Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Europe Recap: Austria & Switzerland


Day 5 (Thursday, 5/20): We left Munich for Innsbruck, Austria, in the morning but on the way stopped in the city of Kufstein and visited the plant for Reidel Glassworks. They make very nice wine glasses and we got to see them glass blowing which was really interesting. The "tour" was weird, it was like a fun house....not really sure what it had to do with glass but oh well. Eventually we got to Innsbruck and that afternoon met with my group's business, the Innsbruck Tourism Board. There is where we signed up for our free day events, which went on two days from then. That night we found some bars, but I spent most of the night at the casino in the hotel. I won 90 Euro in total that first day, so all in all it was good.

Day 6: In the morning we drove to northern Italy and went to the Leitner Ski Lifts factory. My god was that awful. Just boring as hell. Long tour, couldn't hear a thing, just terrible in every way. During the afternoon I went to the casino again and won another 95 Euro, so I was in a good mood to say the least. That night the whole group went on a lantern hike up the Alps. At the top was this little tavern where these two guys played music and we sung and danced and drank. It was worth the hike. That night a couple of us went out to a bar to get ready for the next morning that awaited us.

Day 7: Our free day in Innsbruck was very busy for me. In the morning myself, Steve, Vida, James, Brian O, and Mike M (all pictured above, post jump) went bungy jumping off a bridge near Innsbruck. It was 192 meters, 600 ft....the third highest bungy in the world. It was such a great experience. I went fourth, so I knew what to expect for the most part. Hopefully the video will be up soon. That afternoon half the group went canyoning (pictured above) and the other half white water rafting. Canyoning was pretty difficult, but a lot of fun. All that made this easily the most productive day of my life, and also one of the most fun ever.

Day 8: Not the most exciting day in my life. We travelled by bus to Lausanne, Switzerland, which took like 6 hours not counting stopping. Switzerland was expensive, and didn't use the Euro which made it difficult. After getting settled, we went to this Canadian bar which was one of the few open for the holiday weekend. It was a nice, relaxing night. Only real highlight was that some guy passed out drunk on the table to the point he couldn't stand up.

Day 9: We went to the Cailler Chocolate factory in the morning which was like Hershey's Chocolate World, a fun time. Afterwards we stopped at a rest stop where I oddly ran into Ryan Flannery, one of my friends from high school. That was quite the coincidence. We also stopped by Gruyere, this like medieval tourist town stop. That was fun, but nothing too amazing. That night we all went to a bar under a bridge not far from the hotel, which was another nice relaxing night out.

Day 10: In the morning we went to the Chillon Castle on the lake, which was really nice. We had the afternoon to ourselves, which we too advantage of. A bunch of us went to this park near the beach at the lake. The park had these nice pools and beach volleyball courts, so it was a nice way to spend the day. The pool had a 10m high dive, which might have been scarier than bungy jumping and certainly hurt to hit the water.

Day 11: It was our last day in Switzerland and in the morning we went to the Nestle headquarters. On the way our bus driver, Hans, drove down to a bridge the bus wouldn't fit over. So to get back he drove the bus backwards up a windy, narrow hill. It was the most bad ass thing I've ever seen. After the site wizit we started going towards Paris, and got the bad news about our upcoming flights.

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