Running Through the Alps with Wild MooMoo's

We decided to spend our time in Switzerland in the Jungfrau region! We'd heard that this was one of the most amazing areas and we couldn't agree more! We decided to take a gondola up to the top of one of the peaks so we could stay in the tiny town of Gimmelwald at one of our now favorite hostels, Mountain Hostel! 

After getting a good nights sleep we woke up early our first full day there to hike around the alps! We met some friends from all over the U.S., but two boys were actually from Corloado too! They study at CSU in Fort Collins and we all decided to hike together. After chatting and meeting a bunch of fun people we got a little group together and ended up becoming fast friends, which is what made Switzerland twice as fun as most places we went! Anyway, we spent the whole day (9 hours and 12+ miles) hiking through endless cow pies, rushing waterfalls, bright wildflowers and even meeting a few cow hoarders! If that wasn't enough, we found the cows to be super friendly and each ended up with multiple moomoo kisses! 

Id love to raise a baby cow after seeing how sweet they are! At one point we thought we may have gone on the wrong trail because for miles we were on such a steep incline that my calves were literally on fire! But as soon as we got to the top it was worth all the sweat because the view from the top was unlike anything I've ever seen before. 

We now call ourselves the crazy 8's although this photo is missing 2 :( 

Here's a few more photos from our wonderful day of hiking! (Viewer discretion advised- there may be a photo of the boys mooning us on top of the Alps!) 

The next day, before heading to our next stop we made a quick trip to Interlaken and rented a tandem bike! We biked around the lakes (until it started raining) and had a little picnic lunch around a fire pit we stumbled up during our journey! 

Oh, and I almost forgot! We drank the best hot chocolate I have ever tasted (made with Swiss chocolate- so go figure!) and enjoyed our last night with our new little friend-fam and celebrated our newest cherished memories with the Crazy 8's! 

Munich

Munich was one of our first biggest screw ups when we arrived to our hostel to find out that we had actually made reservations for the following day and that they were completely full! The crazy thing was though, there was a man with the same last name as me (even the same spelling!) staying that night so everyone was just super confused. Luckily we were right next door to two other hostels and one of them had room for us for the night! Although we weren't in Munich long it was quiet memorable as we spent a long afternoon at Dachau. It's always so shocking to learn about the horrible and inhumane things that went on under Hitler's command, however seeing it for your own eyes makes it even more gut wrenching. We walked through tiny barracks and the overall camp which was probably about the size of our old high school campus that at times held more than 200,000 people. I couldn't even imagine seeing that many people there, I'm not even sure how they had space to move around. The video that was played showed some of the most horrendous and heart wrenching images I've ever seen; the 75 year old man sitting in front of me along with his entire family all had tears streaming down their faces, at which point I wondered had they had family members trapped in that hellacious place? And as we walked through the gas chambers and stood in the center of the room, peering up at what had been deceitfully inscribed as the shower room, I felt sick. And with the incinerators almost within arms reach I can only wonder how can one human possibly inflict such inhumane treatment upon another human? In respect to those who suffered in these terrible places, I will not be posting photos.

After a long and eye opening afternoon at Dacau we ended our day doing a little sightseeing around the city center and headed for Switzerland in the early morning! 

Oh, and I got my favorite candy in the whole world that I discovered while studying abroad in Spain many summers ago, at the train station and my heart was overjoyed!