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!

By the Sea in Italy

Just got to Switzerland! But more of that later. Im a bit behind of videos. Here's some good time with my host in Marsielle and a quick look at the charm of the beaches of Nice.

Jorin rockin out on the acoustic guitar. This was only about 30 minutes before the D string broke and nearly took out an eye and a drink.




Finally my harmonica comes to good use. We took this show in the road. We have groupies now. Be jealous.





Jorin had never heard the line: "Go ahead, make my day." Here I attempt to teach it to him. I think he came out sounding like Dr. Claw from Inspector Gadget.






The beaches in Nice. Can you pick out which one of these things is not like the other?






For the traveler, different cultures and customs within a short period of time are not uncommon. But was in 3 different countries attempting 3 different languages within one week. Whew. So by the time I got the Cinque Terre (Ching-quah Tair-uh), I had just gotten use to saying "Oui" and "Merci" in Nice. (Although the French didnt reall deserve a thank you.) BTW, allow me to clarify something from the last post - when I was complaining about the French, I was specificaly talking about those genial locals in the Riviera. My new friends in Paris and other aquaintences in the capital were much nicer and open to travelers. Apparently, its very common for the French in the south to be just as rude to all persons to dont speak perfect Francais.

On to Italy!

I decided to skip Milan, since everyone and their little dog on a leash told me it was a snoozefest, unless you're unvited by Prada to a huge fashion gala and put up in a fancy hotel. Not much for the backpacker in jeans and REI gear. (Ja-sohn!) The Cinque Terre has a quiet following amoung backpackers and frequesnt travellers as the best kept discovered secret in Italy, perhaps all of Europe.

Its a magical place - breathtaking views of the Mediteranian from one of 5 cities along the northwest coast of Italy. "Cinque Terre" = 5 towns. On the train, I met two other backpackers that spoke perfect English, and since non of really spoke any Italian, we were fast freinds and spent the whole time together. Follow our adventures in pictures and video:


We arrived after about a 7 hour journey on 3 different trains from the south of France. Lots of layovers - the trains in most of Europe leave exactly on time, but in Italy, they are notorious for just kind of leaving whenever. So heres a McDonalds at one station where we killed some time. They served real cappucinos in real coffee mugs. I had to document this.





This is the train station from high above. They are all nestled into the mountainside along with all these beautifully painted little buldings. The peach coloured building nest to the tracks is where I was lucky enough to pay over $7/hour for internet.





Here are my new friends and I (close ups soon) out for a proper Italian dinner. At this point, we might have used bread and cheese as a deadly weapon, we were so sick of it. So we dropped some kiz-ash and ate this awesome meal. Pictures never do food justice, but we all just had to document the fact that we were all eating real food. At a table. With a white table cloth. Ordering was a lesson is curious glances from our waiter, but the food tasted so good. My first of many pasta dishes in Italy Im assuming.





This is the oppitimy of the Cinque Terre. Laundry hangs outside beautifully painted buildings. They are only allowed to paint with on of five colours here. No black buildings in this place. Almost looks like Easter or the Gap came to town.






I love stealing these shots! The camera is down by my hip here, and I can only hope its centered. These types of scenes were everywhere. Its a collection of very small towns, so Im assuming this is one of the old pasttimes - sitting around and just shooting the bull.






Me and my new friends playing around. Thats me on the right, Jonah, and then Christie. Jonah is from Sacramento - born and raised! We traded so many stories about high schools and places we hung out as kids. Its so crazy to be talking about places like Country Club Mall and Bel Air Supermarkets on the coast of Italy. Most of that time, Christie just looked on and smiled. Which brings me to Christie. Such a nice girl from Canada. She was so kind and just laughed all the time. Jonah moved on to Rome after only one day, so Christie and I sat around and just chilled by the sea for another day or so. Got to know a good new friend here.





Here's me mad-dogging a painting of Van Gogh. There were murals everywhere here.





Im hiding in this picture. Can you find me? Sort of a Mount Rushmore thing going on here.





On the way back from dinner, the three of us spotted this boxed marked "Fragile". And of course, I said "Fra-jee-lay! I must be Italian!" It was so perfect. Christie was kind enough to lend us her leg in place of a leg lamp.





We got all artsy here. I like this pic - it wasnt green (thats the green in the colour of the light picked up by a six second exposure) but it felt this way.





Like any sophisticated traveler, I had to videotape our apartment. Dont tell me you havent done this.





The next morning we all made breakfast together! It was so great to have OJ and ham and fruit.





Out adventuring and hiking, we encounted this helicopter delivering cement for a new boat launch. Jonah and I were frozen with fascination everytime it came around, and Chirsie couldnt have cared less. "Guys like machines that fly" was all I could tell her without looking at her.





This is the view from the trail that you hike around the Cinque Terre.





Here's me being ridiculous. This pic turned out to be better than I thought because you can see that great hillside behind me trying to do something silly.





Hooray for jumping pictures! Notice the lady on the right:

Me: Were gonna take this picture now.
Lady: Ok..
Me: Just letting you know you might be in it (*hint, please move)
Lady: Yeah, ok.

So she was.





I passed by this car that was using a wooden plug as a gas cap. So great!






This lady fussed so much with her laundry. It was dry in minutes just from the friction.





This is soo cool! Postcards has this same shot - this is the qunticential view of the Cinque Terre. Little boats docked at the bottom would have probably enjoyed more exciting hours had they not been moored due to muggy weather.






Christie and I found this cool lemon fesitval in the biggest town, Monterosso. It was only there for two days, so good timing, huh? The lemons were so big - somewhere between the size of a large orange and a grapefruit.






This time I wanted a picture with these ladies. We all got these free bottles of red soda that are common here (although distributed by Coca Cola). That one lady on the left apparently is a wanted woman somewhere. No iris recogonition software can capture a profile. Good thinking, lady.





At the end of the trip, I had to run back and forth on this bridge. It was just a whole bunch of fun!





Im in Switzerland now, so when I get to Munich, I'll check back in with adventures from here. And now, right before I sign off, Mika, the roommate of my host, would like type something. My first guest blogger, take it away Mika!

Hi, will write to zou in french as I'm from the french part of that small country. Venez nous rendre visite, vous ne serez pas decu...and mostly...youll come back again!Mika

I couldnt wait - heres Mika writing this just minutes ago.