El sitio más bonito del mundo

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So, the bags were packed and the alarm was set for a six o’clock wake-up call. Morning came quickly, and although the thought of a few more hours of sleep in Dave's warm room would have been welcome, the continuation of the trip was the only thing on my mind. I just couldn't believe that I was going to the Swiss Alps. Dave and I marched our way through the quiet Freiburg streets on another frigid morning, and we patiently awaited the train as the coming dawn was making its presence known. The train was a German delight. New and very comfortable, and I remembered again why I loved traveling by train more than any other. Before we knew it, we were headed south as the sun rose on the horizon to the east. Our first stop was Bern, about a two hour ride from Freiburg, which was just enough time to drift off into a blissful half-sleep. Dave and I used the five hours we had, until we decided to catch the next train south, to explore the city. It was a foggy day, and it made for beautiful walks along the city's bridges, and through its wide streets. Bern was full of statues, beautiful parks and buildings, and even a friendly cat that followed us for about a half an hour. We saw Einstein's home, where he did much of his famous work, ate bread from the market, and listened in on the Swiss German being spoken, which Dave tried his best to understand. Again, the chilly air felt refreshing, and it was fun just to explore the town together, our packs feeling a little bit heavier with the hours that passed.
While Bern was a treat, we both knew that it was just a little Swiss teaser before we made it to our real destination in Leysin. On our way to the small mountain village, we made a few transfers, and went through some of the most beautiful countryside I have seen. The fog and the descending sun created an almost surreal atmosphere and it felt almost like we were chugging along through a dream or a fairytale. The Alps appeared in the distance, and continued to grow by the second. Before we knew it, we were moving along the edge of Lake Geneva, with the treacherous peaks reaching up as far as we could see on the other side of the cabin. Just as night approached, we made our last transfer, to a small, old cog train, basically a trolley of sorts, which would take us up into the mountains. Our faces pressed up against the windows, our eyes strained to see the peaks and ridges that were growing larger and larger as the train seemed to struggle and groan up the winding mountain slope. A half an hour later, we reached our stop, stepped into the snow and ice and looked around for Prue, whose face we had never seen before.
Within a few seconds, there was a smile coming our way from a very friendly looking woman, and we finally met Dave's recently inherited, extended family member through a marriage. A short car ride later, we arrived at a beautiful home in the small village of Leysin and were met by Tom, Sophie, and Hannah. After settling our things in the attic, we emerged into their gorgeous living room, classical music playing softly from the speakers, and the faint outlines of enormous mountains illuminated by the moonlight visible through their large glass windows. To my right, I saw a raclette oven sitting on the table, and immediately knew we were in for a traditional treat. A tasty Swiss German beer in hand, Dave and I got to know the family and were both blown away by how cool Sophie and Hannah were. Basically, the family itself is quite a story to begin with as Tom, from Minnesota, was traveling penniless through Europe for a while in his mid twenties, met Prue, from New Zealand, in Leysin, and then he just never went back... The raclette dinner was a delicious end to a very long day, and after a few hours of great conversation, Dave and I headed up to bed in the attic.
Again, the alarm rang just a bit too early the next morning, but my excitement to see the view outside quickly had me bolting downstairs, where again, I was met with classical music, and also the smell of coffee in the air. The view was simply stunning, and thinking I was alone in the room, Tom greeted me with a laugh at my awestruck expression and fixed stare into the distance. A breakfast of fresh bread and jam with a great cup of coffee filled my growling stomach, and Dave and I headed out to see the town using Tom's hand-drawn map. When I say "town", I mean that in every sense of the word, but we still managed to spend hours walking around admiring the view and taking way too many pictures. I also realized how much I actually missed seeing snow...
Brunch was nearly on the table when we got home about 11, the rest of the family having woken up fairly late that morning. Then we were off to the slopes for rest of the day, supplied with all the equipment we needed. Now, at this point I'd like to say that I had skied three times in my life, and all in December of 7th grade. That makes about seven years. And my only experiences were at Afton Alps and some other group of hills in Minnesota. After mustering the few words of French I knew, with a bit of Spanish mixed in just to make myself look stupid, we had our lift tickets and hopped into the gondola that would take us to the top of the mountain, an incredibly long journey. The whole concept of taking a long ride up the mountain, just to arrive at a place where you can catch a lift to take you to the top of a slope simply doesn't exist in Minnesota. The view was incredible from the top, by far the most beautiful place I had ever been in my life. The clouds actually below us, it felt like we were on top of the world, and the size of the mountains just seemed to grow at the higher altitude.
Now, I assumed there would be some sort of moderately-sloped option from the staring point that I could take. I was very very wrong. The only option looked like it was straight down from my very nervous point of view. Sure enough, I stood at the top, a sickening feeling in my stomach, and looked downward for a number of minutes trying to figure out how on earth I was going to avoid seriously hurting myself after the very poor decision I was about to make. To give me some motivation, Dave started downward very carefully on his snowboard, which was turned completely to the side. Trying to remember the old novice snowplow technique, I said a little prayer and pushed off down the hill. Sure enough, the snow plow method failed miserably as it is completely ineffective on that type of slope, and I was soon trying desperately to carve side to side as widely as possible to burn off some speed. I went flying by Dave, and approached what looked like a possible edge of a cliff at breakneck speed. Not knowing what was over the drop, I took a very hard voluntary fall to avoid any serious injuries and slowly ground to a relative halt on the slippery slope.
At the bottom, we were greeted with the sight of a nice slope that would be perfect for a little much needed practice. After getting comfortable during a few runs and not feeling completely out of my element anymore, we decided to explore some other areas. Again, we encountered more ridiculous slopes, much steeper than the first, but my little bit of practice paid dividends. There were a few more falls and life-fearing moments, but all in all, I think we both did pretty well. The shear size of the runs is what amazed me the most. We took one route through some steep drops and around a small path through the trees that took us ages to finish. The views of the surrounding mountains just kept getting better, and so you have an idea of their size, just the ski slope alone, top to bottom, we were only able to complete two times in about three hours. And that is just a small piece of the actual mountain. Tired, but smiles stuck on our faces, we walked home along the icy road as the sunset reflected off the Alps that surrounded us.
A nice bath, various cups of tea, and some time with Sophie and Hannah filled up the majority of our evening, and around dinner time, more of their family members arrived from Minnesota (They just bought a house on Laurel Ave., about 3 blocks away from mine). Another great dinner followed, with wine, soup, bread, salad, and Hannah's tiramisu for dessert. It was terribly sad to know that it was our last night there. As we sat on the couch, I knew that Dave and I were thinking the exact same thing; that we would have loved to have spent Christmas there. After a goodnight and goodbye to the girls, we set our alarms for 5:30 and quickly fell asleep after a long, tiring, and completely perfect day in Switzerland.
Tom drove us the short journey to the cog station in the morning and used his beautifully fluent French to assure that we purchased the right tickets all the way to Geneva. From there we would catch our Easyjet flight to Prague to spend Christmas Eve that night. But I just didn't want to leave. Even with a week and a half of European travel ahead, Leysin was perfection, and I saw myself spending the rest of my days there with nothing more than the mountains, good coffee, books, and friends.

