With ear to ear grins on our faces, a group of us have assembled outside of the spray painted bus.  There is a wide range of people among us, some young North American students, middle aged men on vacation, a number of young Koreans and a few older women as well.  Scanning the faces of each person, the excitement is easily seen, but upon looking closer I pick up on the flashes of anxiety and even a touch of fright.  We all knew what we were getting into though.  We all signed on that dotted line and handed over our credit card to be charged an exuberant exorbitant sum of money.

The group leader waves us over, gives us a quick talk and then opens up the bus doors into which we enter.  Filing in we take our seats.  I sit with two other young chaps I had been previously talking with.   As the bus engine roars to life we begin the hour long journey to our destination. We resume our conversations about all of our previous travels, swapping stories of adventure and misadventure, all the while the bus winding though the snow-capped mountains of Switzerland.  Villages of all sizes dot the landscape while rivers and small streams cut through the sides of the mountains, often forming small waterfalls and swiftly flowing rapids.  The time flies by and before I realize it the bus has stoped.  We’re at the base of the first gondola station.

As the bus door opens and we start to get off I hear a few shouts of joy over the background of excited conversation.  With our guides toting all the gear behind them, we board the platform and wait for the next gondola.  Nearly everyone goes to the bathroom, including myself, a fact that I found most amusing.

At last the gondola arrives and twenty of us cram into its tight quarters.  The doors slam shut, one of our guides presses a few buttons and we start moving almost majestically up the mountain, the soft swing of the gondola becoming almost hypnotic.  At last we arrive at our first platform.  We exit the gondola and throw all our stuff in one of the buildings there.  It’s time to weigh in.

I wait for my turn patiently and then finally step on the scale.  I’m in the green weight class zone, which means I’ll be in the first group to go.  I’m given a harness to put on which fits snugly over my body.  Then a guide places some pads around my shins and ankles.  He smiles and asks if I’m ready.  Of course I am, I reply easily, I’m excited but not afraid.

Finally everyone in the first group is ready.  Fifteen of us cram into a tiny gondola that is probably made for five comfortably.  Suddenly “pump me up” music starts pouring from the large speakers in the gondola.  Everyone laughs and starts moving to the beat, some, including myself, start to pretend to dance, although it’s rather hard since everyone is basically packed in like sardines.  The gondola starts to move.  As it’s about halfway to the next platform it abruptly stops, the gondola swinging in the air.  We’re over a small lake overlooking a beautiful green landscape of mountains, with snow in the distance.

Looking around, many people are murmuring to those near them, the look of fear more prevalent on their faces, while a few of us just start smiling even wider (if it were even possible) and moving our heads to the rhythm of the music.  The gondola door slides open and the two guides with us start busying themselves with various tasts.  Two young Americans who had done this before sign up to go first and second as they’re closest to the door.  I put my name third on the sign-up sheet.

Before I really even notice, there are two less people in the gondola and I find myself staring out the open doorway of the gondola.  The guide attaches a long cord to my legs and double checks my harness straps.  He smiles, pats me on the back and tells me to get ready.  I move myself right to the edge of the doorway and place both my hands on the side walls and crouch down slightly, preparing myself to launch out.  The gondola suddenly roars to life with the sound of everyone yelling in unison, “Five, four, three, two, one, BUNNNGIIEEEEE!!!!!!!”

Without a seconds hesitation, and with seeming insanity, I pull with all my might on my hands and push with my legs jumping straight out of the gondola in a superman like fashion .  I’m flying.  The feeling is incredible.  For that brief moment I’m completely weightless, the only view is the lake below and the mountains ahead.  Suddenly the laws of the universe kick in and my body starts to dip forward.  I imagine myself deciding to swoop down to the earth after enjoying my brief flight.  The lake suddenly becomes one of the only things in my view.  What was seemingly a small lake grows larger and larger as I plummet towards it.

Then I feel it.  The bungee cord attached to my ankles tightens, my decent slows and then finally stops about five meters above the surface of the water.  That was fun I think to myself. A split second later I’m being rocketed back up towards the gondola.  My god this is awesome.  As I near the peak of my return back up, I pose for the camera.  Then back down to earth I fall again.  Then back up, then back down.  I’m relaxed, enjoying the roller coaster like sensations, trying to take every moment of it in.

About fifteen seconds after my initial jump I at last cease bouncing and hang upside down over the water about twenty meters up.  They let loose some slack in the gondola and I drop down towards the row boat waiting for me below.  Grabbing onto the outstretched pole I pull myself down and land in the boat.  A man quickly unstraps me and sends the bungee cord back up.

