The beauty of Interlaken

Besides skydiving, Kim and I did a whole lot of walking and a whole lot of talking in Interlaken.  The town is TINY, we had a lot of fun just walking around and looking at everything, sitting in a park and enjoying the amazing view, etc.  Kim described it as a "toy town" and I think that describes it well: it didn't feel real, more like a little model town conveniently dropped between two lakes and surrounded by the Swiss Alps.  

If this setting seems ideal for me, that's because it is.  Luckily during one of our walks I found my future home:

Here's pre and post skydiving pictures: surprisingly I am more put together before skydiving, and completely frazzled afterwards.  Also, I'm aware that I appear to have some sort of black eye, but it's because my eyes were watering like crazy from the speed of descent, so my mascara ran and resulted in what you see!

The town is just beautiful, I am going to let the pictures speak for themselves.

Paragliding is the thing to do in Interlaken if you're not extreme enough to skydive..on Sunday walking through the town we glanced up and saw this:

 

Overall, a wonderful weekend.  Interlaken was delightful, it felt great to be outside of a big city and to appreciate natural beauty, and skydiving was amazing!   Did I mention we had swiss cheese fondue!?

SKYDIVING!

Sorry I couldn't forewarn everyone about skydiving but I didn't want to cause any unnecessary anxiety (especially on my Mom's part!). I was also pretty anxious and definitely questioned what I was getting myself into.

We got picked up from our hostel and headed out to the hangar/airstrip where we got like a 5 minute briefing.. ONLY five minutes. Plus, we only had to sign our names ONCE, can you believe that? In the U.S. we definitely would have had to sign our lives away like 10 times. But don't worry, everything and everyone there is certified both in Switzerland and in the U.S. if that's reassuring at all.

Of course I went tandem with my instructor who was named Hans. When we were the last to get into the plane, I realized that could only mean one thing: we would be the first ones leaving it! Luckily the absolutely amazing scenery calmed me down a bit..except for when they thought it would be hilarious to just open the door midflight in order to scare me.

Once we got to 13,000 feet, they opened the door and the photographer climbed out and stood by the wing. By this time I was all strapped to Hans and I had to swing my legs out and put them on the little step outside of the plane. Then I arched my back, put my legs in between his, and we were off!

We fell 5,000 feet in 40 seconds and even though I expected to scream my head off the entire time, I didn't make a sound! I think I was too busy thinking "WHAT IS GOING ON!?", looking at the amazing scenery, and smiling for the camera.

Then before I knew it, it was time to pull the parachute cord. Hans took care of all of that, all I had to do was grab my shoulders. All the sudden we were going upwards instead of down! One thing I did not expect was that since we had soooo much momentum going, even when we landed on the ground we were still moving SO quickly.

I had about five minutes to enjoy the incredible scenery that was the Swiss Alps and Interlaken. At this point I had to take off my goggles and my eyes watered because of how fast we were going, plus my ears were popping like crazy! Also because of the crazy force of the freefall, both of my shoelaces were untied. I remember thinking, "Great, I only brought one pair of shoes to Switzerland and I'm about to lose them!" At least it would have been a good excuse for shopping..but I didn't end up losing them after all.

Hans decided that while we were gliding down it would be a good idea to take advantage of our speed and do some crazy twists and turns. By the time I was on the ground I thought I was going to vomit, I was so dizzy! When it was time for us to land, the mowed grass lawn we were landing on had other people on it..so we had to land in the unmowed meadow that was beyond it. Here is a picture of me realizing that we would NOT be going down in the designated landing zone...even though we look about ready to land, we didn't for another 50 feet or so.

Once we landed, I was covered in dirt (because we were in the meadow instead of the grass) and basically in shock. I just laid on the ground for a minute wondering what the heck I had just done, then got up and felt the crazy effects of the adrenaline rush.

After all of that, I felt pretty out of sorts so I just sat on the tarmac in front of the hangar for a while. I got to see Kim land and found out that she got to do a back flip out of the plane! Overall it was an amazing experience. I am really glad I did it in the Swiss Alps because the surroundings were absolutely amazing. It was one of the most invigorating things I have ever done, and I'm still kind of shocked that I did it! It's so crazy that what started as a silly idea while Kim and I were sitting in the living room of our apartment actually happened six months later! I would highly suggest doing it and would definitely go again if the opportunity arrose.

Happy Mother's Day

I'd like to take this time out of my lovely weekend in Switzerland to say...

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!

Mom, I miss you lots! Also..happy mother's day to Grandma, Grandmama, all of my lovely aunts and everyone else I know who's a momma! See you all soon...can you believe I'll be home exactly three weeks from today?

GUESS WHAT I JUST DID

I WENT SKYDIVING IN THE SWISS ALPS THIS AFTERNOON.

I jumped out of a plane at 13,000 feet, free fell 5,000 feet in 40 seconds, and then paraglided to the ground.

Out of the 7 of us in the plane, I was the first one to go...it was incredible and scary and energizing all at once.

Photos to come on Sunday or Monday..