A Little about E

Day 75! Only 20 days of my travels to go!!

20th of September

We woke up, opened the curtains and were blown away with the view we saw this morning! Finally the fog on the mountains had cleared and we could see out toward the alps. We could see the snow on the peaks and we really got to experience the beauty that you see in the postcards. Because the weather was better it meant that going further up the alps would be possible today.

We decided not to go up to Jungfreau after talking to some of the locals. It costs 180 swiss francs each, takes about 3 hours there and back so we decided to save time and money and go to Shilthorn instead. We were told the view is just as good and it’s much cheaper.

Rhys’ back seems to be a little better this morning so we rugged up and headed out toward the cable car to head into the alps! Along the way we got a couple croissants for breakfast and fed the birds. These cute little birds are everywhere in Europe, yes they are the same ones from Venice that Rhys thinks are following him hehe! After the birds were full and we were full ourselves we went to get our tickets. The lovely hotel owners at the Eiger Guest House gave us coupons so that we could get 40% off, so sweet of them! So with that our tickets only cost 88CHF return, for the both of us! Just a wee bit cheaper than Jungfreau!

The cable car ride at the start worried me because we could see absolutely nothing!! Just fog! So I thought we would see nothing when we got to the top! Just as I thought that, the fog started to clear, I could see we were heading toward a cliff face and when I looked in the other direction I see we weren’t in fog at all! We had travelled through, and over the clouds!! We headed into the first station to get on another car to head right up to Shilthorn. I’m not scared of heights but boy was there a drop down! It was stunning looking across from the cable car toward the alps. The clouds were below us and covered the area like a lake! No way of knowing how far the drop was below, or how deep that cloud lake was. It was beautiful though!

When we got into Shilthorn I wanted to get outside and play in the snow instantly!! The snow was pretty deep on parts of the terrace and people everywhere were throwing snow balls at each other and getting photos! It was pretty great but I gotta say I preferred yesterday with less people around. Shilthorn is the place where 007 was filmed … in the 60s haha I am pretty sure it was the James Bond that had the Australian actor that only did one movie haha! Still it’s pretty cool to know!

After playing with the snow for a while we went up into the revolving restaurant to get ourselves a wine and a little bite to eat! The food mix was a bit bizarre but tasty none-the-less. We had a chicken fillet dish with garlic butter but the side dishes were, curried vegetables, melon, caesar salad, fries, veg and corn. Seems to be pretty traditional kind of dish here! It was pretty tasty once you got past how strange the mix was haha. Rhys got himself a chocolate ice-cream too which he loved, obviously! haha

We sat up there for so long, Different view every couple minutes. We watched the people below playing in the snow, laughing taking photos. It was nice! There was a dog on the terrace playing in the snow too! It was so funny to watch! He was rolling around and having a great time! It made me wish I had my Baxter here so he could experience snow too! (For new readers Baxter is my lovely golden retriever that is at home with my family, and I miss him terribly!)

After we were toasty warm we went downstairs to see the 007 exhibit, it was in darkness pretty much and we couldn’t read a thing! haha! We went back out into the snow to play for a while. There were 2 ravens flying around! They were beautiful and they got so close to you!

After a while we thought we should head back to Murren and do some laundry because we haven’t had the chance in other places! When we got back down we got our stuff together and got to the Laundromat at about 5:00pm. I had my book ‘Game of Thrones’ so I was set! Rhys had his ipod and a few games on his iphone so we settled in for the wait! The wash went for just over an hour, We put our clothes in the drier (which was also supposed to go for just over an hour) but when the timer got to 1 minute remaining, it wouldn’t stop!!

Now the background story to this is … Rhys only has one pair of jeans with him on this trip – he mailed the rest back to make room in his bag hahaha, so he was sitting in a laundry room, in his boxers… waiting for his pants to wash and dry so that we could leave and go get dinner. By now it’s 8:45 the dryer is still going and Rhys is still in his boxers, it’s starting to get chilly! We are in the alps after all … hahaha 3 Americans come in to use the machines and we start talking to him. There’s an awkwardness in the room, because we can all see Rhys is in his underwear basically but no one wants to bring it up haaha! I decide to break the tension and make a joke about it being his last pair of pants in the dryer and they are being held captive! haha we all had a good laugh, but the serious matter is it’s now 9:00pm restaurant kitchens are closing and I am getting hungry! haha

We decided to take action! We opened the dryer, which is says strictly not to do… oops! Took his wet jeans out and started the drying cycle again! The poor boy had to put his damp jeans on and walk in the cold with me back to the hotel to get dinner with his back still hurting too he is in the wars! We were just in time before the kitchen closed and got ourselves a yummy feed! The hotel owners had a laugh with us about it! They are really nice people!

Then we headed back to collect our clothes. The dryer had stopped, our clothes were still slightly damp but we didn’t care, we just wanted to get out of there!! haha! I’m not sure how many problems we can have washing our clothes on one trip! Rhys now has a complex thinking that all washers and dryers are out to get him.. poor boy!! Time to buy a spare pair of pants I think!!

E