Another Month Down

Well hi everyone! I really can’t believe how much has happened in the past month. I’ve been working on my literature review for my research project and it’s going well, I passed BOTH of my French tests (now I just have to pass the final’s) and this week I have 4 friends from Utah visiting me and we are headed to Scotland tomorrow!

So lets get to it… here’s what I’ve been up to!

April 9th:

Today was Easter Sunday and I had the amazing opportunity to sing in church! I want it stated that I am a very average singer, I mean I can carry a tune but it is not show stopping in any way and I don’t usually sing over the pulpit. A few weeks ago I learned that Nea is a very good pianist and asked if she would ever be willing to play a musical number at my church. She said that she would do it if I sang, so I asked one of the local sister missionaries if they would do a duet with me. I was texting with Nea the following week and we were sending eachother song suggestions to figure out what I should sing. I sent her one of my favorites “Be Still My Soul” and she responded with a video from 2 years before of her playing that exact song! It turns out that the tune of “Be Still My Soul” can be found in one of the Finnish National songs called “Finlandia”. So of course that is the song we chose. It was so great and I was able to invite some of the friends I have at school and 8 of them came! I love being able to share such an important piece of myself with my wonderful friends and was so touched that they came to support Nea and I. It is a memory I will cherish for a long time!

April 12th:

My friend Jessica from Utah came to see me for spring break! We met in my singles ward in Vineyard this last year and she served her mission in France and Geneva! Which was amazing because it meant that she spoke French and was familiar with everything so we could go see new things instead of just hanging around Geneva!

We went to Laussane which has quickly become one of my favorite places and I would highly recommend it to anyone coming to Geneva. It’s the next town over and has really beautiful architecture and a beautiful view of the lake. We climbed to the top of the cathedral and even though it was my second time going up, this was my first time going up when the bells went off. The worker luckily warned us right before we started climbing that it woudl be loud… but even with the warning we were surprised at just how loud it ended up being. We both jumped out of our skin even though we were standing there waiting for it with our ears plugged! There was also an orchestra practicing for a concert in the cathedral this time so we were able to hear the pipe organ and experience the acoustics, which was absolutely amazing!

April 14th:

Jess and I were joined by my friend Davida from Washington D.C. and we all went to Annecy France together. This was my second time and it was just as wonderful as the first. We walked around and reenacted the opening song in “Beauty and the Beast” which made for a day full of laughter. Oh and we bought a lot of delicious pastries, because duh.

April 15th:

Jess and I woke up and headed downstairs to grab our 7:17am bus that would take us to the train station, where we would catch our 8am train to Zurich with Fanny, Nea, and Nea’s two friends visiting from Finland. Then we were going to meet up with my friend martin in Laussane and all travel together to Zurich which is about 3 1/2 hours away. It was a great plan.

Unfortunately Swiss trains run RIGHT on time, so even though we walked out the doors of my apartment at 7:17am, it was technically 7:17:39 and therefore, our bus drove off without us. The literal second the time changes to the time they are supposed to leave, they leave.

I immediately get a call from Fanny who is on the bus and sees us and asks what she should do. I told her to meet up with Nea and her friends at the train station and get on the train, we would figure something out.

I had a good 5 minutes of panic trying to see if there was any way we could make it to the train station in time, but finally landed on the conclusion that it wasn’t possible. So instead we would have to wait for the next train which was in another hour and a half. I called up Martin and told him to get on the next train so he could travel with us, and let the Finn’s know we’d meet them in Zurich later in the day.

The sad part was, we had tickets to the Lindt chocolate Factory museum and it said on their website that it was only good for the time we bought them for, and they were sold out of more tickets for the day. So I felt terrible for making Jessica miss it!

The train ride ended up being just fine and we traveled to the Lindt museum to meet up with the girls. When we arrived the girls had just finished their tour. I asked the front desk if there was any way we could still go through, and by some miracle, they let us! So we agreed to meet up with the group for lunch after we took our tour.

