Zurich, Hooters, and waaay too much to drink
Dec 9
The day began with my phone alarm going off at 7AM – the bus for snowboarding was leaving at 8 and we were sposed to be out and ready to go by 7:45. Waking up wasn’t that bad because everyone was pretty excited about hitting the mountain. It’s been forever since the last time I woke up early in order to bundle up and head out onto the mountain; ahhh I miss that so much and can’t wait to go snowboarding at home!
Outside, Interlaken (which was brown when we showed up the day before) was covered in a huge white blanket. It snowed A LOT and was still snowing! Cooool! Somehow we all managed to get ourselves downstairs and were all bundled and sitting on the couches ready to go when Simon came in with the news. “There is a 50/50 chance that we’re going to be able to go… sit tight and I’ll get back to you guys in about 15 minutes.” WHAT?! When he said that I knew that we weren’t going. If the roads and runs weren’t open right then, and it was still snowing outside… UGH.
We got all dressed and excited for nothing. Snowboarding was cancelled for the day. I was totally disappointed and sat on the couch and pouted about it for about an hour after he made the announcement. I wanted to go on this trip for the snowboarding… boo. We didn’t know what to do for our day after that. The rental place made us return all of the jackets, pants, gloves, and goggles that they rented out (no one but me had actual snowboarding clothes there) sooo the option of playing in the snow was out also. BOOO.
Simon told us that Bus2Alps was offering a day-trip to Zurich for only 30 franks instead. Sounded better than nothing soo we all decided to go on that. The trip left at 11… we were up at 8 with nothing to do. We ended up sitting around the lobby discussing politics and religion; well actually, everyone else I was sitting with was discussing politics and religion while I was coloring and playing MASH (two of my favorite things).
The bus ride to Zurich was only about an hour and a half long (which is crazy cuz it’s clear on the other side of the country compared to Interlaken). Switzerland is tiny. I was freezing the entire ride there. I had my hood of my sweatshirt on, my scarf wrapped around my entire head about 5 times, and my arms inside of my shirt. Laura, who was sitting next to me, looked cold too – she was curled up in the tiniest ball that I’ve ever seen a person in! We watched Batman Begins. I didn’t really get it sooo I spent a lot of the trip napping.
When we finally got there it was cold and rainy. We originally set out in search of a restaurant with about 15 people but somehow our group turned into three: me, Marilena, and Dan. Zurich was a really cool place. TONS of awesome shopping (there was an H&M on every block, no joke. It was hard to resist going into all of them!) and really beautiful. We picked the right place to go to get in the Christmas spirit. The entire town had decorations and Christmas lights up. I loved it!
We walked for about 30 minutes before we finally found a restaurant that wasn’t ridiculously expensive to eat at. Switzerland is freaking expensive. EVERYTHING there. They don’t use the euro; they’re on the Swiss Frank (which from now on I will refer to as Frankfurters since that’s what Laura and I called them all weekend long). The exchange for the frankfurter is even worse than the dollar which doesn’t really help too much I guess. I took 200 frankfurters out of the ATM on Friday morning and it turned out to be a perfect amount for the weekend – phew.
We ate at the Swiss version of the Hardrock Café. I think the three of us were so cold from walking around that we didn’t really care where we ate as long as it was warm!!
After lunch we headed back out into the cold in the direction of an outside (but well heated bar) by an ice skating rink inside the courtyard of a giant castle. Cool! On our walk there we ran into Navid, Laura, Rachel, and Dave… somehow the girls convinced the guys to go shopping with them. Ha, I’m so shopped out from this trip at this point so we headed on to the bar.
The Ice Bar was really cool. I was in Christmas heaven. Seriously, I have never been to a place that got me more in the Christmas spirit than that bar (except maybe Naples in Long Beach). We ordered coffee and sat out under umbrellas and heat lamps and just enjoyed everything around us.
After the bar we headed back to the meeting spot cuz it was already time to head back. Inside the train station there was even MOOORREEE Christmas! Aisles and aisles of booths were set up selling Christmas/holiday stuff. In the center of the room was a HUGE Christmas tree completely covered in Swarovski ornaments!!! I’d kill for a tree like that… it was the most beautiful Christmas tree I’ve ever seen.
Eventually we had to head home from Christmas paradise. On the bus we watched Animal House and drank wine. Classic. God, that movie never gets old.
Back at Balmer’s we bundled up and headed out in search of dinner. Marilena, Laura, Natalie, Adam, Navid, Rachel, Dan, and I ended up at Hooter’s. Yup… Hooter’s. More than anything else, Hooter’s makes me think of Big Daddy. It was a lot of fun. Platters of chicked wings and pitchers of beer for everyone! The walk back home was a lot warmer than the walk there, that’s for sure. On the way home I was tackled into the snow by Adam… he better sleep with one eye open cuz I’m going to get him for that.
