As much as I would like to take credit for the beautifully written prose in the last three entries, I cannot. They were the work of Matt. Unfortunately for you I am in control again and can only provide the ramblings of my never quiet mind. So, staying true to form, here's what we've done the last couple of days:

(Please forgive any z's where y's should be...they are switched on this keyboard in Bern. For some reason that I cannot understand, Europe does not have the same set up on their keyboards as America nor is it consistent as we move through each country. It's as if they are trying to accomodate different languages or something.)

As Matt indicated in the last entry, we planned to take a boat cruise to Interlaken and hike the Alps. We accomplished both and have the sunburns to prove it. Taking each in turn, the boat ride was my favorite thing we'd done in Europe up until the hike yesterday. We took the train from Bern to Thun (these rail passes sure come in handy) and then got on an old and pretty boat to go down and across Lake Thun (pronounced like Tune) to Interlaken. Our rail passes worked on the boat too so we got to sit in first class, which naturally, was the upper deck. We raced ahead of all the slow people and got the best seats in the house: two incredibly comfy lounge chairs front and center. We scoffed at the peons in second class below. The view from our seats was amazing. I knew the Alps would be beautiful but I had no idea how much I would fall in love with them until this boat ride. I was in a pretty dress which completed the perfection of the scene.

Once in Interlaken, after a two hour boat ride, we were hungry so we ate at some bar-cafe (it's really expensive here so we are trying to skip food as a portion of the experience) then walked around the town. We saw where the paragliding or whatever it's called, land but unfortunately did not go up. Matt has already done it and I decided, probably incorrectly, that it wasn't a must for me. I don't know what I'm missing so don't tell me.

We took the train from Interlaken back to Bern and the rest of the evening was uneventful.

The big story really lies in yesterday, our hike. Some of you may already know of our plan to take a 5-7 hour hike. When Matt first suggested this I agreed, planning to change the hike according to my needs once we got going...no need to disappoint him ahead of time. But in the end, our grand total round trip time was 6.5 hours: 5 hours up, 1.5 down. That sounds incredible on it's own, but it's not the star of this tale.

We took the train to Zermatt where a bunch of trails lead off from. Our goal was the looming Matterhorn. No one really goes to the peak, but we wanted to get to one of the upper three points where you stand right under it. It was far. We took the Matterhorn trail and in the first hour I was hot and tired and bored, I hadn't had a good breakfast. We took a few breaks on the gradual and busy uphill, watching old women with canes pass us by, literally. Eventually the trail got a little more difficult and the senior citizens and small children fell away. We were exhasted in the middle of hour two after going up a small but steep hillshide. Not long after, we came to a fork in the road. We took the one less traveled. We really did! Although we didn't know that at the time. The problem was there were two signs pointing in two different directions for the Matterhorn trail. And no, one was not pointing back the way we came. One went kind of down and to the side of the peak, taking us further away. This one was out instantly. The other went up gradually, but further away from the base. We considered this one. But there was a third that seemed to go right where we wanted to be. We took this one. This was a mistake, though a blessing in disguise. On the map we plotted our location in the wrong spot when choosing our path at this intersection. So we thought we were taking the Matterhorn trail still, but really we ended up on a red trail (much harder than the yellow trail we'd been on, which in retrospect was leisurely). So our less traveled path was difficult, zig-zagging steeply up hill several times. Some German bicyclists who were confused as well at the intersection decided to follow us, mistaking my confidence for accuracy. They passed us, but I saw them walking their bikes at some point and we found them sitting on a rock, bikes altogether abandoned when we reached the top of the zig-zags. You may be thinking that this is the hard part of our hike, but you are wrong. The story continues.

