Grace Is Gone

Wow, I'm really exhausted. I'm so tired and sore, it's ridiculous. Got up today around 7 and showered and stuff. I had a little adventure in the shower; I put my soap and soap container on the top, leaning on the wall, then at the end of my shower, it slipped down the crack and got wedged. I tried to reach it, but my hand wouldn't fit. So, I went down to ask the worker there for something to fish my soap out with and felt like an idiot. But, he told me to go find a broomstick, but on my way to the kitchen, I found a "community" umbrella and took that up there. Wedged it in the crack below my soap and pushed my soap all the way up to the top, right to where I could grab it and right as I almost did, the soap slipped off the end of the umbrella and went way down behind the shower and out of sight forever. I was rather bitter, haha. Oh well, so then I played pool against myself for about 15 minutes until Liz came down to meet me for breakfast at 8. That was nice, then we walked around Interlaken with the group for the last half of morning and got our sledding tickets for the night and stuff. It's really cold here in Interlaken, and there's probably a good foot and a half of snow on the ground, at least. It's kinda neat to have so much snow for a day or two, but I think it might get old if I had to live here all the winter. So, anyhow, everyone in the group was being lazy and not wanting to go hiking with Liz and I, so we had lunch together around 12:30, then went off on our own. Went to the Co-op grocery store, got some great beef jerky to snack on. Then we took a train up to a little Alp town called Lauterbruenn and it was really cool. We walked for about 3 hours or so down through a valley that was just surrounded by Alps. They were huge and there was just snow and ice everywhere and it was just beautiful. I loved it so much at it was just dead quiet. Liz and I hiked awhile out there and just stopped and took it all in. It's impossible to explain how it felt to be surrounded by Alps in complete and total silence. It was just incredible. Anyhow, we got back to town a little after 5, stopped in a nice, cozy place to warm up and get some hot chocolate, then headed off to another train station to meet the group at 6:30. We left with them around then to head off on our night-sledding adventure. Took a bus way up into the ALps, then a cable car up even higher, to where we were above the clouds. The view was quite amazing. At the top, we all gathered into a big dining hall thing and had some pretty good cheese fondue. I liked it for the most part, but got sick of it after awhile. Then, for the big sled. It was rather scary at first, because we had like no guides, or help or anything, so we grabbed these little sleds and headed up this poorly lit path, having no clue where to go, but finally, sort of found the way, then headed down. It was absolutely nuts! I can't fully explain it very well- it's just something you have to do. You go flying down the Alp on this super-fast sled thats hard to control, and its almost impossible to see where to turn, because there's like one small dim light every few hundred feet that really has almost no effect. So, I get flying down these slopes, sledding faster than I ever have before, which was amazing, but then, these turns came up quick and at the speeds I was at, couldn't turn in time, so I just ended up bailing out into the snow on the sides which was at least a good three feet deep. I had a great time jumping with no cares face-first into the snow and having so much padding from it that it felt just great! :D It was quite and experience! Also, it was so cold! My moustache had ice all over it by the time we were done. :P So, the sledding path ended and we all limped up to another cottage and got warm mulled wine to drink and hung our awhile, before getting back on the rail car, and then taking the bus back and walking back to Balmer's. Just got back in around midnight, freezing, wet, and extremely tired! Been a good day! :)