El viaje de mi vida

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So, kind of a lot has happened since I last wrote in this blog. Way too much to sit down an write about, let alone to make you read all at once. I would never want to put you through such agonizing pain... so I'll break it up in segments. Anyways, December flew by more quickly than all of the time I have spent here. The main highlight, thinking back, was the "Christmas" dinner I had with my flatmates on the 13th, before Maren set of for a month in India, Alfonso left for Budapest and for home in the Basque country, Dominik to Sweden and then home to Germany, and Emma's family arrived for a whirlwind tour through Spain with Christmas and New Years in Madrid. Dominik was home cooking the whole day as the rest of us were busy with class and work, and during the evening I helped Emma decorate with home-made wreaths (made with illegally attained pine tree branches), candles, and Christmas music. It was the most festive our decrepit kitchen could possibly look, and it looked incredibly nice, I think. A delicious dinner of roast chicken, a very tasty German soup, roasted vegetables, and baked apples for dessert was followed by presents from our Secret Santa, which was quite a treat. Dominik, having taught me his masterful coffee making skills, gave me the perfect coffee mug and a personalized jar to store the raw ingredient. I ended up drawing his name as well, and found him a very interesting looking novel in Spanish about pirates in the New World, and a bottle of 43 Spanish liquor, which is absolutely fabulous, and a recent discovery of mine. All in all, it was a chance for us all to reflect on the time we had spent together over the previous months, and it was just another example of how we had really come to be a family in such a short amount of time. It was by far one of the best nights I have spent in Madrid.