By the time we got back to the Balmer’s it was already around 10:30. We opened a bunch of bottles of wine and champagne and sat with about 13 people in our room drinking and talking and taking pictures. I was getting really nervous because oh, did I mention that Pete’s 21st birthday was the next day?? Which meant his 12:01 was that night? I was waay nervous to call him because I already knew how the entire situation was going to go: I was going to call him at MY midnight in Switzerland all excited about his birthday, and he was going to be not even as close to excited as me about it which was going to make me sad because I was going to start wondering why I even bother trying to do nice things for him. Then, since I was drunk, I was going to get sad and cry and drink more, then when I was totally ridiculous I was going to call him back and yell at him for making me feel stupid.
My prediction was DEAD ON. I called and cried after because he hardly reacted at all to my calling and passed his phone onto Stephanie for me to talk to? Don’t get me wrong, I love Steph and all but um I was calling with the sole intention of talking to Pete. On his birthday. I think that by now the world is pretty aware of the fact that I LIVE for birthdays and doing special things for people. It’s hard to want to care about someone that doesn’t even notice things that you do for them; and yet I still do and end up just getting angry at myself for still feeling like that. I dunno, I think I deserve a little more of, well, I dunno, something I’m just not sure what. Uh huh, yup.
ASLDFKAJ;SOEIAMS;LDKFJIEASN;DLKGAOIDGNKDFALOAIDF!!!!!
Anyways, when I came back into our hostel room full of about 10 people I admit that my crying did cause kind of a big scene and I’m so happy that I had incredible friends there to make me feel better. I was telling them all day long that I was going to be a huge disappointment of a phone call and everyone thought I was just being paranoid but when I came back in crying (I never cry these days) they knew I was serious. “You need this more than I do,” is what Natalie said to me as she handed over a more-than-half-full box of wine (which I finished in a matter of minutes). I don’t know HOW they did it but somehow about 15 minutes later I was back on my feet downstairs dancing. And dancing. And dancing.
To make a long long long evening short I’m just going to be honest and say that I don’t remember much past going down the club to dance. I have a memory here and there of calling Pete again and telling him a long list of all the things that he does that makes me sad (it’s a loong list too). I remember loving all of my friends again for making me feel better. I remember Dan trying to make me feel better. I remember hearing really great stories before falling asleep. I remember waking up the next morning in the jeans and tank top I’d worn “out” the night before. And I rememeber going down to breakfast and still being drunk and eating all the toast with Laura (who was still drunk also).
Wait, I just moved onto the next day… there were tons of pictures from the night before and none of them helped recover the events of the night before in my brain. Maaan. Overall, midnight on December 10 was probably my low point of, well, the year. Hahahaha, all I have to say is thank goodness I was in a hostel with good friends and no where to go.
The day began with my phone alarm going off at 7AM – the bus for snowboarding was leaving at 8 and we were sposed to be out and ready to go by 7:45. Waking up wasn’t that bad because everyone was pretty excited about hitting the mountain. It’s been forever since the last time I woke up early in order to bundle up and head out onto the mountain; ahhh I miss that so much and can’t wait to go snowboarding at home!
Outside, Interlaken (which was brown when we showed up the day before) was covered in a huge white blanket. It snowed A LOT and was still snowing! Cooool! Somehow we all managed to get ourselves downstairs and were all bundled and sitting on the couches ready to go when Simon came in with the news. “There is a 50/50 chance that we’re going to be able to go… sit tight and I’ll get back to you guys in about 15 minutes.” WHAT?! When he said that I knew that we weren’t going. If the roads and runs weren’t open right then, and it was still snowing outside… UGH.
We got all dressed and excited for nothing. Snowboarding was cancelled for the day. I was totally disappointed and sat on the couch and pouted about it for about an hour after he made the announcement. I wanted to go on this trip for the snowboarding… boo. We didn’t know what to do for our day after that. The rental place made us return all of the jackets, pants, gloves, and goggles that they rented out (no one but me had actual snowboarding clothes there) sooo the option of playing in the snow was out also. BOOO.
Simon told us that Bus2Alps was offering a day-trip to Zurich for only 30 franks instead. Sounded better than nothing soo we all decided to go on that. The trip left at 11… we were up at 8 with nothing to do. We ended up sitting around the lobby discussing politics and religion; well actually, everyone else I was sitting with was discussing politics and religion while I was coloring and playing MASH (two of my favorite things).
The bus ride to Zurich was only about an hour and a half long (which is crazy cuz it’s clear on the other side of the country compared to Interlaken). Switzerland is tiny. I was freezing the entire ride there. I had my hood of my sweatshirt on, my scarf wrapped around my entire head about 5 times, and my arms inside of my shirt. Laura, who was sitting next to me, looked cold too – she was curled up in the tiniest ball that I’ve ever seen a person in! We watched Batman Begins. I didn’t really get it sooo I spent a lot of the trip napping.
When we finally got there it was cold and rainy. We originally set out in search of a restaurant with about 15 people but somehow our group turned into three: me, Marilena, and Dan. Zurich was a really cool place. TONS of awesome shopping (there was an H&M on every block, no joke. It was hard to resist going into all of them!) and really beautiful. We picked the right place to go to get in the Christmas spirit. The entire town had decorations and Christmas lights up. I loved it!