They then rowed the boat back to land and I jump onto the shore, sadly once more becoming a land-locked creature of the earth.  But I had my moment, however brief.  That feeling of freedom, without a care in the world, soaring high over the Swiss Alps.

So I’ve been amassing a list of some of the more subtle differences between the places I’ve travelled thus far and my dear sweet home in Canada. Pretty much whenever I or my travel buddies would notice something I’d try to remember and write it down later!

Locomotive Methods

• Almost all the taxi cabs are very nice Mercedes! Usually beige/tan in colour and impeccably clean!
• Transit systems are extremely extensive! The subway stations are massive and in Germany they even had little clocks that displayed the remaining time until the next subway. Also most of the systems are on an honour system, so they only do random checks for tickets once in a while.  Playing the “silly backpackers who thought the system was free” seems to work, although not something I suggest depending on.
• J-walking or crossing on a red light in Germany is frowned upon. You will get nasty looks from disgruntled old German men if you do!
• There are many more bicycles about, and many cities have dedicated bike paths and even little bicycle stoplights! (awww isn’t that so cute?) In Vienna they even had a (pretty much) free bicycle system that was all electronically controlled with stations all around the city that you can pick up and drop off the bikes at! A damn sweet system and very useful for getting around!
• All the cars are smaller, you see very few SUV’s
• The city of Interlaken, Switzerland didn’t even have streetlights! Just small round-abouts where the cars stop and always yield for pedestrians!
• Much more interlocking tile for roads and sidewalks.

Consumption and Anti-Consuption

• With a diet of schnitzel, donar kobaps, sausages and 1liter beers, some how Germans in Munich are still not fat! We still have no idea how this is possible…I theorize they’re all aliens.
• They don’t have just coffee like we have coffee. Asking for a coffee gets you an espresso, and when you try your hardest to clarify that you want a normal large coffee, they just smile and stare blankly at you while handing you a double or triple espresso
• Yogurt is far more prevalent! Everyone eats and drinks it! Yes, drinks yogurt! It’s similar to our Yop, but they come in 550mL bottles, and a wide assortment of flavours!
• They have something called ultra-pasteurized milk that doesn’t ever need to be refrigerated. The amount of this type of milk far out numbers (normal) cold refrigerated milk. Some stores actually only sell the non-refrigerated type.
• Alcohol is sold everywhere! And most places are fine with drinking on the streets! Yey!
• If you’re in a public location and wish to use a bathroom because you’ve been holding it for 5 hours, be prepared to shell out at least fifty cents to get in! On the plus side, the bathrooms are usually clean, and fully stocked with tp, soap and hand towels.
• They are in love with toilette scrubbers! I have yet to see a bathroom in Germany, Switzerland or Italy that doest have that little scrubber right beside the toilette!
• The label for the bathroom is “WC”, I’m assuming it means wash closet or water closet, but asking for the toilette usually gets you going in the right direction.

Ethnic, Cultural and Other Such Things

• Most cities are medium density, so not many skyscrapers or tall apartment buildings, but pretty much all the buildings are attached to each other
• Nudity is much more prevalent in the advertisements throughout the cities
• Germans and Swiss love to recycle!
• Less ethnic diversity in the big cities. Where Toronto might be a Mosaic, cities over here are pretty much homogeneous.
• Everyone has a cellphone and are always on it texting away
• There’s far more history and architecture in every city
• Clubs don’t close at 2:00am
• In Munich there is a dog tax you have to pay which is based on the aggressiveness of the dog. So a chiuaua might cost 150Euro a year where a pit bull is 1500Euro a year.
• The grass is actually greener over here! (especially “forbidden grass” near palace areas where you will get yelled at for walking and sleeping on lol)

Alright, I know you are all waiting for me to update, and I will, but I just don’t have the time right now.  So instead, I’ve decided to cheat and post what my travel buddy Paul wrote to a bunch of our friends!  It sums up Amsterdam, Berlin and Prague pretty well.  When I get some time I’ll try to add in some other stories and additions to those cities!

So here you go in the words of Paul:

Alright friends, it’s currently an off-night for us, and we have cheap internet at the hostel here in Vienna, so I’ll give you a quick update, and only ‘quick’ because these German/Austrian keyboards piss me off. The y and z are switched, and a bunch of other buttons are in strange places!

