frankfurt and switzerland

fter many hours of research on where exactly is a plausible journey for us to embark on over the next three weeks, I decided it was time for some fresh air and to actually see some of Frankfurt. I went for a wander around the lovely red light district before finding the river to walk along. It was so nice and sunny and people were laying in the grass along the waterside... Some people were out practicing their vocals when they shouldntve been, there was a grandma lounging in her beach chair rocking out to some old school classical jams on her boombox, and I took a few scenic pictures for a crossdresser who spoke German to Me and thought I understood.. By the way, have you noticed my improved capitalization skills and punctuation? My new iPhone is very dandy in helpin me out :) I strolled towards a church because my experiences have told me that that is where the town is usually happenin.. I did a pretty good job find the main shopping area as well as an old square with some German buildings and whatnot. I also stumbled upon some other must-sees in Frankfurt such as a little park and a large euro sign.. I was starting to feel like I could give guided tours of big cities on my first go without a map since ive been to so many at this point.. They all kinda do the same thing and place things in the same locations according to the main river that always runs through the middle of the big city. I found the lidl market.. The equivalent of Aldi or food for less.. And picked up some soup packets and oranges and other snacks for my food bag that I lug around everywhere.. Heaven forbid I walk around easily and not look like a complete hobo packrat! After some more people watching in another square I headed back to the hostel in a completely different way and more or less made my way all around Frankfurt in a few hours without a map, seeing almost everything! I'm so efficient these days! Haha. I hung out in the common room of the hostel and talked with some crazy Indian man who loved beer, and some other old dude who in my opinion shouldn't be staying in a hostel... I didn't even want to talk to him.. He just kept giving me his two cents about the world and I didn't really care. He also wanted to discuss cars because Frankfurt was hosting he worlds biggest car show atm (at the moment) but there was nothing to discuss since I only know how to drive one, and even then some people question my abilities..

The next morning I woke up so excited to meet mere and andrew at the train station! It took them a little longer to get in than I thought, but I was waiting forthem at the escalator and I think they were both relieved to see me too! We headed back to the hostel to take advantage of the free Internet and large table space to lay out a map and out books and crap and whatnot. In the process I managed to fling 4 euros into the air.. I hope some lucky bastard appreciates them.. I guess it's about time I leave somehing behind for someone else. After a few hours of routes and planning and being completely confused and overwhelmed, I convinced them that my previos days research and personal experience would provide the best route through Switzerland, then to Munich for Oktoberfest, then onto Salzburg and down to Croatia before heading back north through Vienna and onto Prague where we could catch the cheapest flight to Greece and see an island or hopefully 2 if were good before mere heads home.. So there you go. The plan for the next three weeks... So far so good.. Well see how it all unfolds :) we headed to the train station to try to figure out how to get to interlaken... The center of Switzerland where I've been told by So many to go.. Well the next train out of Frankfurt was headin straight there so we rushed sroj d trying to figure out how to use our eurail passes and the train man simply said, well just get on the train. This is your ticket! Sweet... So much for those reservation fees we were warned about.. About halfway into our journey we decided to make a pitt stop in Bern, the capital of Switzerland. we jumped off the train and started our stroll of the city, quite calm for a capital, quaint and adorable with red flowers hanging from every balcony of every building. You could just feel how clean the city was, and I was reenergized to pay attention to the little details I have been ignoring over the past week or two because it all felt the same, or I was over it, or whatever. I knew all the old buildings and stuff would be a new big deal for my friends, and I would haveta be patient with some things that they are much less experienced with letting them make some mistakes so they can learn too :) we sped walked Bern, finding anoher church- bleh... But Andrew was so impressed, a fountain with a painted Jesus and an apartment building that spat water at people.. We then headed to the river for a great view.. The river was so fresh and the cleaniest of any city water I am yet to see and we saw the sunsetting over this big old impotant looking building that was from the 1200s... There was a plaque on it, and you know it's important when there's A green dome on top! Ha and then we checked the clock and realized our hour of siteseeing went by waaay to fast and if we didn't want to wait another hour, we better book it back to the train station. Well we booked it.. Three Americans runnin through the streets of Bern with our big backpacks still on.. At least theirs aren't as big as mine.. But we get to the station and realize the time on my phone is completely wrong.. So we had ten mins to catch our breath before the train rolled in for interlaken... At least it wasn't the other way around?! We got to interlaken around 9 or so.. It's not too big so once we finally found a freakin map we headed down a street or two to the happy hostel inn... It's was definitely jammin in there with a band rockin out to some blues tunes til midnight... We were hungry and tired so we headed to the minimart down the street only to find the groceries were as outrageous as the 18 dollar pasta at the happy house.. So we resorted to begging the kitchen man for three cups of hot water that we used with my soup mixes.. Those came in handy quite quick! Then it was off to bed on our less than comfortable beds.. Springs in my back aren't my favorite, but I guess I've seen way worse so it worked.

The next morning we got up at a leisurely pace and headed for a hostel with a kitchen.. After we dropped off our bags we strolled to the train station, picking up some odd fruits along the way and enjoying the beautiful small gardens in everyones yards... So many beautiful flowers and perfectly pruned fruit trees. We took the train up to grindelwald where you could see the glaciers on the huge mountains. From there mere and I led the way to milchbach.. It sounded cool... And Andrew had his work cut out for him keepin up with the crazy girls who were shootin straight up the hill through the woods. It was beautiful scenery, with greenness everywhere, goats with huge cow bells (are they goat bells on a goat?) and pretty little houses and strange mushrooms.. The air was so clean and refreshing and luckily not too cold.. We were def breaking a sweat. We finally reaching milchbach after an hour and a half we had a little sit down at the "restaurant" at the summit, where the mean little lady refused us water unless we bought the 9 dollar bottle.. Yea right. We planned to Jack a pitcher off a table until we realized we had no cups.. Dumb. So we trekked on parched in a country where amazing spring water is flowing from the streets- literally. In town every block seems to have a fountain to fill up your bottle with, but not once your in the wilderness.. We trekked down a new path kinda sort on the way back.. We found a hotel where we could get some paper cups and feast on the bathroom faucet water... Def the best bathroom water I've ever had! Then we back-tracked a bit to hike these stairs up to a little house so high on the mountain.. I asked the lady how many steps, she looked confused and said 1000 so mere and I counted.. I got 907, someone carved 898, and mere messed up around 6 or 7 hundred and got like 676. So Basically there were still a lot of stairs but the were small and had nothin on the 1237 I hiked in Thailand. At the top we had a good view of the Swiss valley below, no yodellers to be heard, and a view of the blue ice grindelwald glacier.. We walked over a creepy suspension bridge and over a fence to do a little climbing to get a better view.. No worries there were ropes to guide us and I've got mad rock climbing skills :) it w as cool and the glacier still pretty small but I'm glad we hiked over. We headed back down the 800 whatever stairs and down the mountain through what seemed like a zoo... We saw cats, dogs, rabbits, alpacas, deer with real live antlers as mere pointed out and the standard goats, cows with bells and. Sheep! Even though it was getting late and kinda dark by the time we were back in interlaken, we decided we had to see at least one lake and took the last bus out to the lake where the view was not quite what we had hoped since the fog and eiere mist had set in but it was Still good. We picked up some five dollar pizza and called it a day!