My Sherpas

This blog entry is copied from my journal... I'm writing this journal entry form the top of a mountain in the Swiss Alps. As the gondola neared the top of the mountain, I felt an overwhelming surge of emotion. The first thought that came to mind was "this is where God is". The Bible says you need only to look at God´s creation to know that he exists. Never has that been made clearer to me then today. If a writer were to say he could accurately express the beauty of this landscape and the accompanying emotions he would be lying. I´ve thought a lot of about how I would describe the mountains and village of Grindelwald, and I´ve come up with a lot of flowery cliche expressions. I finally concluded that there are no words that can describe it, so I´m simply going to post a few links to photos here and hope they can describe it better than words. When I first arrived in Grindelwald I was left speechless by the beauty of the mountains, and then I was sick to my stomach at the realization that I wouldn´t be able to explore and hike. These mountains literally scream "Hike me!" I took the gondola up with Jess and two friends from the hostel. They got off at the first stop to go hiking for the day across mountain bridges and melted glaciers. I won´t lie, I was completely jealous! I continued on the gondola to the top, and found my way out to the viewing point. I was speechless as the snow covered alps came into view. It was as if God were saying to me, "And you thought I was going to let you miss out on the fun. Have more faith!" After this I will.

To backtrack a little, I last wrote when we were in Vienna and still unsure of our next destination. I took the suggestion of a fellow cripple, a kid who´d fallen off a statue of St. Someone or Other in Prague, and went to Graz Austria where there was suppose to be a big weekend music festival. When Jess and I arrived we lugged our packs, me without crutches at this point, a mile or so to the hostel. Our first clue that perhaps our crippled source was not as reliable as we´d first thought was the absence of almost anyone else at the hostel. This at a time when there was supposedly a "huge" music festival. We checked in and went down to the room and saw that it was really dirty with dried food everywhere and sticky soda all over the floor. One look at the bed revealed bugs. Small dead black bugs. With that our packs went back on and we went upstairs to get our money back. The women at the reception didn´t seem as shocked as one would hope when we told them there were dead "keifers" in the beds. We held our ground and got our money back and trudged the mile back to the train station. We had made up our minds about Graz, from what we´d seen it was run down, dirty, and we could not find another hostel, even using the internet. So Jess and I looked at the map of Europe, and decided Zurich Switzerland sounded nice and bought a night train ticket for 8:30 that evening. We decided to follow the guidebooks suggestion and see the old part of the city. We took a cab down and were dropped off on a small cobblestone street right out of Heidi. We took our first restaurant suggestion from the guidebook and followed a small path between two buildings and found a cute restaurant tucked away at the back. My meal, despite being the cheapest thing on the menu, was amazing and well worth the extra Euro! We explored the old town and ended up spending the last hour and a half eating bratwurst and gelato in the town square and people watching. It turned out Graz was beautiful, you just had to know where to look.

That night when we got on the train and found our sleeper compartment we discovered a room the size of a walk in closet with bunk beds 3 high on each side. Our roomies were a cute German couple, the wife six months pregnant, returning from vacation. The four of us stayed up talking and entertaining each other, and when we returned to our compartment we found we had a fifth roommate. He was a brusque, long blond haired, mutton chopped Austrian man complete with a patterned silk scarf tucked neatly in his button up shirt. If I were a cartoonist I would have a good time drawing him. Our roommate turned out to be more than just cartoonish though, and was also a very loud snorer. Needles to say, I didn´t get much sleep that night.

The next morning we arrived in Zurich at 8:30am and called from the pay phone to secure two rooms in a hostel. After getting checked in and showered, we hobbled out to explore. Our first stop was the pharmacy where I finally got crutches. From there we attempted to locate the Zurich free bike station, and an hour and a half later when we finally found it we were told they had all been checked out. So we took a boat ride down the river and around Lake Zurich. That evening, after making dinner in the hostel kitchen, we hung out no the roof deck with other backpackers.

The next morning we got up early and secured two bikes for the day. We tried to decide where to go next and decided to take the advice of another traveller and take a train the next morning to the village of Grindelwald in the Swiss alps. We met another backpacker, Adam from Canada, who was was also going there. Adam graciously took Jessica´s place as my sherpa, and carried my backpack through all the train stations and to our next hostel. Picture to follow of my two favorite Sherpas dragging around all my stuff! So the three of us took the trains to Grindelwald and checked in at the Downtown Lodge. And now here I am writing all this from the top of a mountain. Perfect!

Photos of Grindelwald
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