The title of my journal really explains the weekend I just had! It was hands down the CRAZIEST WEEKEND I HAVE EVER HAD!!! I did things that I thought I would never do in my life and conquered fears that I actually didn't really know I had. After this past weekend I really feel like I am ready to do ANYTHING, it was definitely a life changing weekend. What was this life changing experience you ask?
CANYON JUMPING FROM 300 FEET AND SKYDIVING OVER THE SWISS ALPS FROM A HELICOPTER!!!
But I will get to those details a little later...
p.s some of what I wrote was written right after or during what I just did, so sorry if it is confusing.
Tuesday was a really fun day, a definite favorite, we went to “L’Horta Labyrinth”,the oldest gardens in Barcelona. "L'Horta means "La Huerta" in Spanish so I was quite excited because it was my very own garden 
Our GSE group was going this past weekend, but since we were going out oftown, we wanted to go on our own. We bought some sandwiches, champagne, and dessert treats to bring up thereand have a picnic. We took themetro and walked up a little bit and before you knew it we were there. It was so pretty and I knew right awaythat my mom and grandma would love it here. It actually reminded me a little bit of our backyard when welived on Croy. There were trees and green lush bushes everywhere. We stoppedto take pictures and to pop open a bottle of champagne to share before weheaded up more for our picnic. After we finished the bottle we walked up and ended up on a hillabove the maze made from shrubs. There was a stone gazebo, so we set up ablanket in the middle and took our fiesta out to eat and share. We ate ourselves silly with sandwichesand chocolate croissants, but it was so worth the calories! It was a beautiful day andthe sun was shining and I couldn’t ask for a better thing to do then what I wasdoing at that moment. I was with good company and in a gorgeous garden inBarcelona!!
Afterwe finished eating we decided that it would be a good idea to play tag in themaze. I was the last one to say“it” so I was “it.” As everyone ran to find a hiding place I counted to 20 andsoon I was off. They aren’tkidding when they are saying it’s a maze, I got stuck in some dead ends quite alot, but I tagged Dionne! We were all running around the maze getting lost andlaughing like little kids while Dionne was trying to tag us, it so awesome. Well it was pretty funny when we got introuble by one of the security guards and he literally was following us in the maze tomake sure we weren’t running. Whogets in trouble for running, well I guess we do!! It was such a fun day butwe were all exhausted so we headed back home and relaxed for a littlebit. Since Chrissy, Ash’s sisterand Mikey were here, we HAD to bring them to Champgneria, our favorite place inBarcelona. At 7 or so we headedout and went to Champgneria. Itwasn’t too crowded which was nice, but of course there is still plenty of people there. We got our usual bottle of champgne andtwo tapas and enjoyed ourselves. For some reason that time it was really hot in inside and I got reallyclaustrophobic and was getting bad anxiety. I tried to endure it until everyone wanted to leave but I just wasn’t feeling well. I ended up heading off before the group and went back to the apartment. I was definitely not feeling well when I got home, so I gotin my pj’s and watched movies the rest of the night. Everyone went out that night but that didn’t mean I couldget any sleep. They all didn’t leavethe apartment until 2am and then were back at 4am. I was literally up until 7amso I didn’t get much sleep, which didn’t help me trying to rest and feel better.
SinceI got barely any sleep the night before, Wednesday I wasn’t feeling well atall, so I stayed at home and tried to get some rest. I didn’t want to be sick for our weekend inSwitzerland, so I was a bum all day.
Thursdaymorning we all woke up and got ready to fly to Switzerland later that day. Supposably my repaired digital camera that my mom was sending me was at ourpost office so I decided to go and walk to see if it was there. Well it is a little bit of a long walk so when I gotthere I was already tired and just wanting my camera, but of course it “wasn’t there.” Iwas sooo upset because I wanted it for my trip but couldn't do anything, so I took the long walk back tothe apartment and continued packing. Before we knew it, it was time to go tothe airport. We were flying fromBarcelona to Zurich and then taking the train to Interlaken. It was an hour flight and a 2 hourtrain ride, so we got into Interlaken farely late.
