Switzerland!!

Hello Hello Hello!

Here is our picture from wine tasting! It was really interesting and fun! We now know the difference between our .87 euro cent box of wine and nice 75 euro bottle wine... unfortunately were sticking to the boxed wine and saving money for shopping and traveling!

We started to write this blog and had a minor setback... The POWER WENT OUT. We all started screaming and couldn't see anything (Sara and I head-butted each-other naturally). Thankfully we found a flashlight and trying to flick some switches... nothing worked.

We decided to go knock on our neighbors door. A whole Italian family walked over to help us. This super cute Grandma walked us down to the basement and showed us what to do.

Thankfully the power went on and we went to realize that the oven, shower, blow dryer, and all lights were on in the apartment. Typical Americans....

Our past weekend we went to Interlaken, Switzerland (or Intertaken as Maggie called it)!

It was so amazing to leave busy and crazy Rome for a few days. To get there, we took an 11 hour, overnight bus ride. We got the whole row to ourselves and watched movies and slept the majority of the way. We arrived Interlaken at 8 am and moved into our hostel (Balmers-http://www.balmers.com/). It was our first experience at a hostel, and overall it went well. There was the local bar in the basement, so of course that was a plus!

We spent Friday walking around in this snow-packed adorable town...window shopping, passing goats in the road, and taking pictures of mountains everywhere. We wondered for hours and found ourselves at a local cafe drinking coffee and hot chocolate, while eating delicious pastries!

Friday night we spontaneously, signed up for "night sledding" on the swiss alps! We arrived at a mysterious gondola after a 45 minute vertical drive up the mountain. Sara didn't do too well with the heights but we survived to the top. It was one of the more terrifying, yet thrilling experiences of our lives. We went very fast down the mountain, with no room to veer too close to the edge. At the end we got to have a traditional Swiss fondue meal in a cute cottage hidden in the mountains.

Saturday we woke up early to get ready to take another long ride up the mountain to learn how to snow board. It was white out conditions and "maybe the worst weather in weeks." Great. Perfect weather to learn this new skill of ours. We had an instructor to ourselves that was very helpful. I think he found it very humorous watching us learn on the bunny slopes. There is a great video of Sara to show you what we mean....

We stopped to take a break for lunch while snowboarding. We got chicken nuggets and french fries: an awesome change from pasta!!!! At the end of lunch we were lucky enough to see the sun come out for 10 minutes! The mountains were SO beautiful. We had no idea they were even there! It was such a surreal moment to be snowboarding on swiss alps.

Sunday we were surprisingly not too sore. We let ourselves sleep in a little then decided we were craving American food. So, what better place to go than Hooters?? We are proud to say that our first time going to a Hooters was in Switzerland.

sara's snowboarding

Maggie's snowboarding

Hope all is well. Ciao Bella!!