Chocolates and Roller Coasters

June 2:

On the train to Zurich! Lisa and I are going couchsurfing for two nights! We have never been to Switzerland before, so quite excited! Flurina is also heading back home this weekend so we are all on the amazing RailJet train, just three hours to Zurich! We are being good students and writing papers and studying for our last classes here at MCI. Truly can’t believe how fast this experience has gone by. Love every day of it though.

Enjoying my coffee on the train!

Who's the crazy one behind me?

Views from the train

Walked around the city with Flurina for a few hours after managing to pack everything into one locker yet again! I’m getting quite skilled at that! Walked through old town area and by Lake Zurich which is gorgeous. 

Austrian flags or no entry?

Look what I found!

Ahh!! With the new logo! Be proud of me- I didn't buy any Sbucks on the trip!

Great windows inside the church

Flurina & I

Being crazy as always!

Zurich!

That's Smart parking!

Street Art

By the lake

Lake Zurich

Great friends

Sun starting to set

Swiss flag!

Getting everyone excited!

The official Swiss symbol... according to me

A giant bowl of rice?

Scared under the trees!

Okay, not so scary!

Weirdest bathroom in Europe yet...

Boats

Public transportation & Starbucks.. my favorite!

Hmm.. where are we?

I got it!

So strong!

 Had some coffee and bread and hummus, weird combination I know. Then went back to the train station and met our CS host Marius!! Made our way back to his house, hung out, got to know each other and then he made us a GREAT Swiss dinner. Pasta and potatoes with cream sauce and fried onions on top. 

Getting the party started!

Delicious

Also met his roommate who is a fellow CS; Maria from Romania. Had a great evening and had ice cream and watched a movie together. For some reason I felt like I was back in the states! I managed to fall asleep over half way through the movie, surprise surprise.

June 3: 

Woke up VERY early. Although Lisa tried to make the first turn out of the apartment in the wrong direction, we managed to get to a part of Zurich to catch our direct bus to Europa Park. Germany’s largest theme park and one of the most well known theme parks in Europe!! It is divided into a lot of different European countries. I managed to sleep quite a bit on the way there and despite traffic, we arrived to our destination! Mission: ride all the best roller coasters first as it was a fairly busy day. 

Entrance

So excited!

Entrance

We made it!

Street performer!

First coaster; Silver Star. Just as amazing as I thought it would be. Lisa riding roller coasters is just hilarious!! Had tons of fun and bought a flag with roller coasters on it after the ride! Haha! 

AMAZING!

And the end!

Necessary purchase that I ran around with!

Then we managed to get a bit lost in trying to make it to Iceland. A much bigger, cleaner, impressive, and well themed park than I thought it would be.

Rode their newest roller coaster; Blue Fire!! We waited in line for single riders because the line was two hours. 

Blue Fire!

Being Launched!

At the top!

Love this photo!

 

Supposed to be scared... more excited if you ask me!

True fear!

 Turns out we only waited about 45 minutes and managed to get to ride TOGETHER in the back row!! When you hang on to the handle bars, the roller coaster tells you your heart rate! I was so excited getting on the ride and the fact that we got to ride together that my heart rate was 111 and then went up to 120 right before we launched! Extremely fun roller coaster!! 

 

USA all the way!

Then we went to Russia and rode Euro Mir- ten time more funs thatn I thought it would be! Basically Russian Techno music and spinning around going down drops, we had a blast.

Euro Mir!

Took this just for you Zach!

Russian Party!

Next mission was food so we went to Greece.

Hanging out in Greece!

 Had some veggie lasagna type thing with a great greek salad with a lot of feta cheese. Yum! 

Confused..

Look what I found.... on LISA's BAG!

 We then felt obliged to ride the Switzerland and Austrian roller coasters as we were in those two countries most recently. Bobsled Swiss coaster was a bit crazy, check out the video!

About to bobsled in Switzerland!

Oh my!

What country are we in again?

  

Next stop was obviously the Austrian section of the park! We didn't have much time left before our bus headed back, but this would not stop us! 

Awesome mushroom swings!

 

Back in Austria!!!

Tirol!!

Look closely... Innsbruck, Innsbruck, Innsbruck!!

Good timing Lisa!!

OH YEAH!

Got awesome pictures with the mascot of the park! We walked through the kiddie-land and no kids were in line at all to get the picture! Did this stop Lisa and I? No way!! 

Tempting...

HAHA!

After a great day in Europa Park!

Jumping of course!

After a fun filled day, we bought a few souveneirs and got on our bus back to Switzerland. Lisa and I got talking about the most random of things; irrational fears and growing up, this then turned into talking about MASH, problem was we didn’t have a pen to play. Lisa asked all the kids on the bus, by the way, we were the oldest ones on the bus! I then learned a new saying and asked the bus driver in German if he had a pen. Success! This then entertained us for honestly over an hour! Made it back to Zurich and back to Marius’ house. We got ready, had a delicious cocktail- the same but opposite of a mojito- basil, lemonade, sugar, and gin! Quite refreshing! 

With our CS host Marius!

 Then went to city center and had Turkish food- falafel wrap! Yumm! Next on our agenda, a GIANT Couchsurfing gathering at Stable 6! We met quite a lot of cool fellow Couchsrufers! I sat down at the very long table, shook hands with a guy right next to me and we both said “Matt” at the same time! It was freaky! I thoguth he somehow knew my name, but his name was also Matt, haha. He was  from Canada which it turns out there were surprisingly quite a few Candanians there! Lisa was excited!! Also met an adventuresome Darius from Iran, an Austrian from Graz, and a girl from Morrocco. We had great conversations and a lot of laughs as well. After such a fun-filled day, we went back to the apartment and crashed.

June 4:

Woke up around 8:30, as Marius was going to go on a kayaking trip this weekend so we were going to leave at the same time and explore the city more and do shopping. Turns out he got a call, and it was completely booked, so we took our time and had breakfast together. Then Lisa and I said our goodbyes and walked around Zurich for quite a bit. 

Couchsurfing!

My Swiss symbol!

Where are we..

 Found a HUGE Saturday market with everything you can imagine. Chilled by the river and got a few souveneirs. We also bought DELICIOUSSSSSSS Swiss chocolate. The lady broke it off of a huge block of chocolate and we had so many different kinds; cappucinno, white chocolate caramel, lemon white chocolate, corn flakes and milk chocolate. All of it was amazing.

DELICIOUS!

 

Lisa and my new thing: When we hear music, we give out MusikHugs.. Not to be confused with MH!

In some random store..

 Then we hung out by the river for awhile and entertained ourselves. Wactch.

I think I won the competition!

 
 Bought food for the train and managed to see a fellow MCI student from Innsbruck who was getting on our train also! Slept nearly the entire train ride back, aside from the last hour where I’ve been updating my blog. Just a few minutes from Innsbruck and I will meet my first official couch surfer who is staying with me for a few days! He is from Arkansas, but has been living in Prague for the last year. Looking forward to hosting someone!!