So we arrived in Vienna this evening after a huge train scheduling debacle. Stupid Prague train station refused to sell us BOTH train tickets we needed to get to Vienna and wanted us to use a eurail day instead! THEN they failed to tell us that the train was actually leaving from a DIFFERENT station! At the last minute we realized this fact and took a speedy cab ride to the proper spot, only to find that the train was late anyway, so it worked out – we even had time to fix the ticket debacle! We haven’t seen much of Vienna yet – just the Wombats hostel (which is great), and a random pub. Tomorrow we start sight-seeing!

The hostels have been amazing so far – we keep getting quad rooms, so it’s like staying in a hotel, but I would say it’s cleaner! On top of that, the bathroom in our hostel in prague was actually STYLISH as well as clean! The only half-dirty place was the ‘flying pig’ in amsterdam, but that had kind of a ‘pot smoker’s haven’ charm to it. There were cushions in the front where people would just… space… out….

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ANYWAY the red light district was larger, better lit, and much more touristy than expected. It was tons of fun, and I didn’t get lost for THAT long (not long enough to find a good window, anyway…. :p). The Anne Frank museum was pretty emotional, and the Van Gough museum was pretty interesting, although I’m not a fan of much of his work (too depressing). Also it rained a LOT. Don’t let me get you down though – it’s a beautiful city, full of canals, and great for walking and getting lost (we did that many times). Oh, and as most of you know, the Heineken experience was worth doing, especially if you like beer!

Getting to Berlin was a bit difficult, since we forgot to validate our Eurail passes (a big no-no) before we got on the train. We had to get off, get them validated, and board a train 2 hours later, hence forfeiting our reservations. In the process of this we lost Justin. He’s still missing actually. Have any of you heard from him??? The city of Berlin was amazing though. It was like a mix of commie flare and western investment! The hostel (circus) was hands down better than I would have EVER expected from a budget accomodation. It was like an Ikea ad, with hanging closets, little plastic rolling night tables with a million drawers, and neat looking beds. It was also large, spotless, and had hardwood floors. The best thing to do (outside of the hostel) was take a bike tour of the city. If you haven’t guessed, there’s a TON of WW2 and cold-war history, so it was quite the tour. We also visited the technical museum, because it apparently compliments the one in Munich. It requires an english audioguide (we were too cheap for that), but it was fantastic nevertheless. There was also a pub crawl, the highlight of which was an old-school run down building PLASTERED in graffiti and with bars on 3 of its 5 levels (the other 2 levels were kind of spooky…). Oh, one last thing about Berlin – it’s cheap as hell! A great city for your value, considering the history, the number of things to do, and the nightlife.

Then it was off to Prague, the train ride for which was actually pretty good. The czech countryside is spectacular. Prague itself is a beautiful, but quite sketchy city. We were not fans of the train station, thanks to the ticketing problems, and I was constantly watching my pockets, but apparenly I was scared for nothing. The food and beer is CHEAP, just so long as you don’t order anything imported. The castle was definately the highlight of the city, but it was worth just walking around aimlessly through the streets. The city is pretty much how you would expect every large european city to look. No buildings over 6 storeys (with a few exceptions on the outskirts), and nothing under 3 storeys. Oh, and cobblestone everywhere. If you go, I’d suggest avoiding the main strip (there really aren’t any bargains) except to see once or twice, and just walk through back-alleys and such. Also the hostel Miss Sophie’s was quite stylish, and also pretty cheap. The nightlife is quite good from what we saw, although we were pretty content meeting other travellers in the hotel basement, which was quite nice (I would describe it as ‘clean, dungeon-y charm’).

Anyway, that’s the trip so far. By my standards we’ve gone out drinking quite a bit, but we’ve definately had our off-nights, and I’m sure it’s nothing compared to Mike’s Greek adventures. More to come in a few city’s time! Up next: Vienna (now), Munich (Friday), Interlaken (Tuesday), and then off to Italy!

Cheers,

Paul (and Sonia, Mike, and… ??Justin??)

Until next time!

If that’s true then I’ve just written an encyclopedia!

I’ve finally got my pictures from Greece uploaded and commented.  You can check them out here or on the link on the right hand sidebar.  I would suggest you actually open up the pictures rather than looking at the thumbnails as I’ve actually commented on the pictures in very large text above each image.  I didn’t end up taking any pictures during our stay on Mykonos so no pictures from there unfortunately, but I do have a fun story to tell once I get some time to write about it.

Enjoy!