We immedietly loved our hostel, Funny Farm. Everyone there was so nice and superfriendly. We met up with Mikey andDionne at their hostel and then headed next door to the most amazing Thai food restaurant!Our friends that went earlier told us about this place and how good it was, sowe had to try it. It wasdefinitely good and we were all so full after we ate it. But that didn’t stopus from attempting to go out, so went downstairs of the Balmer’s hostel to the“club.”( It was basically a bar with a dance floor!) We all got our beer tocelebrate our time in Switzerland and watched some interesting dancers at theclub. We didn’t last too longbecause we were all so tired, so we walked back to our hostel and headed up tobed. We definitely had no idea going to sleep what we would be getting ourselves into therest of the weekend!!
I am sitting outside on our balconyof our hostel and it is absolutely gorgeous outside. I am surrounded by lushgreen trees, snow capped mountains, and cute little swiss cottages, basicallyheaven. Switzerland is exactly howI pictured it to be and I couldn’t love it more. The girls are still sleeping so I decided to take in thefresh air, which we don’t get much of in Barcelona and have some time tomyself. How could I waste themorning away when there are birds singing to be heard, clouds to be watched andfresh air to be breathed. If Iwere to live anywhere that would be away from a huge city I think my two choiceswould be some little town in Austria or Switzerland. As much as I love Barcelona, I mean LOVE, I have to have thecountryside, the fresh air, the sounds of birds in the morning. It is the way I lived my life when Ilived with my mom out in Croy, and it was amazing, and it is the way my mom livesnow up in Yosemite. It is a escapefrom everything and I love it.
We walked downstairs and this is what happened a few hours later....
Sobasically this afternoon I did one of the craziest things in my life!! I justfree-falled, basically bungee jumped, from 300 feet through two canyons inInterlaken Switzerland!! I can’t believe I just was able to do that! I am thebiggest wimp ever and everyone knows it!! I was so extremely proud of myself! Ididn’t even hesitate either, they counted down from 5 and I just went! I had aharness around my body and I just jumped 300 feet like it was my job!! It wasthe best feeling ever!!! All 6 ofus did it too, and Jess was the only one that hesitated a little, but she didit and that is all that counts!! We were with 4 other people 3 girls, and one whowas the mom, who was actually from San Diego also. Well it was so crazy because one of the girls jumpedcompletely naked! It was so awesome, she just didn’t care at all and she justdid it! We were all screaming for her because none of us would ever do that andshe was awesome! The mom really reminded me of my mom because she had her hugecamera and stayed up while we all jumped and took pictures of all of us. She was really awesome and is going tosend us a all the pictures. I am so so excited to see them all! We all walked down the mountainscreaming because we all just had the biggest adrenaline rush! Our guide was awesome and made sure wehad a blast, which we definitely did! And tomorrow, well we are going skydivingover the swiss alps from a helicopter, if the weather holds up! Now that is anadrenaline rush! AAAHHH I can’t even explain to you the feeling that I haveright now! It is absolutely amazing!!
Afterwe got back from scaring ourselves silly we took the beautiful drive down themountain and went back to our hostel. Our hostel, Funny Farm, is so cozy and feels like we are staying in alodge up in the snow. We satdownstairs in front of the fire place and drank coffee and kaluhah to ease our adrenaline. We ended up going to Thai food again for dinner because it was just so good, and well because there isn't much by our hostel or Interlaken. After dinner we went to the Balmer's Hostel (where Mikey and D were staying) and got some real swiss chocolate, soooo good!
Wegot back from dinner and met up with our new friends from the canyon jumpingand uploaded the pictures onto my computer. It took a little bit so we all sat in front of the fire andjust chatted and got to know eachother more. The more I talk to the mom of the girls that we were with,the more she reminds me of my mom. Everything from she is a photographer to thefact that she is a nurse! I loved it, it was nice having someone who remindedme of my mom since I have been missing her so much lately. After her pictureswere all uploaded onto my computer we all crowded around my computer andwatched the slide show of 224 pictures of us from the entire afternoon. Theywere absolutely awesome and she got each of us so well before, during after wejumped. We were all clapping andjumping up and down at the sight of what we just did not too long ago. The pictures are classic and I can’twait to show everyone! When Heidy’s pictures came up, because she was naked,all the guys from the hostel and our guide came and looked at the pictures, itwas hilarious!! Everyone was screaming and clapping and just amazed that shedid that!