After such a relaxing night around the kitchen table, it was back to the busy Madrid life for the next week. Before I knew it, I was off on the trip of a lifetime with my great friends from Madison, Dave, Chris, and Kyle. As always, I was terribly unprepared to leave, with so much to get done beforehand, and in utter denial that I was actually undertaking the trip I had in store for myself. After frantically packing and cleaning my room on the 19th, I set off for the airport with hiking boots on my feet, travel wallet full of boarding passes and hostel directions for the next two weeks, and my backpack stuffed to the brim with the essentials. An adventure through Freiburg, Germany, Bern and Leysin, Switzerland, Prague, Berlin, Rome, and Paris was what lay ahead, much of which I would be undertaking just with Dave.

The easyjet flight to Germany was very smooth, and I passed the time changing my mind between resting my eyes and reading the Historia de la Edad Media book I had brought along. Mostly, I just thought about how funny it was that I was on my way to see Dave in the south of Germany, where he had grown just as comfortable as I had in Madrid. There were also a few funny moments such as when the girl sitting across from the empty seat next to me asked me in French how long I thought the flight was going to take, saw that I had no idea what she was saying, tried unsuccessfully to ask me in English, and then found our common language in Spanish. After landing, I had about an hour to kill before I could catch bus for an hour into Freiburg, so I spent my time doing some quality people watching, which I found to be incredibly enjoyable. There is something about German culture that I have really been drawn to the last few years. While sure, things there might seem very orderly and rule-bound, I also think they have the most incredible family dynamics, at least from the little I've seen. For a solid hour I sat and watched smiling families reuniting, the fathers always a kiss and some sort of sweets for their waiting children. As I saw my bus pull up to the curb outside, I exited into the chilly German air, quite happy to be bundled up for my journey north. Upon boarding the bus, I saw the same blond German girl from the plane, and after an exchange of laughs and second greetings, sat down next to her so we could actually talk, as we had both been dozing on and off the whole flight. We talked about Madrid, where she had been living for over a year, about Germany, the great city of Freiburg, the States, etc, and before I knew it, we were at the Freiburg bus station, and after a quick goodbye, I set off to find Dave, whom I knew had to be lurking somewhere in the shadows. Sure enough, I was shocked to see his face so soon, and before I knew it we were on our way to his apartment-style dorm through the frigid German night.

More than anything, I was immediately struck by how quaint the city was, so quiet compared to the bustling streets of Madrid. After meeting a few of his roommates upon entering the apartment, I dropped my things in his very cozy room, and we spend the next few hours just catching up as it had been way to long since we'd had a proper face to face conversation together. I met Julie, a friend of his from Madison, who stopped in to say hello, and Dave introduced me to my first German beer, a type of wheat beer called a weizen, which tasted like nectar from heaven.

The next morning we woke up late, had a breakfast of German bread, cheese, and eggs, and headed out to see the city. First we headed to the Christmas market in the middle of town, a bustling center of delicious smells, tasty food, and all sorts of Christmas things being sold. We ordered two glasses of Gluwein, hot wine filled with spices, which was a delectable treat during such a chilly morning. From there, we headed to another market which surrounded a beautiful cathedral in the center of town, where they sold the freshest vegetables, fruit, cheese and meat. We hiked to the top of the highest hill in town and had a great view of the city through the fog. After a lunch of a typical dish of which I forgot the name, but consisted of penne noodles, sauerkraut, bacon, and cheese, we took a little siesta in his room, and I met his friend, Eric, who came over to accompany Dave and I to their German class that evening. For the next two hours, I sat happily though their last day of discussion of which I didn't understand a word, despite my attempts, and munched on typical German cookies which I hadn't tasted in a while. I met a friend of a friend here in Madrid, as we were all from Madison, which was also a funny coincidence.

After a walk through the Christmas market that night, which was absolutely beautiful under all the lights, and an amazing wurst for dinner, we met up with Eric to go to the University bar, which was built in an old bomb shelter. We later headed to another bar in a different part of town where we ran into some of their other friends. Of course, I had to try a few of the tasty German brews, all of which continued to rise to the title of my favorite beer ever. The next day was spent seeing more of the town and the university, drinking tea in Dave's cozy apartment, and mostly just relaxing and enjoying each other's company as we knew we had quite the journey ahead of us. Frieburg seems like the perfect city to live in; just the right size, young people everywhere, and bikers and streetcars making the city a prime example of European sustainability. Of course, we worked in a few more trips to the Christmas market for more wurst, and we made a tasty dinner of chicken and green beens for a few episodes of Entourage we watched in memory of the other Madison boys with whom we would meet a week later. We both packed up our things, safely stored the train tickets we had bought earlier that day, and fell asleep as our 6:00 alarm time was drawing near...