Grindelwald

Grindelwald

Grindelwald village is located at 1,034 m (3,392 ft) above sea level in the Bernese Alps.  It is about 3 hours from my home in Geneva. 

Nicolas, someone who has come to be very important to me in a very short period of time, is a local from Geneva.  He has taught me so much about the culture and has given me so much kindness, more than I could ever thank him for.  I have battled any kind of homesickness, culture shock, or loneliness with his company. He has been more than a friend to me. So, as if his companionship wasn't enough, he offered to take me to Grindelwald via car this past weekend.  It was so amazing to see the city and country side from the window of a car. 

We hiked (First Bachalpsee First) a very famous hike in Grindelwald.  It was about a 2 hour hike.  First though, we walked around the town & found ourselves some groceries, which we made sandwiches of in the half hour cable car ride up.  Talk about a ride.  We ate swiss cheese and bread as we ascended up into the top of the mountains and watched as the houses became smaller and smaller.

This was a photo from inside the cable car. It was magnificent. The clouds are so strange.  It is especially strange to be in such close proximity to clouds.

We walked, stopped, turned around, stopped, walked, turned around, sighed.. and repeated for the entire hike.  There were small streams of water, and we could hear water rushing when we were silent.   It was absolutely breath-taking.  The mountains were so close and surrounding us was this mystical land that looked like something off of a movie.

Fun fact: This area of Grindelwald, Lauterbrunnen (featured on another blog post), Murren, Gimmelwald -- all close to Interlaken, inspired J.R.R. Tolkien in the writing of The Lord of the Rings.

It was literally a scene from a movie.

We continued until we found the lake.

When we got to the lake, we realized that there were actually two.  One which had all the fame for its beautiful lookout over the mountains, and another behind it tucked closer to the golden rolling hills which was a duller blue, and quite a bit sadder. We decided we would pay our respects to the sad lake first and give it our love, perhaps in hopes of good karma. I dipped my fingers and we laughed at how silly our endeavor to entrust love upon the sad lake was.  Then we went and sat by the lake with the view.  I read from a book called "How to think about weird things" and we discussed whether or not we believed it was okay to believe in something comforting regardless of its truth.  I've never met anyone who has pushed me further out of my head than Nicolas.

It really is incredible the way he is.  For example, if we were to begin a discussion and he were to ask a question formed from the discussion, I would answer.  Then I would reciprocate the question, asking him.  But unlike other people, Nicolas wouldn't know the answer.  Because he wasn't thinking about his answer.  He was listening to me, actually listening to me.  Listening to me in a way that is selfless and simple and honest.  It is like, he cannot listen without investing his whole entire self into the person who is speaking.  I will have to wait a few minutes for him to recollect his thoughts and think of what his answer is.  He is never thinking of his next response, he is always thinking about you. He has mastered the art of listening.  This, alongside with many other beautiful, wonderful qualities, gives people a sense of clarity when they speak with him.

"I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything.  So if I'm going to learn, I must do it by listening"

We were walking back from the lake and suddenly a woman turned to me and spoke in Swiss-German (a fourth language common among Suisse citizens in the Interlaken region) and said something.  I just stared blankly at her, but as we came closer, I realized she had said "fox."  The fox was not afraid of us at all.  It trotted confidently across our path and back without hesitation. 

Nicolas and I found a hill off of the path and we decided to run out to the end.  We were falling uncoordinatedly into ravines and jumping from crevice to crevice. We were unashamed and I was having so much fun. The clouds created a blanket below us and the mountains were vast and expansive, bigger than any I'd ever seen before.  I have never had a view like this one.  

How small we are. I felt like a poem, or a song.  I wanted to lift my arms and run and dance and sing and laugh all at once.  All the things that make me human and connect me to my core.  I was so close to myself and my humanity.   An accidental, instinctive happiness.  No weight.  Limitless and wholly connected.

A hike through the clouds [Mount Titlis]

Mount Titlis, Engelberg

Mount Titlis is a mountain of the Uri Alps, located on the border between the cantons (similar to counties) of Obwalden and Berne.  The mountain is 3,238 meters above sea level.  It has the world's first revolving cable car! 
Grant and I hopped on a train early that morning to get in a full day of hiking.  We probably ended up hiking about 10 miles by the end of the day.