This is just a PSA for anyone that is going to Switzerland and has seen the Instagram influencers show how “amazing” the Lindt chocolate museum is… its not that cool. There, I said it. In my personal opinion, Lindt chocolate is some of the worst chocolate Switzerland offers. The museum was way to big and actually quite boring to listen to all the stations they had set up, and online it made it look like you were able to get endless amounts of Lindt chocolate balls at the end of the tour, and got to sample from 10 chocolate fountains. Nope. There was a woman that stands there yelling at you if you take more than one ball in each flavor, and there are only 3 fountains, and they don’t let you bring in water so you can’t eat that much.

I have now been to 2 chocolate museums and I would 100% recommend the Cailler museum over Lindt. Plus Cailler is some of the best chocolate I’ve had in my life.

After the Lindt museum we finally met up with everyone and had lunch in the most expensive city in the world- so fun haha!

We were walking around the city when all of a sudden there were marching bands going through the streets and TONS of people dressed up in old-time dresses. We had no idea what was going on, but I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, so I know how to walk up to a stranger and ask a question. We walked up to this nice older couple and they explained that it was a festival for the start of spring. They are all part of guilds and they dress up and go around the city, and that night they would have a big ball and at the end they would burn a big wooden snowman. Then there would be a children’s parade the next day, and on Monday there would be a parade of men and all the woman would give them flowers. It was so great that we happened to be there that weekend and see everyone dressed up. (The next week I was talking to my Swiss friend who is from Zurich and he then explained the other side of the festival and how it is actually a very political thing and it was so funny to hear his perspective and how much he hates the festival haha!)

Here comes another travel tip if you want it… Zurich was pretty but I wouldn’t say its a “must see” when coming to Switzerland. There are prettier places and the prices in Zurich are even higher than the rest of Switzerland because its the most expensive city, I would say Interlaken is the “must-see”, not Zurich.

April 19th:

Jessica left on the 18th and on the 19th it was time for me to pack my bags for my mid-stay program in the Netherlands. The research program I am doing here in Switzerland is called “Euroscholars” and it involves 3 schools in Europe. My university in Switzerland, and universities in Belgium and the Netherlands. In total there are 12 of us between the 3 schools, 4 of us being in Switzerland. As part of our program, one of the 3 schools hosts all the Euroscholars each semester for 3 days and then the students can choose to stay for the rest of the weekend if they want. I chose to just stay for the 3 days and it was wonderful!

We headed off to the Amsterdam airport (which is HUGE in case you ever go, make sure you have a nice long layover time if you have another flight to catch, and also go really early to that airport because it can take over 30 minutes to just get to your gate. That’s not an exaggeration either, they have it posted “34 minutes walking to gate, 26minutes running”) Then we took the train to Leiden which is a small town about 40 minutes away by train.

The 3 days were spent presenting information about our research projects to the other students, having guided tours and dinners around the city, and learning about Leiden University. I tried some Belgium chocolate… and I have to say my allegience is with the Swiss on this one. I was not a fan of their regular chocolate, but their hot chocolate is 1,000 times better. It is still in competition with France, but they both beat Switzerland by a landslide. I have never tasted worse hot chocolate in my life than in Switzerland.

I unfortunately didn’t get to see Amsterdam other than the airport, but I did get to see all the bikes in Leiden and it is pretty amazing. To see thousands of bikes and entire parking lots just dedicated to them… it was like nothing I’ve ever seen before.

Here’s a quick funny story: I have been wanting to buy a Swiss watch as my “big” souvenier for my time in Switzerland and there is a brand called “Swatch” that sells nice ones that are much more affordable than the luxury ones. I have had my eye on one in Switzerland but the most I’ve ever spent on a watch or jewelry in general is $20 and the watch I wanted was $100. But while I was in the Amsterdam airport there was a Swatch shop and they had the exact watch I wanted for $58euro… so I got my Swiss watch haha. I felt like a true local because just like most Swiss people, I buy my groceries in France and my Swiss products anywhere but Switzerland haha.

