Europe (part dos)

Hello again! Laura already apologized for our lack of bloggyness lately so I second that. Anyway, my task is to tell about the rest of Europe so here goes nothing:

The next day we went into the town of Lucerne and walked around under the guidance of Bryan and his tour book. The town was picturesque complete with white swans, cobblestone streets, small shops and was very very CLEAN. Here are some pics of our walk around the town.

I teased Bryan about his guidebook but I suppose it came in handy a few times.

Turns out the town of Lucerne is very famous for swans.

We said goodbye to the swans and continued our "Bryan Tour" of Lucerne. Laura couldn't be pulled away from this window for quite awhile. :)

We then walked/climbed to the top of this huge wall that was used centuries ago to protect the town and got this great view of the area.

 Mark Twain said that this statue was "the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world." It is a monument to the Swiss Guards who bravely defended the French Royal Family. The town is also known for this lion.

 And in case you were wondering. It's where the Ninja Turtles ended up...

We ended the day with a great ferry ride across Lake Lucerne (I think it was called that). We did the Karate Kid move on a dock and had a nice time but I can't seem to find the pictures so I will continue with what we did the next day: Adventures in Interlaken!!!! Perhaps my favorite place in the world.

Now the reason Interlaken is the best place possibly in the world, besides the fact that it looks like it belongs in a fairy tale, is the fact that it is the adventure capitol of Europe and possibly the world. There are so many cool things you can do from zorbing which consists of getting in this human sized hamster ball and rolling down a mountain to some of the best skydiving, bungee jumping, air-sports and canyoning around!

I of course wanted to do ALL the adventures but due to time and budget restraints we only got to pick a few.

One of the activities that I chose was Bungee Jumping. Everyone was able to do it with me except Taylor and Laura opted out because of previous injuries they were worried about irritating. Nonetheless, they came to support and were entertained in the field below which happened to be populated by a whole bunch of friendly goats.  Enjoy this video of my jump and my comments afterward:

After the jumping, we all hung out with the goats for a bit...

Then things got weird when Bryan started kissing the goats and we all followed along.

Haha

 So embarrassing... haha.

Anyway... After that the boys and girls went their separate ways for some more adventure.

 Laura and the girls opted to go Hang Gliding.

Laura was quite pleased with her choice. :)

And I was quite pleased with mine: Canyoning: the best way to get down a mtn in the summer.

 This natural waterslide was amazing.

 You have to pay attention or you could die. :) Good stuff.

Anyway, after this amazing trek down the mtn, we caught a train back to Zug to meet up with the girls and swap war stories.

We got back into town that night and the next morning went around the town of Zug.

 This market was amazing. I miss the cheese over there!

 Bryan and Taylor treated us to a paddle boat ride around the local lake.

 Then we went to this cool park on top of the local hill/mtn.

 Laura and I left the crew to go meet up with a good friend of mine from film school: Martin. He lived in Bern which was just a few hours away.

 He took the day off to show us all around the town and then that night he and his girlfriend Bettina (sp?) took us out to an amazing dinner on this lake. It was really great to see him and catch up. Not to mention, the town of Bern was beautiful and worth a visit in and of itself.

That night, Martin raced us to the train station so we could make the last train back to Zug. Luckily, we caught it and everything worked out fine. Everyone else rubbed it in our faces that they had an amazing BBQ and then we all went to bed.

The next day would be our last full day in Switzerland. Matt and Rachel had to leave so the remaining five of us--with Dan as the fifth wheel--decided to go for a bike ride around town.

I got really hot and decided to take off my shirt for part of the bike ride...this proved to be a very bad idea thanks to Bryan and Dan.

See what I mean below? Bryan, despite being such a successful businessman, is still a three-year old at heart, so he just couldn't resist giving me some turkeys--AND of course Dan had to get in on the action as well. Stupid friends. Okay I have since forgiven them. :)

Anyway, I can't remember everything we did that day unfortunately--which is why blogging about something a year later is not such a good idea-- But in short, our time with Bryan and Tay in Switzerland was a blast and we were really grateful to be able to spend that time with them.

And then we parted ways and Laura and I caught the train to Italia.