At the intersection where the Germans collapsed, there were two options: straight, which we determined connected to the original Matterhorn trail we should have taken at the previous fork, or right, which was clearly steep and difficult but certainly would get us close to the Matterhorn. By this time we realized the error of our earlier choice and purposely now, chose the more difficult path. Matt's reasoning was that taking the harder route would make our earlier mistake worthwhile. My reasoning was that we had already done a difficult trail and survived and that the one looming ahead looked pretty fun. We took it and had fun on it, breaking often. Our goal was to get over a certain ridge and get a lay of the land and how much further it was to our beloved Matterhorn. This was another mistake, but still a blessing in disguise because it resulted in what will probably be our greatest memory of the trip.

Once this second difficult trail came to an intersection we were in trouble. It was either go down toward the original Matterhorn trail again, or climb up the side of the damn mountain. Literally! It was no longer winding, it went staight up! We chose it. We're insane.

We saw several people on this trail, all of whom were going down. Not a single other soul dared go up this thing. We agreed, in an attempt to rationalize, that going down was much scarier than going up. This mountain face was covered in loose rocks and the people going down had to sort of run down the slope to maintian balance, you know the kind. One German, Swedish, Swiss, whatever woman, they all kind of sound the same, stopped and talked to us when we were half way up. She was discouraging. She said basically that it is not good to go up it and that we should consider turning back. We were not turning back, not a chance. Aside from being overachievers and typcal type-As, going down, as I said, looked scary...especially with our legs in their exhausted state. About three quarters of the way up a German (or whatever) man stopped and talked to us as well. He was better. He said maybe 20 minutes to the top. That we could handle...it'd already been nearly an hour. He turned out to be right.

It was on this break where we talked to the German man, but after he left, that I thought to myself, "my mother would really hate this and not approve of the predicament I'm in." This thought led to the next which I said aloud to Matt, "this is exactly the kind of thing my dad always gets us into." Which led to the next, this time private, thought: "Like father like daughter?"

Our approach to this steep climb was to take 100 steps then take a break. Some breaks were longer than others. In the last few sets of 100 we were both leaning forward and using our hands to push on our thighs just to keep going. The pain and exhaustion wasn't just from this last push, it was also from the fact that we'd been hiking up hill for 3.5 hours beforehand.

When we finally reached the top where we gradually saw the people casually walking along the ridge get bigger and bigger, we were overjoyed and greeted with a vast view of even more snow covered Alps that were hidden from view while collapsed on the side of the mountain. We got a picture at the top with the Matterhorn behind us, which we'll put up once in Berlin. We were at the second highest point on the trails for the Matterhorn. We couldn't go any further, and the remaining trek was just as long or longer and nearly as steep as what we'd just accomplished.

We hiked down in about 1.5 hours, cheating with a tram ride for the steepest part. Our legs were so exhausted that on steep downhills we feared them giving out and us being just stuck there in the middle of the Alps...and it was getting late! We hopped right on the train back to Bern where we grabbed some food to go and collapsed in bed. We're sore and sunburned today, but as Matt said, "that may be the coolest thing I've ever done." The experience was great and the scenery was beautiful. We were continuously stunned into disbelief at where we were and what we were seeing and doing. It was incredible.

Overall, the Alps are pure perfection. When we decided to come to the Alps I looked at them on Google Earth and checked out some pictures and info on them. I half expected to find God here, knowing full well you can only find God within. However, the Alps are so beautiful, so green and white and grand and warm and welcoming, that God must have made them just so He could hang out there. I'm sure of it. Maybe He was sitting atop the Matterhorn laughing in joy at us climbing up the side of His big and beautiful old mountain like ants. The Swiss surely agree with me because there were massive crucifixes all over every town and spotted throughout the trails.

Today is a low key day. We don't even know what we're going to do yet and it's nearly noon. Tomorrow we are doing the Golden Pass train through the Alps; we just couldn't stand to get up early or make big plans for the day after yesterday's experience. The pictures are really good and we'll get those up as soon as we get to Berlin. There are some more from Paris too.

So far, I've fallen in love with the Swiss Alps more than anywhere else we've been.

Until next time...