April 22nd:

There is a group called “ESN” (Erasmus Student Network) which is a big organization in Europe and they plan events for students. They do weekend trips at a very discounted rate because they go with big groups and can get group prices. You have to sign up for their trips and they fill up within minutes, and there was a trip to Interlaken planned for this weekend. I had signed up but was added to the waiting list and didn’t think I had a shot at getting in.

I was sent a text while in the Netherlands telling me a spot had opened up and asked if I wanted to go. I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity because I have heard amazing things about Interlaken so I said yes. I got home from the Netherlands at 12:30pm and had to be at the train station at 7:00am.

Here is a travel hack for you: there is a train called “the glacier express” that is a panoramic train (meaning it has very big windows) that is very expensive and it takes you through some of the most breathtaking parts of Switzerland. But it turns out… there are other trains that go on those lines too that have huge windows as well. They aren’t floor to ceiling like the glacier express, but they are very big. We took the train that went on the same route and it was by far the most beautiful views I’ve ever seen! I HIGHLY recommend it, and if you’re on a budget you can just take the regular train lines that go on the glacier express route.

After 3 1/2 hours, we get to Interlaken and immediately go to a funicular that will take us up to the top of Harder Kulm. Wow. Just wow. My poor camera could never do it justice. But put that on your bucket list right now because you have to see it for yourself!

Get ready- because things are about to take a turn for the worst haha

After taking pictures ontop of the mountain, we are told we will have a quick 15 minute decent down the mountain and go on a boat ride across the lake.

If I would have known what that “15 minute hike” was actually going to be, I would have never gone and would have just gone back down on the funicular. But I figured “how hard can a 15minute hike be?” Well, it had been raining in Interlaken for the past few weeks so it was extremely slippery and muddy and the path was very narrow.

You know how hikes have scales like “easy, intermediate, and advanced?” Well the Swiss people are NEXT LEVEL. Their easy is everyone else’s advanced. So later when I looked this up and saw that it was labeled “intermediate to advanced” it started to make sense why it was the most horrible hike of my life.

The entire thing took over 2 hours and every part of my body was tense every step down that hill. I was so worried about falling or dislocating my knees (I have had 2 knee surgeries to try and fix them but both failed). The tender mercy of it all was my friend Jess who stayed behind with me to help me every step of the way. I was able to hold on to them for support and we both only fell once!

When we reached the rest of the group (about 45minutes to an hour after they reached the bottom) Nea looked at me with eyes that said “that was terrible for us… so how are YOU doing?” With just that one look I started crying and released all the pent up anxiety that I felt hiking down that mountain. All my friends were so sweet and hugged me and told us what a great job we did, and we spent the rest of the time laughing about what a disaster the whole thing was, and how unprepared we all were.

We were all supposed to go on a boat tour but because we all took much longer than 15minutes to come down the mountain, we ended up missing our time slot. They decided to trek on and we went to our next destination; the Beatus caves.

I highly recommend these, they were beautiful but after my hike down the mountain I wasn’t physically up for the task of doing the amount of walking they required, so half way through I turned around and just met the group when they were finished. I hope that I can go back in the next couple months and go again, but if I don’t have the time then it will just give me an excuse to come back to Switzerland in the future.

April 23rd:

We first went and walked through the Aar gorges and they were absolutely gorgeous, I highly recommend this place as well if you’re ever in Interlaken. We ended the day by going on a “walk”. They told us it would be about 30minutes, and once again they did not prepare us for how long it would actually take. We walked through the Lauterbrunnen mountains and they were stunning, and it was a paved path, but it still took us over an hour and a half to reach our destination! By the time we arrived we had missed our bus, which also meant we missed our train back home.

In the end we waited a while for a new bus and train and traveled the 4 hours back to Geneva where it took me the next week for my body to recover from the weekend’s events!

Overall I would say Interlaken should be on everyone’s “must see” list, but I wouldn’t suggest hiking or walking there unless you are a very active and experienced hiker haha!