The Weekend of Cows

I had the most wonderful weekend ever in Gimmelvald/Interlaken. I don't think I could have asked for a smoother weekend as we never missed a train or bus or gondola and there were 6 of us! Impressive if I must say so.
The train ride to Intrelaken was long but it was during the day so we got to see all of the views of the alps and fields and meadows. We passed the most beautiful lake and town and so many mountains I can't describe how great it was! When we got to Interlaken we had about a 15 minute walk to our hostel with all of our bags but our hostel was nice so it was worth the walk. It turned out that they had a room of 6 empty so we all got to stay in the same room without any strangers. We went downstairs and ate dinner outside at the hostel (they had American food!) and then went for a walk around town. We met some study abroads from Virginia Tech and as we were talking to them I heard a bunch of bells start coming down the street. Confused as to what it was I turned around and saw this...

A parade of cows with christmas trees on their heads and bells around their necks! People dressed as pilgrims or something walked with them and led them through town. So crazy. Little did I know there would be a recurring motif of cows throughout the weekend. The next day we got up early and took a train to Lauterbrunnen, a bus to another town, and then a gondola up to Gimmelvald!

At the bus station! The gondola held at least 70 people in one car and had to go up the steepest cliff, it was cool but kind of sketchy thinking about how high you actually were. We dropped our bags off at the hostel, planned a hike and set off on our 5 hour hike. We had some of the most incredible views and passed through so many cows that were 2 feet from the path and at one point we even had to walk through the cow pasture to catch another path. So crazy. Also walking through the town of Murren (along our walk) people were always able to spot out that we were Americans and yelled because they were too! Was it really that obvious? Probably.

The 6 of us in Murren.

The view from one of our stopping points. About 2/3 up the tallest mountain there was we stopped for lunch (we had packed peanut butter, jelly, and bread, and just made pbjs on the trail and offered them to some nice people passing by!) and then we decided we needed to turn around and head back home. But the views were absolutely gorgeous. We got back to the hostel and ate a huge dinner at the hostel and had a good time hanging out looking at the alps and pretending to do homework but really just being loud and obnoxious.
The next day we went back down to Interlaken because it was rainy and cold and we thought it would be better at a lower elevation, but we were wrong. It actually was worse. We walked around downtown Interlaken for awhile in our hiking clothes and rain coats and there was some sort of wrestling going on in the main square, we called it a human rodeo! Quite exciting to see but we didn't stay out for long because it was so cold but it was such a pretty place I would love to go back sometime! The only hitch was we were ready to go around 4:30pm but we had to wait until after 7 so the train ride would be free since we have passes. Probably one of the most interesting things at the train station in Interlaken was there was a line for the men's bathroom and not the women's! Everything is backwards here.

We finally got back at midnight last night and then had to stay up to do some homework for class today!

Quick embarassing moment of today, I have been trying to find these books for my history research paper and could not manage to find them in the library so I kept asking people and they kept telling me "go back downstairs they are there" so finally someone walked downstairs to show me where they were and there was a door that I had seen but I thought it was just a mirror reflecting other books so I didn't even try to walk through but it revealed 1000 more books.. and my books were there. Ha I struggle at libraries. Oops.