Operation Switzerland

Last weekend, with the week of midterms approaching, I thought that an impromptu trip to Switzerland was in order to clear my mind and get in touch with mother nature a bit. This was my first solo-trip since my friends here wanted to stay back and study for midterms but I figured I’d regret giving up an opportunity to visit the Swiss Alps. Words can’t even describe how beautiful the Alps were or what a fantastic time I had getting in touch with my inner adrenaline junky.

I’ll get to the gist of the post since my pictures can do a much better job of explaining this weekend than I can. But in short, I met a great group of other students who were studying in near by Parma and go to Boston College back in the states. As soon as I saw a Red Sox hat, I knew I was in luck. While in Interlaken, I had a chance to explore the town, do some day hikes in the Alps, take a cable car to the highest point in Europe, do a Swiss Chocolate tasting, and oh yeah: SKYDIVE. Quite possibly the most terrifying and rewarding experience of my life. As my mother would say, “you wouldn’t even go in elevators when you were a kid,” so the fact that I voluntarily jumped out of a plane is still shocking.

There’s no other way to describe the feeling other than a simultaneous sense of floating peacefully and having your insides ripped out. In other words, I can’t wait to do it again. I spent more money this past weekend than I probably have in my entire life combine, but as the biggest cheap ass in Southern California, I can still say I have no regrets. I might be eating 79 cent pasta for the rest of the semester, but I can happily leave Europe saying I’ve been to and fallen from the top of it.