Birthday weekend Switzerland extravaganza!

Finally, the day has come and gone. I am officially 21 years old, and had one hell of a weekend to celebrate it.
The day before my birthday Sarah and I attempted to make a cake. It involved lots of peanut butter, chocolate bits, and nutella, so of course it turned out all right.

Because turning 21 in Europe is so anticlimactic I stayed in the night before my birthday, and when the clock struck 12 had my first legal beer.

On Thursday, October 8th (my actual birthday), after a full day of classes, ending in a pop quiz in music theory- bleh, I arrived home to a note that told me to get ready and go upstairs...

There I found a bunch of my friends waiting with a cake, and way too many bottles of campaign!

my girlssss

They didn't tell me where we were going to dinner, so I was super excited when we arrived at Buffalo Bill's MEXICAN restaraunt!!! Mexican food in Prague= not that easy to find.

More friends joined us at the restaurant and we had a delicious meal and many many drinks that my dear friends treated me to! THANK YOU!!!
After the restaurant we went to a bar called Usudu, great fun.

The next morning I awoke way too early and made it to the airport in time for my flight to Zurich for my weekend in Interlaken!

My friend Jesse and I flew to Zurich then took at 2 hour train to Interlaken. We arrived at our hostel, Balmers, around 3, but it was raining so we just went out for food and wandered around town in the rain. Food in Switzerland is SOOOOO expensive!!! Most of our meals were around $25 a person, though I did have a meal at McDonalds for $10... absurd.

The hostel- on the left, once it had cleared up.

On Saturday it was pouring rain when we woke up, but we had signed up for Canyoning ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC9VPAcIskU ) so because it's a wet activity anyway we could still go!
It was sooo much fun! We started off repelling down a 150ft cliff, but because it was raining so hard the cliff basically turned into a waterfall.
I was first to go...
terrified. the guides all got a kick out of my facial expressions throughout the day.
one of the guides repelling down

Jumping off waterfalls
sliding down natural waterslides
they have a little zip line set up at the end, so you hold on to your rope, and then when the guide yells LET GO, you let go, and you drop into a pool below you!
The whole canyoning crew!

On Saturday afternoon we got back to the base after canyoning and they gave us lunch. And by lunch i mean bread cheese and beer. But this cheese was amazing. Apparently it comes from cows that live in the alps that eat this special herb that makes their milk taste like the herb. So from the milk they make this awesome cheese that tastes like swiss, cheddar, and parmesan mixed together. SOOO GOOD.

The rain cleared up that afternoon so Jesse and I went for a walk around town to one of the lakes that surround Interlaken, Lake Brienzersee. The lighting was beautiful so we of course had to have a little photoshoot with my Rebel.
wouldn't mind living here...
such a beautiful fall day it turned out to be!
walked past some cows on our way home.

We were headed towards dinner when a chocolate shop lurred us in. We were just going to buy a few truffles, but we saw some of our friends from canyoning earlier and they convinced us to join them in this "chocolate show." So for $14 we went into this room for baout 30 minutes and not only learned all about the history of chocolate and how it is made, we watched a professional chocoletier make chocolate. Then there was a tasting at the end. And by tasting I mean all you can eat chocolate everything. Swiss chocolate is the greatest thing EVER. The only ingredients allowed are milk powder, sugar, cocoa butter, and cocoa bean maybe? something that makes it chocolaty haha. Anyway it was soooo good. So we stood there for 10 minutes eating all the chocolate we could shove into our faces. Then we realized that our tickets to the chocolate show were good for $8 at the chocolate store- so we got more!

After that we all decided we needed some real Swiss fondue. So we went to this place that Jesse and I had seen the night before that looked fun. They gave the 7 of us our own room and gave us a great deal of all you can eat meat and cheese fondue for $30 a person. This also included rice and french fries, ice cream, and salad!
Then they brought out a banana split for my birthday!

Fondue!!
The guy who owned the restaraunt was so much fun and kept rining cow bells and then brought out a swiss horn and played it and then had me play it for my birthday. So funny.

The next day we rented bikes for an hour and rode to the other lake, Lake Thunersee.
A beautiful morning!
That afternoon Jesse went skydiving and I went PARAGLIDING!

We drove up this mountain and then walked a few minutes to this beautiful grassy clearing on the side of the mountain. SO BEAUTIFUL. These pictures don't do it justice...

About to take off! Basically you take a couple of steps, feel the parachute catch the wind, then you run off the edge of the mountain!


FLYING!!! this was soooooo amazing. I can't describe how great this was to be flying 2500 ft. in the sky in the swiss alps, over 2 beautiful teal green glacier lakes.



Then he let me take control and steer us!

We were lucky there was a bit of wind, so I got to stay up there for almost 30 minutes, when usually flights are only 15-20 minutes.

They let me take up my camera with me, so I shot a video so you can experience Paragliding Interlaken first hand!



After Jesse returned from skydiving we got on a train for Zurich. We stayed in a swanky airport hotel that between the two of us cost the same as a Zurich hostel, so it was a great decision.
Woke up at 5 ON Monday morning, got on a plane at 7:30, delayed a bit, landed in Prague by 9, in class by 10:30. Exhausted. So worth it. AMAAAAZING trip!

Thank you for all the birthday wishes and to everyone who helped me celebrate! I had the greatest time!