We took a cable car halfway up the mountain.  There was an alpine lake called Trubsee. There were boats perched by a dock open for people to take them.  We practically ran to the boast & rowed out to the middle of the lake to have our lunch. The water was crystal clear mountain water and we were surrounded by 3 types of mountains on all sides of us.  To one side were tall, jagged cliff-like mountains, to another were giant snow-peaked mountains, and on the last were rolling mountains far off in the distance. 

We ate bread, avocados, cheese, grapes, and chocolate for lunch.  Grant tried to catch grapes in his mouth and I laughed myself to tears when he tipped a little too far and almost fell off the boat.  We were blissful and happy and I could not have enjoyed his company any more.  He has a beautifully destructive nature to him. He wants to tip things over and step in puddles and break rules.  He will spill avocado all over himself and will drop things that shouldn't be dropped, and I like him exactly that way.

After our boat ride, we saw a cliff and decided we wanted to climb it.  There was no path, but we just started walking towards the cliff.   Grant let me walk on his shoes to get across small streams and we got more and more excited as we neared the huge incline. It was a strenuous and steep hike. We had to cross barbed wire to get to the top, and we knew it was serious. I was grabbing handfuls of grass to pull myself up using hands and knees, up to the top. 

When we arrived at the top, there was a large wooden cross.  On the wooden cross hung a box.  We opened the box to find a book full of stories and signatures of all the other people who had climbed to the top. 

"You are You no matter where I am," I wrote.

We signed our names, yelled at the top of our lungs, ate a piece of chocolate, Grant smoked a cigarette, and then we climbed back down. 

As soon as we began our descent, we realized we were headed right into the clouds.  We had decided to hike about 3 hours down the mountain back to town. 

We found ourselves in this mystical, magical land of misty clouds, sounds of distant waterfalls, and rocky paths. It really felt like a scene off of some movie, a horror scene, but a cool one none-the-less. Eventually, we descended out of the clouds again to a landscape that was covered in bright colors.  There was moss covering everything, with autumn colored leaves contrasted against it. There were little waterfalls and streams of water paralleling us down the mountain.

We were joyous to begin hearing the sounds of cowbells realizing we were nearing the town's edge.  It was a long, strenuous hike, but a beautiful one.  Mount Titlis did not disappoint.

Mountain Lakes & Dalai Lama in the Park

Lake Oeschinen

Lucerne

This weekend, Megan & I decided to take a trip to the mountains.  We whimsically sat at our computers googling/pinteresting images, until we found this image. And when you live in Switzerland, if you find a place you want to go to, you just do it. 

We took about a 3 hour train ride to Kandersteg, an amazing little town in the valley of an incredible & huge mountain range, the Bernese Oberland. Before getting there, we got lost.  It turns out that some trains actually split in half, then go opposite directions.  We were on the wrong half.  There were two women sitting next to us speaking German.  We hesitantly whispered back and forth, "should we ask them?" "where are we?" "what's going on?"

Finally, I resorted to asking the lady sitting next to me... "Parlez-vous anglais?" soo..I asked a German woman if she spoke English in French. 

*face palm*

We ended up finding our way. 

Above is a photo of a little church in the town.  The leaves were beginning to change colors and we stopped several times without speaking just looking up towards the mountains and feeling the season change. 

 When we first got up to the mountain, this is what we saw.  It brought tears to my eyes instantly.  It looked like a painting.  Everything was so still and calm.  I don't think Megan or I finished a single sentence for the first 20 minutes we were on top of the mountain. It was all, "oh my" "what" "how is this" "I don't.."; there were no words.

It looked as if God had placed his index finger in the middle of the mountain and like Moses parting the seas, the mountains had shifted in response.  I couldn't believe this is earth.  This is the ground we touch, the ground we feel.  The earth is so magnificent.  It is shifting, changing, molding.  There is no stagnancy in its existence. 

