The Greatest (and Most Expensive) 55 Seconds of My Life

     So after a solid month and a half of waiting and anticipation, this past weekend finally rolled around.  It was funny how it all really started, with one of my roommates just throwing out the idea of skydiving over the Swiss alps.  A couple weeks and about a 100 Youtube videos later, we were all booked.  It never really hit me though that I was about to jump out of a plane, even through the trip to Interlaken.  Everything changed really quick when the plane door got thrown open: I was the first one to jump out of our group and was sitting on the floor.  The wind starts pouring in and I hear the 30 second warning from my instructor.  Shuffle over to get my feet on the tiny step, and then next thing I know we're backflipping out of the plane. 
     The next 50 ish seconds are more or less a blur, I've watched my video atleast a dozen times since I got back and the whole thing still feels so surreal.  Looking down on all of the mountains and the entire city of Interlaken, I kinda forgot there was a camera in my face the whole time.  Next thing I know the chute came out and we were gliding back down.  It was honestly a once in a lifetime experience, completely worth every dollar/pound/Swiss franc I paid.

Hans and I just hanging out. Hah pun.

     So naturally skydiving was the crown jewel of the trip, but the rest of Switzerland was still amazing.  Except for Bern. Bern sucked.  Here's a couple of highlights from the trip:

*Yet another trip that almost ended before it started.  We went to the wrong bus station, and made the bus to the airport with a minute to spare.  Also realized how completely out of shape I am from the sprint we had to do to make it...

*Not even 5 minutes off the plane in Zurich and I make a complete dick of myself.  Thought all of the signs in the airport were in German, so I turn to my friends and ask if Swiss is even a language.  Apparently I was a little loud, as a couple heads turned and one lady informed me that it was in fact a language and all the signs were Swiss. FML. Note to self for future trips: actually look into the place you're going so you don't end up as that asshole American tourist.

*I guess I should explain why Bern sucked.  So we get off our plane knowing we had about a 2 1/2 hour train ride of to Interlaken.  We head over to the station and ask for a ticket, and the lady tells us we made it just in time for the last train.  What she failed to mention was how much time we'd have to change trains once we got to Bern.  We get off the first train and see on the big board we only had 3 minutes to get on the train to Interlaken, and had no clue where the track was.  I have never ran that fast in my life, hadn't even sat down before the train started moving.  We really lucked out, otherwise that would've been a long six hours in the Bern train station.

*We get into Interlaken around 12:30 am, and the entire city is dead.  No cars, no music, no random drunk people yelling.  Just silence.  Wasn't until we got to the hostel that we found out there's a 10pm noise curfew in Switzerland.  One of the few exceptions to said rule is the bar/club at our hostel, which is underground.  Been to some weird clubs so far this trip, this might've taken the cake.  10 dudes dancing by themselves, people doing the Cotton Eye Joe dance to Party Rock Anthem, guys my dad's age macking on girls probably half their age: I've definitely seen it all now.

*The guys who run the skydiving company are some of the most chill people I've ever met.  On the other hand, they're also some of the biggest nutters I've  met too.  One of the guys who my friends jumped with, Tim, told us during the summer he'd jump 13 times a day.  The guy I jumped with, Hans, said that today was a slow day because he'd only jump three times.  Imagine that conversation: "Yeah had a really bad day at the office, only got to jump out of a plane 3 times..."  Definitely part of the job requirement that you have to be certifiably crazy.

*Don't think it dawned on us until after we jumped how lucky we had been to actually do it.  The guys told us that they had to cancel all the jumps before and after us because of the weather.  We ended up going in the perfect window.  Considering the entire purpose of the trip was to skydive, we got extremely lucky, but our gamble was well worth it.

*So after jumping on Saturday, we needed some kind of adrenaline fix for Sunday before we left.  Renting out mini-cars that can get up to 60 mph and bombing through the mountains seemed like a good idea.  Until my car decided to die, of course.  But once we solved that shit, we managed to get pretty far up.  After two months of skyscrapers in London, Switzerland was abosolutely amazing.  If you ever have the opprotunity try and get to Interlaken, promise it will be well worth your money.

So I managed to survive Switzerland.  The same cannot be said for my bank account though.  But like I said, it was worth every penny, and made all those shitty days at Rite Aid the past 3 summers well worth it.  Now I have a couple weekends in London to catch my breath and get ready for the home stretch.