for some beers before dinner. What better beer to try in Interlaken, we thought, than one brewed there in the town. We got two of the dark version, and it was incredible. Maybe I'm just easily pleased when it comes to beer and wine, but rarely ever have I tried a new drink this semester that I couldn't appreciate. Filling up Alex's glass, the tap ran out and the bartender managed to accidently spray foam everywhere, including partly all over my face. So when I cleaned up a bit and we finished our Swiss beers, we headed to dinner.

Hostelworld had recommended this place, Bebbi's, because it was supposedly the only restaurant in Interlaken with chocolate fondue. Well, chalk up another win to Hostelworld, because not only did we try the chocolate fondue, we got a pot of the cheese fondue for fairly cheap and free ice cream at the end of the meal. I don't think I've had fondue since I was a kid, where I have a mostly repressed memory of going to a fondue restaurant with Alyssa and my parents. The place smelled awful, probably stinking of all the melting cheese on everyone's tables. Maybe the smell just doesn't bother me as much now; maybe I just have a higher tolerance for stinky cheese stench. Or maybe that other place from my childhood really just smelled that bad. Either way, this place did not stink nearly the same. The cheese fondue was amazing and at the end of the pot our waitress came back and scraped off the bottom of the pot where a layer of hardened fried cheese had formed. It sounds pretty nasty writing it now, and it seemed pretty nasty before I tried it, but she convinced us by saying it was her "favorite part" of the bowl. The chocolate was fantastic too, and we got a whole bunch of fruit and marshmallowy shapes to eat it with.

What was strange about the restaurant was it seemed to cater to asians. I guess a lot of asian tourists head to Interlaken; there certainly seemed to be a lot of them around, or maybe it was just that they all happened to be at the restaurant that night. Probably as a result, at one point the man we took to be Bebbi–or at least the current owner of the restaurant–put on a stereotypical asian hat with little bells hanging from it and two other workers popped out of the back room under one of those giant Chinese dragon puppets with the bulging eyes while an obviously asian-inspired tune played out of the stereo speakers. Then, after a jolly laugh from the asians filling up the restaurant, Bebbi pulls out one of those horns that looks like a giant shofar, the kind of horn in the Ricola commercials. This is a bit less surprising and more appropriate, given that Bebbi is also wearing giant funny pants with cow print on them. On the way back from the restroom, Alex got pinned by the giant horn and had a chance to try it. After a whole bunch of people semi-unsuccessfully gave it a try, Bebbi himself goes at it and belts out a crazy tune that sounded like it could've been a trumpet. Must've taken some serious practice.

After, we were stuffed and content with the odd restaurant. We stopped at the bar under our hostel one last time before heading up to bed early. There, we sat with Justin and Sian, a Canadian from Vancouver/Toronto studying in Cambridge, England. Justin was planning on some heli-skiing early the next morning (where a helicopter takes the group up to the top of some backcountry and they basically jump out of the plane with their boards on their feet and ski down), but said if he was bumped or it was cancelled as had been the theme for him so far, he'd drive Alex and I up to the mountain. We accepted, extremely thankful for the possibility that we wouldn't have to deal with the trains up the mountain, and we all headed up to sleep.