We began hiking towards the lake.  There were all kinds of mountains on all sides of us.  We walked towards beautiful, expansive snow peaked mountains. 

The earth was shifting slowly and calmly into new colors, new foliage, new sounds. But it felt calm and mellow and everything was at peace. There was an erie stillness.  The sun shone perfectly through the trees so you could see a couple small insects floating almost too slowly through the trees.  It was some other land.  It was mystical and magical and there are absolutely no words. The trees were tall and it was difficult to feel anything but irrevocably small.

Then we arrived at the lake..

We sat on a rock by the crystal clear, blue water and ate avocados and sandwiches.  We talked about family and friends and things that made us happy.  We talked about things that made us sad.  We discussed how we couldn't believe we found each other.  Megan is so calming.  Not only is she my ray of sunshine, but she soothes me in a way I haven't experienced often in my life.  She listens so intently and shapes the things she says around your perception.  She's so insanely intelligent and can't say anything but kind words.  She's the most pure form of positivity there is.  I love to talk about religion and philosophy and life with her.  If there is any legitimacy to the phrase an "old soul", she is the closest thing to it.  She teaches me, not just because of the things she reads, but because of the way she is.  She is a tool to find goodness.  Everyone should have a friend like Megan in their life. I can't believe I found her.

We hiked further up the mountain and it only got more and more beautiful.  We were joyously intoxicated by the earth's beauty. We laughed and were loud and silly, alone climbing a gloriously magnificent mountain.  I indulged in so much friendship this day. 

 Lucerne

That night, we caught a late night train to Lucerne, a beautiful city of about 79,000 people. It sits amid beautiful snowcapped mountains and is the epitome of a storybook swiss town. It had covered bridges, markets, and beautiful architecture. 

We got there at 9 o'clock and began walking, but we soon realized our hostel was a little bit outside of the city. We began to enter a less lit, less populated area and we could feel ourselves walking a little quicker.  It sucks, we realized.  Had we been there with the guys, we never would have thought twice.  It wouldn't have even been a concern, but as two young girls walking late at night in another country, it was scary.  It sucks that in the safest country in the world, I still feel threatened as a result of my womanhood.

We found our hostel and it was a very hip, quaint place with good music and comfy sofas. We settled in for the night and ended up discussing politics with a backpacker from South Africa for about 2 hours.

The next morning we ventured out into the city.

We shopped in the markets and people watched until finding some Lebanese food.

Then we went to find a very famous memorial in Lucerne the "Lion of Lucerne".  It commemorates the Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution. Mark Twain once called it "the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world." 

We sat on the ledge to finish our ice cream and to avoid the crowds and Megan pointed out how all the tourists were smiling, taking pictures with this memorial.  She said, its weird, right? This was a memorial for people who had died.  Real people who lost their lives.  But since it wasn't their country and it wasn't in the last 100 years, we think it's some tourist attractive to be smiled with and to be "seen". Why do we discredit the severity of death just because it wasn't recent? It still happened. People still died.  Nothing is different except how we are affected, but since when is a memorial about us??

When I looked at the memorial, really looked at it, it was so so sad. I've never seen any kind of art encapsulate sadness like this did. Mark Twain was right.

Then we went to a Jesuit church; it was the most beautiful church I have ever set foot in.

Traveling can be hard.  Planning can be stressful. Busy cities can be overwhelming. 

But friends are always good.  Parks are always a good place for a nap.  Music will always soothe the soul.  Sunshine will always give renewal. Ice cream will always taste yummy.

We found a park next to the lake.  With the mountains behind us, clear water in front of us, and a blue sky above us, we laid down for a nap.  I played Explosions in the Sky on repeat and we both fell asleep within minutes.  When we came to 30 or so minutes later, I laid on Megan and we read the Dalai Lama's How to practice the way to a meaningful life. We contemplated what it meant to truly replace anger with love/compassion and how to go about affecting people on a global scale through teaching knowledge.  Filling holes with knowledge and people with understanding. I was so perfectly content.  It was such a perfect Megan & Haley weekend, with both of us working on exactly the same wave length the whole time.