(Originally published May 23, 2007)
(Pictured: One of the `Bern Bears`. Like a well-trained puppy, only slightly bigger and oh a larger snout!)Well it's been over four weeks now and I'm still alive! I'm pretty sure most people thought I would be long dead by now, but I'm still kicking (although my liver is shot and my wallet significantly lighter then when I left for the old country). Miraculously, I also managed to survive my $30 haircut in Switzerland, where I think I said a total of four words to the hairdresser who I think wanted to kill me, but that's neither here nor there.
So Thursday we headed off to the capital city of Switzerland, Bern. When we arrived the place was like a ghost town and everything was closed down. Low and behold, it was a holiday, as seems to be the case about every four or five days in Europe. Bern wasn't exactly poppin' off or for that matter full of touristy shit to do. We visted Albert Einstein's former pad (still don't understand any of that relative theory shit); the tallest jet stream in Europe, and this thing called the Bern Bear Pit, where they have thses two brown bears basically living in the city (kind of like a one animal zoo I guess). When we checked into our hostel the lady running the joint said that she takes strict care of the kitchen, and I in turn said, "so you're basically like the kitchen Nazi". The room immediately went silent and I realized that that may not have been the best thing to say to someone in the German speaking part of Switzerland. That night I had a second blunder as I left our room door wide open for about four hours with literally $600 in cash and a couple thousand dollars worth of stuff just laying there. Thank God it was Switzerland though and all my shiznat was still there when I stumbled up later.
Friday we jetted off to a small town in central Switzerland known as Interlaken. It's a big tourist destination full of hiking, extreme sports and just tons of outdoor crap in general. Literally every picture you take there looks like a postcard and most of them look like you're green screening yourself into the shots. It's absolutely gorgeous. Slim and I decided to indulge in some Friday afternoon hiking, which consisted of a 2.5 hour climb up this mountain known as Harder Kulm (loose translation: BIG MOTHERFUCKIN HILL THAT WILL MAKE YOU SWEAT YOUR BALLS OFF) and then a one hour jaunt down. The hike was crazy and I was so gassed that night that there was only one extreme sport I was going to participate in: getting shit-faced with like-minded North Americans!
Saturday we decided to take a short train ride over to this other little town known as Lauterbrunnen to do some more hiking/sight-seeing. There we visted Trummelbach Fallls, which are the only glacial waterfalls in all of Europe that can be accessed by the public. It was pretty sweet, as you pay like $10 and they take you up this elevator a few hundred feet and then you enter these caves where it's so cold from the waterfalls you can see your breath. Meanwhile, outside it's so hot your genitals are sticking to the side of your legs.That night I proceeded to make a large quantity alcoholic beverage purchase from the local store with big plans of boozing hard. Luckily I ran into this dude named Paco from New Mexico who was basically a Hispanic version of me and we proceeded to do some international relations work with the help of our good friends at Ruggenbrau Beer.
Sunday was basically a nothing day. We jetted from Interlaken and made our way to the real Woodbridge aka Italy. Our first night we spent in Milan. There we decided to take it easy, as the only big attraction we hit up was the Duomo, which is the third largest church in the world. I'm pretty jaded on churches right now though, so they all kind of seem the same to me now. That night was the first time in the entire trip we had some TV, so I just spent the night watching quality MTV programs like "Pimp My Ride" and "Reality TV: Where Are They Now?".
Monday morning we boogyed down to Cinque Terre from Milan. Cinque Terre is this Italian coastal region of these five villages that are all connected by hiking paths. The place used to be like a hidden gem, but now it's so overrun by North Americans that it's just like everywhere else you go (except smaller and a lot more scenic). We got there later than we planned, so Slim just went and worked on his tan (scary thought I know), and I just hiked around and drank some ale.
Tuesday we woke up and decided to hit the hiking trails. We covered all of the trails between the villages in a few hours and were thorougly gassed. Slim had had enough hiking and decided to go for a dip in the ocean, while I (I'm thoroughly afraid of being eaten alive by a giant fish) decided to tough it out and hit some more trails so I could avoid being killed in two feet of water. That night we stayed in and chilled with a bunch of people we were rooming with. Man, I tell you it seems every American you meet thinks we live in snow all the time, and are basically so oblivious to anything outside of America that it's scary. We were staying with a girl in law school from Mississippi and a dude who goes to an Ivy League school (Penn) and Slim and I were both more in tune to American politics/general world knowledge than they were. To me if you're going to those kinds of schools you should damn well be smarter than a fucking construction worker from Canada. Shameful.
So today we arrived in Florence here and man it just seems to be getting hotter and hotter every day in Italy. Tonight we're going to check out the Champion's League Final between Liverpool and AC Milan, and you damn well better believe I'm hoping that the Reds whoop some Italian ass!
Sidenote: It is totally bizarre how all of the real Italian people in Italy speak better English than those who move to Canada and have lived there for like fifty years. Someone should tell the Italian-Canadian community this, as it's rather quite comical.
Anyways, hope all y'all mofos have a party-hardy weekend and remember to stay classy, cause THAT'S HOW I ROLL!!!
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