We walked for about 30 minutes before we finally found a restaurant that wasn’t ridiculously expensive to eat at. Switzerland is freaking expensive. EVERYTHING there. They don’t use the euro; they’re on the Swiss Frank (which from now on I will refer to as Frankfurters since that’s what Laura and I called them all weekend long). The exchange for the frankfurter is even worse than the dollar which doesn’t really help too much I guess. I took 200 frankfurters out of the ATM on Friday morning and it turned out to be a perfect amount for the weekend – phew.
We ate at the Swiss version of the Hardrock Café. I think the three of us were so cold from walking around that we didn’t really care where we ate as long as it was warm!!
After lunch we headed back out into the cold in the direction of an outside (but well heated bar) by an ice skating rink inside the courtyard of a giant castle. Cool! On our walk there we ran into Navid, Laura, Rachel, and Dave… somehow the girls convinced the guys to go shopping with them. Ha, I’m so shopped out from this trip at this point so we headed on to the bar.
The Ice Bar was really cool. I was in Christmas heaven. Seriously, I have never been to a place that got me more in the Christmas spirit than that bar (except maybe Naples in Long Beach). We ordered coffee and sat out under umbrellas and heat lamps and just enjoyed everything around us.
After the bar we headed back to the meeting spot cuz it was already time to head back. Inside the train station there was even MOOORREEE Christmas! Aisles and aisles of booths were set up selling Christmas/holiday stuff. In the center of the room was a HUGE Christmas tree completely covered in Swarovski ornaments!!! I’d kill for a tree like that… it was the most beautiful Christmas tree I’ve ever seen.
Eventually we had to head home from Christmas paradise. On the bus we watched Animal House and drank wine. Classic. God, that movie never gets old.
Back at Balmer’s we bundled up and headed out in search of dinner. Marilena, Laura, Natalie, Adam, Navid, Rachel, Dan, and I ended up at Hooter’s. Yup… Hooter’s. More than anything else, Hooter’s makes me think of Big Daddy. It was a lot of fun. Platters of chicked wings and pitchers of beer for everyone! The walk back home was a lot warmer than the walk there, that’s for sure. On the way home I was tackled into the snow by Adam… he better sleep with one eye open cuz I’m going to get him for that.
By the time we got back to the Balmer’s it was already around 10:30. We opened a bunch of bottles of wine and champagne and sat with about 13 people in our room drinking and talking and taking pictures. I was getting really nervous because oh, did I mention that Pete’s 21st birthday was the next day?? Which meant his 12:01 was that night? I was waay nervous to call him because I already knew how the entire situation was going to go: I was going to call him at MY midnight in Switzerland all excited about his birthday, and he was going to be not even as close to excited as me about it which was going to make me sad because I was going to start wondering why I even bother trying to do nice things for him. Then, since I was drunk, I was going to get sad and cry and drink more, then when I was totally ridiculous I was going to call him back and yell at him for making me feel stupid.
My prediction was DEAD ON. I called and cried after because he hardly reacted at all to my calling and passed his phone onto Stephanie for me to talk to? Don’t get me wrong, I love Steph and all but um I was calling with the sole intention of talking to Pete. On his birthday. I think that by now the world is pretty aware of the fact that I LIVE for birthdays and doing special things for people. It’s hard to want to care about someone that doesn’t even notice things that you do for them; and yet I still do and end up just getting angry at myself for still feeling like that. I dunno, I think I deserve a little more of, well, I dunno, something I’m just not sure what. Uh huh, yup.
ASLDFKAJ;SOEIAMS;LDKFJIEASN;DLKGAOIDGNKDFALOAIDF!!!!!
Anyways, when I came back into our hostel room full of about 10 people I admit that my crying did cause kind of a big scene and I’m so happy that I had incredible friends there to make me feel better. I was telling them all day long that I was going to be a huge disappointment of a phone call and everyone thought I was just being paranoid but when I came back in crying (I never cry these days) they knew I was serious. “You need this more than I do,” is what Natalie said to me as she handed over a more-than-half-full box of wine (which I finished in a matter of minutes). I don’t know HOW they did it but somehow about 15 minutes later I was back on my feet downstairs dancing. And dancing. And dancing.
To make a long long long evening short I’m just going to be honest and say that I don’t remember much past going down the club to dance. I have a memory here and there of calling Pete again and telling him a long list of all the things that he does that makes me sad (it’s a loong list too). I remember loving all of my friends again for making me feel better. I remember Dan trying to make me feel better. I remember hearing really great stories before falling asleep. I remember waking up the next morning in the jeans and tank top I’d worn “out” the night before. And I rememeber going down to breakfast and still being drunk and eating all the toast with Laura (who was still drunk also).
Wait, I just moved onto the next day… there were tons of pictures from the night before and none of them helped recover the events of the night before in my brain. Maaan. Overall, midnight on December 10 was probably my low point of, well, the year. Hahahaha, all I have to say is thank goodness I was in a hostel with good friends and no where to go.
posted by tera a firenze at 1:09 AM
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