Reeeeeeee-cola!!!!!

The Swiss are a bit loopy. And so am I since Im completing this at 5am. So Ill just let the pics and videos do the talking here. But Swizterland basically boils down like this: it's beautiful and expensive. And the chocolate is great.

Here's my host Jini! Speaking of chocolate, she had a bar waiting for me because "everyone who comes to Switzerland should have good Swiss chocolate". Here's us making a homemade pizza.

The Swiss are very proud of everyone who manages to pick up after their dog. A round of applause, please.

Swiss flags are ev-er-y-where. They are so pround of their flag for some reason. And its square. On several points during this time, I found myself just shaking my head and going "Swiss..."

This is the mirrored staircase in the Einstein museum. It was so cool, this was the best I could do to capture it.

Haha, this just plain made me laugh. Time to fix that sign.

So in Switzerland, they are all about their extreme sports. Here's a video of me canoeing down the main river here. The water was so fast and so cold!

Haaaaaaaaahahahahhahaha

Ok, so take a close look here at this McDonalds menu. Right now, the Swiss Franc is pretty much equal to the dollar. So how much is a Big Mac meal in America? 5, maybe 6 dollars? Its 11.30 in Switzerland. Swiss...

This video explains itself.

The street signs in Switzerland are all in German, which means they take about 2 days to say. Gives you plently of opportunity for literal interpretation.

My new Bern Couchsurfing friends were organizing a city wide scavenger hunt for future couchsurfing events, so I tagged along for a dry fun. Here's me explaining something about Bern to a local.

Gitcha jumping pictures, baby.

I saw this old couple doing Tai Chi in the park. Cool, huh?

I love meeting new dogs! This one, Kuna, wrestled me later. I think I lost.

This street was aptly named.

This is my host Jini and all her crazy roommated and friends! Why they ganged up on Mika, who knows.

INTERLAKEN!!!

I took a short train over to Interlaken from Bern. Interlaken - literally meaning "between lakes", sits in between two mountains of the Swisss Alps. Within about two hours of getting there, I decided that today would be the day to go paragliding. The weather was iffy all week, but luckily there was a break in the clouds, so some new friends from my hostel and I piled into a a van and drove to the top of one of the mountains.

Here's me with Anders, the genial and hilarious Swiss guy who would be piloting me around the skies! In this pic, I dont look so sure about running down that hill. That's how we took off btw - just ran off the hill right into the air.

Airborne, baby!

This is pretty much how I looked the whole time!

Got pretty windy up here, but here's me picking out my next Christmas tree:

Anders navigating with two straps attached to the shoot. Me navigating with two thumbs up attached to good times.

This one isnt me, but a friend. Gives you some idea though how it looked.

This is the view I had the whole time!

We all made it safely down. And in colourful jackets!

The next day we went to this awesome ropes course. Suspended way up in the trees, we navigated 5 different courses of pulleys, steps, and zip lines.

Here we go!

Here's me coming right at ya!

A dizzying worm's eye view:

Afterwards, the word got out that I was an actor. This is what a Swiss press junket looks like.

I was trying to get him to stick his tongue out at the same time as me. He was licking my hand a lot. I didnt have the heart to tell him I had seen a tongue just like that in a market in Barcelona.

Back at the hostel, this guy Duncan and I were displaying our manliness as we cooked sausage and pasta. Duncan didnt get the memo that this was supposed to be a "cool guy" photo.





I decided to take a little excursion with my new friends. So we went and spent a night in the town of Luzern. Not much happening in Luzern, but when you are with fun people, you make your own happening. Of course, a classic jumping picture.





Guy was just wandering around, playing this little flute. Swiss....





So I finally took off for Munich, which is where I sit now ready to go take on another city. On the way here on the train, I encountered quite a unique train cabin. Allow me to explain in video:






And then I gave in a few minutes later...






A couple of hours into the journey, we switched directions coming out of a one way station. That means that I was now traveling backwards in my chair, and when we would make a stop, the sliding door here would slide open and then SLAM against the wall. This got real old, real fast. So, I went to the bathroom, grabbed about 30 paper towels, fashioned a rope, and linked the door the the luggage rack.


Dont mess with me. I was a cub scout.





Thanks to all you guys who've been leaving comments on here and just generally letting me know you enjoy the blog! Hope you're having a great memorial day weekend - and the new Indy movie (I can't wait - it's been drilled into me here its coming out May 22nd). And enjoy Memorial Day weekend, especially all you peeps in Sacramento at the Jazz Festival!

Off to explore Munich!