Friday night was so random but was so much fun. We just stayed in our hostel (more like a lodge) and hung out. The hostel had two dogs there, but our favorite was Spiffy, a huge Saint Bernhard and we played with him all night. We went into the main computer room for a little bit and Jess and I started to "play" the guitar and bongos, haha it was pretty hilarious. Remind me that I can NOT play the bongos whatsoever and to learn how before attempting again One of the girls, Tammy, who jumped with us earlier, was a "fire dancer" and had her stuff with her. Since it was a beautiful night out she got all her stuff out and basically did a show in the "backyard" for everyone at the hostel. It was actually really cool to watch and it looks like it is pretty hard to do. We were of course mesmerized by the fire and probably watched her for a good hour. I told you our night was random! After the fire dancing, Jess and I thought it would be fun to jump on the trampoline, which it was!! We were acting like we were little kids again and I was cracking up at everything. I just jumped off a canyon 300 feet off the ground but I was too scared to have jessica bounce me up on the trampoline, haha, oh what a night!
Jessica went up a few minutes before to go to bed and I followed not too long after her. The funniest memories I have of the night, is walking up and being surprised because I see Jessica on the floor laying with Spiffy, the dog from the hostel. It was so hilarious, but no worries because I joined in and so did Chrissy. We ended up having a photo shoot with the dog who was actually quite the model, we were all laughing so much! Such a good night, with so many good memories!!
I woke up probably a few times in the middle of the nightthinking about what I was about to do the next day. I finally woke up at 8am because we needed to be ready tomeet up at 9am across the street from the Balmer's hostel. We were getting ready to do anothercrazy thing today….SKYDIVING!! We are going skydiving over the swiss alps from a helicopter from 11,000 feet! Everyone…I am sorry I didn’t tell you but I didn’t want you to freak out, so I only toldJav because he already has done it and wouldn't be as nervous. Well we met up with the lady at 9am to check if the weather was goodenough to go and she told us that the best time to go was probably a littlelater that day, so she would call us. We are now sitting in the lobby/dining area of our hostel eating brunchand waiting for a call where we get picked up to go skydiving! She should becalling us any minute….
Alexis called us from the skydiving place and told us shewould be picking us up at 1pm and to be ready! The weather wasn’t the best andthey were nervous that we wouldn’t be able to go up but of course we always getthe best luck and we did. We droveabout 15 minutes out of Interlaken to the skydiving shop where we watched oneof the videos of someone skydiving and put on our jump suits. Our jump suits were bright orange andwe all felt as if we were a part of the movie Amargeddon. We packed up all the gear, waited forStef her husband and took a minute car ride to the heli-pad. We were all so pumped to go and wecouldn’t stop smiling and screaming. Stef and Alex, the guys that would be going tandem with us, gave us ashort 10 minute briefing on everything from jumping to landing to making surewe all had a blast! Mikey and Dionne were up first and we were all so excitedfor them! We watched the helicopter lift off and before you know they werejumping out and then parachuting and landing in the field next to thehelipad. They said it was awesome,so Jess and I were getting so excited because we were next!!! Aaahhh theanticipation of knowing this entire weekend that I would be going and now weare doing it, I thought I was crazy for a second!! Jess and I hugged eachother and we were off into thehelicopter. Jess and her tandem,Alex were in the helicopter towards the back and Stef and I were literally halfway hanging out on the ledge. It was insane. My right leg was on the ledge ofthe helicopter feeling the cold air as the snow was rushing by us. The helicopter ride in itself wasgorgeous! The mountains with snow on them with the contrast of the green fieldsbelow was breathtaking.
Before weknew it we made it to the altitude to jump..between 10,000 and 11,000 feet!! I can barely even describe to you the feeling that I had during the whole skydiving experience!! For some reason I was just so calm when I was about to go jump, Stef made mefeel really safe and we kind of just fell out gracefully. It was our time to go, we were first and I just stood on the rail on the helicopter with a little fear but I was ready to do it! It didn’t feel half as bad as I thought I would. I have flashes in my head of exactly what I was looking at and it was nothing but beautiful! When I first jumped off I was at ease and then I realized we were 10,000 feet off the ground falling through snow and I can remember having a hard time breathing. But after about 3 seconds of that I realized how beautiful it was and I just soaked everything up. It felt like so long because I swear time just stopped while I was flying through the sky taking in the scenery around me. There was snow flying everywhere and on my face as we were free-falling. The whole time I was just thinking how surreal this entire feeling was. I just have the best BEST feeling ever, that I have ever had! I am soooooo happy here! I love it here!@!! I have never been so thankful for this opportunity I just had! Thank you Javy for giving the money so I can go because without you this would not have happened! I will be paying you back in no time! Sorry again mom and dad for not telling you but I just wanted to make sure I was safe before I had you freak out!!!! AAAAAHHHHHH I am ssssssooooo happy!! I love life!!!! (this is really funny reading back on it, because I literally wrote it right when we got back and you can see how much adrenaline I still had after just writing about it!)
