Everyday Is A New Adventure...

...But some days are more adventurous than others.

Yesterday was one of those days. So just to explain this... Interlaken is known for its EXTREME outdoor sports. Paragliding. Skydiving. White Water Rafting. Zorbing (if you don't know what this is... its AWESOME... you roll down a mountain in a bubble!). I decided to go canyoning. I had heard about it through friends here, and they said it was awesome... so I just decided to go for it. Basically - you're jumping off waterfalls into rapids (that is me in the pic by the way).Pretty awesome right? But you know it wouldn't be a story about me unless I hurt myself somehow. So after all that extreme jumping off clifts and all that stuff you're probably wondering... so what did you do? Fall off a boulder into a pile of sharp rocks? Jump off the wrong waterfall into man eating sharks? Nope. I twisted my ankle tripping off a curb on my way back to the hostel. Very anti-climactic. (My story is that I sprained my ankle doing something extreme... like playing with bunnies. Renee has started calling me "The Walking Accident.")

So to continue with my crazy day, I made a new friend on the train the night before - Andrew the Aussie. We had agreed to meet to go biking or hiking or something like that, so I met up with him and (being the smart person that I am) decided hiking would be a GREAT idea! I mean... you can't go to Switzerland and not go hiking... hurt ankle or no hurt ankle. So there was some little town up in the mountains that he really wanted to go see - whatever, I'm game. So we walk about 20 minutes to the train station (get lost... the signs in Switzerland suck), catch the train to Lauterbrunnen, and then from there this girl in Interlaken had told us that we could either catch a bus or do like a 30 minute hike up to Murren. Sounds pretty easy so far. So being the cheap person that I am, we decide that we're going to do the 30 minute walk to Murren. There's a sign that says "Murren 30 mins/2 Std." Now I'm not really sure what "Std" means, but 30 mins is definately a lie. We were at 795 meters above sea level and trying to get to 1,634 meters above sea level, and my genius mind thinks that this is not very far. Again... WRONG!We start hiking... up the side of a mountain. I started out happy, but about an hour into it Andrew the Aussie just says, "I hate this mountain." Yup... I'm going to go ahead and blame him - it was his idea, I just went along with it. He's the one who wanted to go see the stupid town on the top of the mountain. In fact... we didn't even make it to the town he wanted to see. It took over 2 hours to make it to 1,400 meters and by that point in time I had tripped (naturally) and scraped up my knee, my legs burned, and we still weren't there. But we had some awesome views, drank REAL Swiss mountain water, and saw Swiss cows with little bells on the side of the mountain.You know how sometimes you can go to a place and still feel like you haven't really been there... I have DEFINATELY been to Switzerland.

After that... we ended up actually taking the train up to Murren (where we were trying to hike to). It was a pretty quaint little town and there was pretty much no one there. After that I crashed... unfortuantely, the people in my room didn't. Hostels are nuts. There may have only been 12 beds in the room - but there were at least 14 people in the room. I think the high point of the night was when this one guy gets up and starts doing jumping jacks to prove a point that everyone was being too loud. Out of control.The last thing I learned this weekend (besides dispelling all my stereotypes about Aussies and kangeroos) was that girls don't ever travel alone. I mean - we all know that girls have to go in packs even to the bathroom, but I thought maybe a few would be cool and travel by themselves in Europe. I think that's even more wrong - so the fact that I was in Interlaken by myself was kinda a novelty and makes me kinda hard core. And the fact that I can't help but hurt myself in some way makes me stupid.

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The Antithesis of Paris

So I am literally in a valley at the bottom of a mountain.

There are mountains and trees on every side of me. Not only that but there's not really any cars either. The buildings look like something out of the "German" portion of Disneyland (there's probably a connection there but the reasoning escapes me... and I'm sure the locals would love the fact that my familiarity with their culture and customs comes from Disney).

There is no road dust, no noise, no dirty people, no bums... just silence.

Occasionally you can hear the bells on the cows, or the crowing of a rooster. In fact, if you walk about 100 meters down the road you'll probably run into a farm of some sort in the middle of a fairly large community.

Everything is GREEN... and if its not green thats because there are flowers everywhere. So many houses have little flower and vegetable gardens in their back yards. No smog, no grey and black and tan clothes... just green.

And when you least expect it, you can round the corner and see a waterfall.

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Have Passport... Must Travel

So its almost humorous how little I know about where I am right now. I decided to go to Interlaken so fast that I really didn't think about it at all. My thought process went something like: Must travel. Cool place. GO!

So now I'm here in Switzerland realizing that I'm not really sure where that is. When I arrived in Bern, I suddenly had all these realizations like... they don't take the Euro here! They don't speak French! (So what kind of money do they use? What language do they speak?) For some reason, I had in my mind that Switzerland was a magical fairy land of banks, chocolate, knives, and swatches that was near France and very much like it in every respect except name.

WRONG!

So now I'm in Switzerland and laughing at my own stupidity and lack of preparation. I know 0 German? Dutch? Switzish? And I feel like this is the craziest thing I've ever done.

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Recap of the Last Week

So mostly, this is a blog to catch everyone up on the last week of my life.

1. I've started giving walking tours of Paris. One of the walking tour guides got an amazing job that she couldn't refuse, so my boss asked me to fill in for her for the rest of the summer. Its kinda cool that Mike asked me cuz he said that it was because that clientel for the walking tours is a little more intellectual and I "know my stuff." I'm honored, but at the same time - walking tours are 10 times more tiring than bike tours. We walk from our shop (near the Eiffel Tower) and end in front of Notre Dame - it ends up being about 4 hours and 4 miles. (VC - can you imagine doing that in Texas weather?)


