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Jumping into a glacier lake in Interlaken, Switzerland. |
Grindelwald, Swizterland was beyond words AMAZING. I’ve literally never seen anything that beautiful in my life. And I want to say I won’t see anything more beautiful again, but there’s still a lot left to see in the world (and I’m definitely not done exploring). We felt refreshed as soon as we arrived. There’s just something about those mountains that calms you. But to truly explain Grindelwald, I have to tell the whole story. As most of you know, I can’t short a story, so bear with me, this is a good one!
Grindelwald was the world of misconnections and reconnections. When we arrived we had one roommate from South Korea named Ahn. We decided to adopt him into our little nomadic family and began dragging him along on our adventures exploring and taking selfies (if you didn’t already know this, Koreans and other Asian cultures have perfected the art of selfies; Ahn had his own tripod which could be doubled for use as an extension for a selfie). He was a hilarious guy, always laughing and saying: “Really?! Ahhhh.” We worked through the language barrier and quickly became great friends. His plan the next day was to go up to the Jungfrau, so we agreed to meet him at the train station at 3 pm to hang out.
Our first full day, we decided to hike up towards First in the Swiss Alps, to a place called Bort. It was very near to our hostel and seemed like the easiest option. The hike definitely wasn’t EASY by any stretch of the imagination, but the views made it all worthwhile. On the way up the road to the hiking trail we passed a guy and politely said hey. He responded in an American accent and we quickly asked where he was from. There we met Adam from Chicago. Ends up he had been traveling alone and was just spending a full day in Switzerland. We chatted for a minute and decided maybe we would try to connect later in Interlaken (a city only a 30 minute train ride from Grindelwald). We got his Facebook info and went our separate ways fully expecting never to see him again.
Later on our way to Bort, Adam’s trail actually connected to ours and we found ourselves literally going in the same direction at the same crossroad. It was great to see him again! So we climbed together to Bort enjoying the views and sharing stories and snacks. Once to Bort we said our goodbyes again. He was going to continue heading up the mountain to First and we were going to head back down to meet up with Ahn. We hugged goodbye as though he was already a close friend, since it didn’t take long for him to mesh with our group. Again we spoke of meeting up later, but we didn’t have high expectations for it. We told him about a restaurant in Grindelwald called Memory where he could catch some free wifi and try to get in touch with us if he stayed in town. But the goodbye still felt like a real one.
We then began to hike down to Grindelwald to meet up with Ahn. It wasn’t as quick of a hike down as we expected. We still had an hour to hike, but it was 30 minutes until our 3 pm meeting time. We were worried with Ahn’s promptness, we might miss him. Billy and I began to jog ahead of the team. Once we made it down to the road and realized we were not going to make it anywhere near to on time, we stuck out our thumbs. Yes, we attempted to hitchhike. We wholeheartedly believed no one was going to stop, but it was worth a shot. Immediately a sweet old coupled pulled off and asked where we needed to go. We explained the situation about meeting at the train station and that we didn’t have much time. The husband even cleaned the back seat out for us to sit (keep in mind we were sweaty AND smelly at this point). The couple was from the capital of Switzerland and they were making a day trip to Grindelwald for the wife’s birthday – so they picked up a couple of hitch hikers on her birthday. Amazing people, truly. The husband was actually an aerospace engineer who had lived in Huntsville for a while working for NASA, so he even knew where Mobile was! Yes, I met a rocket scientist while hitchhiking in Switzerland… When we told him we only had 8 minutes to get to the train station, he proceeded to drive like a nascar driver through the tiny mountain streets. I’m not gonna lie, there were a few moments of terror on that short journey.
On our drive, we actually passed by Aubrie, Courtney and Alex. We told him those were our friends and he reversed so we could tell them what was going on (and why we were in some stranger’s vehicle). We told them we would meet them at the cafe we had planned on going with Ahn and sped off to the train station. We got there 10 minutes late and at exactly the same time Ahn ran up apologizing for being 10 minutes late. Perfect timing I would say. We tried to pay the old couple for their trouble, but they seemed more entertained and thankful for getting to drive us. I want to be like that someday.
Ahn, Billy and I began walking to the cafe, and lo and behold right as we walked up to it, there were Courtney, Aubrie and Alex walking up at the same time. At this point these connections were beginning to get eerie. After eating some amazing, fresh Swiss food, we headed to the hostel to see if we could get a hold of Adam and maybe visit Interlaken. As we were walking down the road and passing Memory, the restaurant with wifi we told Adam about, Adam was right in front of us exclaiming, “Boy am I glad to see you guys!” He was trying to find the restaurant to get in touch with us, and right before he even got there we appeared. Seriously, eerie. We bought groceries, took a rest at the hostel and then altogether, Ahn, Adam, and team: we headed to Interlaken. We jumped in a glacier lake, picnicked with a beautiful view at the paragliding landing park and took some outrageous selfies at the train station. All in all, had a blast.
We said our goodbyes to Adam, knowing that this would be the last time to see him on this side of the world, but we’re hopeful for the potential to reconnect with him in the states. And obviously we have some kind of luck on our side (but you know that’s God). Eerie as it may have seemed, God was doing a mighty work to get us where we needed to go and get us to the people we needed to see. In the morning, we said an early goodbye to Ahn, but we realized we would get to see him in Paris again and already made plans.
To add to the restful feelings in Switzerland, we had the surprise of Zach’s team showing up at the hostel in the afternoon. We had no idea our itineraries would cross, so it was a legitimately nice surprise. It was great to catch up, hug and hear about their adventures and connections. We shopped around, played fishbowl and surprised Ben for his birthday.
I couldn’t have planned a better time in Switzerland, and most of it was unplanned (such a beautiful mysterious thing). Even on our train to Frankfurt, we got redirected to Basel, which was not on our itinerary. When we got off the train to get on another, Ahn came running past us on his way to catch a train to Paris! WHAT?! Another random God moment, where a very big world became very small. We snapped a quick selfie (of course), and then went our separate ways to see him again in Paris. On the train to Amsterdam, I thought of the things that had already happened, and really couldn’t fathom it getting better. Would that even be possible? But every city and challenge and adventure brings it’s own uniqueness, character and wonderful people.
Since God is in control, I know there’s more to come. Sorry this is so very long, but I felt as though you had to experience the little bit of crazy to understand the massive shocking whole. Shock and awe is all I can say about this trip so far. The more I experience, the more I am impressed by God’s wonder. Now on to the next. We are verging on the halfway point and while that makes me sad, I know we were made to move forward. I pray that God will continue to surprise us and draw us near to His mighty will and plan throughout our days.
Blessings from this side,
Kristen
Kristen