december 31 1996 - day five - interlaken, switzerland

today was a very eventful and busy day. right now, i am ready to ring in the new year on a west-bound train to spiez. there are 2 other people on board. there is only one car. party! we are eventually going to catch a sleeper train, and when we wake up, we'll be in venice.
we just left balmer's herberge, our hostel. all sorts ofinteresting, mostly drunk, people were gearing up for the coming of '97. it was a good place, except that they allowed our sleds (that we reserved) to be taken and we missed our bus. so, we didn't get to go sledding. it was dissappointing. i was looking forward to a little childishness. when we woke up this morning, we decided to do some shopping in town before going into the mountains. innerlaken is a great little alpine village very near a ski resort. it was a little too much planning and money to ski, or i would have been all over it. the people were very nice and i really enjoyed the stay. i bought a cuckoo clock and a music box for gifts. i also got some very rancid cheese...
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we just changed trains to brig. it's almost midnight. we're just waiting...still waiting...happy new year!!! anyway, shopping was good. i'm picking up a little bit of german. you know, phrases here and there. it's an interesting language.
the holiday spirit shown at the interlaken train station
after our unpleasant "cheese" lunch, we walked to a nearby ice rink when we found our sleds gone. may as well ice skate, right? now, i'm not the best ice skater in the world, nor am i the worst, but we had fun. first lesson: european ice skates suck! they were too small, too flimsy and they made my feet scream. we had a blast anyway watching this little kid on the ice. he had a hockey stick and could barely skate, much less play hockey. he kept swinging at the puck and dropping to the ice like a wet rag.
the hockey kid
brian and i skating in interlaken
later all of us except geoff went on a hike up the ringweg trail, through the mountains. it cleared up for a while today and we could see some of the mountains around us, but by the time we got up the trail, the clouds had settled back in. this made good pictures hard to come by. i think some should turn out. it's really pretty there. i want to go back when the weather is better. it did stop snowing though and that's a plus.
laura stayed back at balmer's. she and a friend are going to ski tomorrow and meet us in vienna. their rail pass doesn't go to italy. i have to say, i'm a little jealous. i want to ski, but oh well, someday.
so we're off to venice, the canal city for canoli's and pasta. i just hope that things are open, being new year's day and all.

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