After skydiving Alexis, drove us back into town and sheended up dropping us off at a restaurant so we could have some fondue. It was a cute little restauraunt in thedowntown area of Interlaken. Weorded enough cheese with garlic fondue for the six of us and we definitely ateevery last bit. Skydiving takes alot out of you and we all definitely built a hunger. The fondue was soo good and was a nice treat after justjumping out of a helicopter. We decided to have another nice treat so we ended up getting some drinks from a bar. We all ordered beers to sip on andjager shots to take in honor of us just doing what we just did!! I mean we did just jump out of a helicopter like it was our job!! We stayed at the bar for awhile andthen headed back to our hostel to hang out. We had a round of coffee and kalua and before you know it Iwas ready for bed. It wasdefinitely an early night because of all the energy I had just used up and just felt completely drained. I headed upstairs and in about oneminute my head was on that pillow and I was dreaming about the crazy weekend Ijust had.
Sunday I woke up around 930 and hopped in the shower beforethe girls got up and got ready to pack and checkout. I opened thewindow and it was absolutely gorgeous out, not a cloud in the sky. Our view from our room wasunbelievable, so while I waited for the girls to finish getting ready I justlaid in bed and looked out the window to this gorgeous view. We wanted to walk into town one lasttime before we left and get some chocolate and lunch, so we took the beautifulwalk into town. Siince it wasSunday and a really nice day, everyone was out and about. We walked around and endedup finding areally cute place to eat with the best view of the Swiss Alps. I got some really good ravioli and theothers got some type of pasta also. It wasn't the biggest serving so we decided that we would have to dig intothe huge dessert menu they had, of course. Noworries about money or calories, we were about to eat as much dessert as ourstomachs could possibly handle! Weordered chocolate fondue with every type of fruit and marshmallows, a banana split and a cappuccino ice cream thing for just the four of us! It was ALL sooo good that we justwent nuts and before you know it we were all done and the plates were licked clean. The chocolate fondue was to die for and we couldn’t stopeating it even though all our tummys were telling us to stop. It was a greatlast meal in Switzerland! After lunch we walked across the street and laid in ahuge field with a great view of the Swiss Alps. The sun was shining so we alljust laid down and soaked up the Switzerland sun and went over how we had justhad the best weekend EVER!! (as Jess would say) We were all so thankful for what we did and justcouldn’t believe that this trip was over and that our time in Spain was comingto the end. We finally got up and startedwalking home so we could catch the train to Zurich.
On the way home we took some back roads to get to our hosteland with the sun shining and the surroundings I literally felt as if I was in afairytale. Switzerland is absolutely gorgeous and I definitely want to comeback here again! We got back to our hostel and said goodbye to our new friendsand sadly left to go and catch the train. When we arrived at the train station, Alexis was there waiting to giveus our dvds of our skydive and we were all so excited to see them. We boardedthe train and first things first was to watch all our videos!!! They were allso hilarious to watch, we all had different reactions coming down, it wasgreat. We all felt like we weredoing it all over again just watching it, it was pretty intense. When we were watching Jessica’s videoyou can see Stef and I literally fall out of the helicopter and fly away, itwas nuts to see that!! Wow what an amzing weekend!!! It was definitely a greatlast weekend traveling with the roomies and we were off to Barcelona for two moreweeks!!!
Wow! Looking back on this weekend it just gives me chills to know what we did! I never expected to do what I did, but I couldn't be more happier that I did it. I think that a lot of the time we don't do things or try something new is because of the fear we have, but since this trip I have learn to let go of that fear because in the end it is soo worth it. Although I am heart broken to leave the most amazing experience I have ever had, I am ready to face the world and show them everything I got! I am starting to realize that I only have one year left of college before I enter the "real world" and that I need to live every second of that year with absolutely NO FEAR! And I am so prepared to do that!
Pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2123290&l=d8d62&id=24605373
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2123299&l=472e9&id=24605373
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2123393&l=66673&id=24605373
