So all 44 of us boarded a bus on Friday at 1:30 pm to Interlaken for the weekend. To say that this weekend was a once in a lifetime experience is an understatement, in good ways and in bad. First of all, our bus gets stuck in a 2 hour backup because of an accident on the top of a mountain. That was fun; we were literally on a narrow winding road at the top of a mountain watching other cars turn around and go the other way but there was no way in hell that bus could have done anything. We finally get to Balmers (the hostel) at around 6 pm knowing that we have to be at the train station in an hour to catch a bus to go night sledding. We found out that Balmers was historically the first hostel ever created in Europe. The guy who founded Balmers was the guy who started the whole concept of a hostel. The trip was only supposed to take 2 1/2 hours. We have to rush to check into our room, layer up, and basically walk/jog to the train station. We make it there with 2 minutes to spare. I was originally stoked for this night sledding; we had booked it for all of us this week and it sounded awesome. You had a gondola ride to the top of the mountain, where a fondue dinner awaited. Then you sledded down the mountain to another restaurant where you had a glass of mulled wine for everyone. Sounds great doesn't it? Well to put it frankly, it was probably one of the scariest things I've ever done in my life. First, I got terrible motion sickness on the bus to the mountain, so once I got to the ski place I was not feeling well. The gondola ride wasn't too bad; that's just when we started to get the reality check. The other people who weren't in our group we're equipped with helmets, full skiing attire, and head lamps. Us on the other hand were in tennis shoes, sweatpants, and some even in jeans and uggs with no head lamps whatsoever. This is where we started to realize we were a tad bit unprepared. At the top of the mountain, we go into this restaurant and we all sit down and have our fondue. Switzerland is apparently known for their fondue, but I didn't really like it. The cheese was just so rich and you could taste the alcohol in it that I could barely eat it. We finish up dinner and begin to get ready for the sled down the mountain. Words cannot even explain this traumatizing event. First of all these sleds were small plastic bobsled type things were you were supposed to sit on and steer with your feet. The trail was completely pitch black with a small yellow lantern every maybe 100 yards directing you where to go. That was the biggest problem for me, not being able to see where I'm going at all. So here I am trying to go down a really steep completely narrow ski slope at a million miles per hour not being able to steer or stop. I was terrified, especially because there were tons of trees and cliffs you could go off of, and if I hit one and got hurt no one would be able to find me. I was able to just grandma it down for a good portion of the mountain keeping my feet completely on the ground to go slow, but then a person who was going fast got behind me and took me with them out of control. The only way to stop was to wipe out, which was almost just as dangerous because you faced the risk of getting ramped into by another sledder. A big problem was people were loosing their sleds, which would then go down the mountain without them, so we'd have to put two or more on a sled. After I hit a big patch of ice and went completely out of control, I decided I had enough and walked/jogged the rest of the way down the mountain. We then had to wait 2 hours for our bus to come to take us back to the hostel in the freezing cold. Once we got back to the hostel, we were all done and not happy campers so we decided to call it a night.
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