2. Fete de la Musique was last week. Basically its this big music festival for the summer solstice (the longest day of the year). Local bands come out and play on all the street corners. No one had to give tours that night so Fat Tire had a "Moveable Feast" which was basically a progressive dinner through the city - so as we moved from apartment to apartment we got to see all these cool bands. It was pretty out of control... "Tour Guides Gone Wild" if you will. Everything we tell our tours not to do - we did! Cutting off cars, racing through the streets, yelling at taxis... Hilarious! We started with drinks at Julien's, then fruits and veggies at Dana's, bread and cheese at the "Penthouse", main course at the "Tension", and then ended with dessert at Mike's. This may be one of the most fun nights of my life... I love these kids!!! Here's a pick from early on in the night (Team Red at Julien's apartment... check out that view!)
3. I've had some BAD tours lately - some of my favorites:

• the 30 person Israelii segway tour. 8 segs is normal (but still a lot) - 4 groups of 7 segways each that keep meeting up at all the stops plus a camera crew that insists on them zooming around in circles in high traffic areas is anarchy!
• the Australian woman who fell off her bike
• the ass-man who lost his chain, didn't tell me, and got lost in the Champ de Mars during the first 5 minutes of the tour
• being attacked by millions of tiny gnats for 4 hours

4. My farmers tan has reached epic proportions. Its time to take action. Operation Even-Out has commenced. I'm brining my bikini to work everyday this week.

5. I've decided to become a flight attendant... no for real this time. Every night I have flight attendants and pilots on my tours and they are some of the coolest people ever. The other night I had 2 from Delta on my tour, and they basically convinced me that this should be my life path.

So after all that excitement - I need to get out of Paris; so I'm going to Interlaken, Switzerland for a few days. YAY!!!

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Place des Vosges & Carnavalet

So I haven’t written about this yet but I went and explored some of the Marais district last week. This is probably one of the only areas of Paris that still has some history from the Renaissance. The Carnavalet is the “History of Paris” museum, and the Place des Vosges was laid out by Henri IV (its also where Victor Hugo lived for part of his life).

So many of you know, I’m kinda obsessed with Catherine de Medici. (Its an odd obsession – I realize that - but its right up there with bread and nutella & banana crepes.) So the Place des Voges is where Henri II (the husband of Catherine) got killed in a freak jousting accident (a splinter went into his eye and into his brain). So Catherine had the lists torn down and Henri IV built these really ritzy apartments here.

I took a pic with the portrait of Catherine in the Carnavalet (this is for you Franz.)

And the gardens there were really beautiful as well. (I’m really into gardens these days.)

And then I went shopping. (It was my day off!... and although I've never thought of myself as a shop-a-holic, I may be turning into one... something about having cash in my pocket.)

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I want to ride my bicycle. I want to ride my bike...

... I want to ride my BICYCLE. I want to ride it where I like!" - Queen

So I bought a beach cruiser so that I won’t have to spend 11,40 Euros every 5 days going back and forth from work. That being said – we already are having problems.

The day after I bought it, as I was riding to the Musee D’Orsay, the chain slipped off twice. Now – most of you would say, “did you cry and get some nice French person to help you?” The answer is no… despite my repugnance towards dirt, I did get down on my hands and knees and fix the chain (thank you David Hall for showing me how to do that a few days ago… else tears would have been my only other option.) I did this twice within 2 blocks. So now that my hands were covered with dirt and grease (I looked like a well dressed mechanic), I went to the Musee D’Orsay. Thankfully the nice Italian woman in front of me looked at my hands and pulled out little wipes from her purse. When you least expect it, people can be so nice to you.

It ended up doing it again later on in the day – so I rode it back from the shop and Mike and David fixed me up with a tightened chain, and more air pressure in my tires (which may explain why it was so hard for me to ride… although it could be the fact that I had just climbed up the stairs of the Eiffel Tower.)

But this was just the beginning of my problems. A few days ago, I locked up my bike in front of the shop at 9am (well...not DIRECTLY in front of it... but near enough so that anyone who walked out the front door and looked left could see it), and when I went to go get it at 8pm - someone had SLASHED MY TIRES (now you know why I'm having anger issues).

Well... this may have been the best day to slash my tires, because I have been having nightmares about changing tires on a tour, and I had made a resolution to practice this particular skill. So the reason I was leaving the shop at 8pm was because I had just had another tire changing tutorial by Franz, and I was going to come in early the next day and practice more. So of all days... I was planning on changing tires anyway, so they might as well be my own.

(But that doesn't mean that if I catch those kids, I'm not going to hurt them.)

And the pic is just a random one of me on a bike... this is what I look like most days - and where I get to play...

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Exploring

So... I'm kinda proud of myself. I went exploring today, and I didn't get lost once!!! Just a few weeks ago, I got lost walking outside of my door - and now I can go just about anywhere in Paris and wander around, and even if I make a wrong turn, I can usually find a road I know in a few minutes and find my way back to someplace I know. YAY!!! (This is kind of a big accomplishment for me so I'm excited.)

If you're wondering where I went - I took Blvd St. Germain up to the Marais and the Place des Vosges (more on that in another blog), then down to the Hotel de Ville, then across the river to the Latin Quarter, through the Luxembourg Gardens, by St. Sulpice, and then finally by St. Germain-de-Pres and back to the river. YAY ME!!!

And tomorrow... I'm going to try to get me and my bike out to Fontainebleau. :-D

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