Cinque Terra

If you go to Europe, you must go to Italy. If you go to Italy, you must go to Cinque Terra. If you go to Cinque Terra, you must do the gelato crawl.

Friendly locals + incredible views + delicious pizza and gelato = our favorite stop in Europe. Our first experience with Italian pizza wasn't great. We had been delayed and missed our train and were waiting in a hot, crowded train station and were starving. Trent, always wanting to eat in the train station, convinced me to buy the frozen pizzas at the station which we ate inside while dirty pigeons eye-balled us. Italy had not yet wooed us.

We then rode a hot, crowded train to our destination and arrived in the middle of the night. I had booked us a hostel in a quaint, local area, rather than the big city, which created a bit of a problem when we arrived at 10 pm. We found some other worried-looking back packers at the train station and figured out we all had to get to the same place. So we grabbed a taxi together and were suddenly whizzing around corners and mountain bends and 20 minutes later, arrived in what would become our favorite town in Europe. After checking in, the hostel workers recommended a pizza place a short walk away so at about 11 pm, we found ourselves in a tiny pizza parlor with a bunch of locals eating the best pizza we'd ever had. Now Italy had begun to woo us.

Apparently the "thing to do" while back-packing through Europe is a pub-crawl. We weren't into that and created our own version of fun in Cinque Terra. The name means "5 towns" because there are 5 towns built on the coast line of Italy; 5 of the most beautiful, breath-taking towns you'll ever see; 5 towns all serving delicious gelato. So on our first day we took a train to the furthest town. We lounged and swam at this beach:

then had lunch and began our hike. A few things were decided while on the hike:

1) Gelato needs to become more popular in the States.

2) Trent would do the same lame smile in every picture in Italy.

3) Italy is probably the coolest country in Europe.

4) We're not great at following signs.

I know I said I wouldn't post lots of pictures of scenery or buildings but I have to for Cinque Terra. It was just that beautiful. We got our first gelato in the first town and then started hiking:

Note that Trent had not yet decided on his stupid smile face. Don't worry, you will get sick of it soon. Also note that I got two scoops. Yes, I knew that we would be stopping in all 5 towns for gelato but eating that stuff is like eating a sweet cloud of goodness. We made our way to the second town and looking at pictures now, I fear it might have been my face here that inspired Trent's ugliness for the remainder of Italy:

This hike was phenomenal. We'd turn corners and stumble upon towns like this one:

This was the second of the five towns and to get there we had to wind through beautiful hills and colorful, crowded streets.

After people watching and savoring our gelato, we said goodbye to this beautiful town,

and continued on to the third:

There was a pink house in our neighborhood once. All the neighbors talked about it and how tacky it was; it truly was an eyesore on our suburban block. But Italy manages to make pink buildings cool, and yellow buildings, and blue ones too. Plus, I'm not sure why this is, but in Italy even hanging laundry looks cool.

I love this next shot only because of the man in the background. Italy is characterized by so many stereotypes and we met these stereotypes around every bend.

We made it to the fourth town with no issues:

The above picture still makes me laugh, not only because we took ugly to a new level, but because this is where we missed the large sign pointing us in the direction of the fifth town. Instead, we found a small, faded sign that seemed to be an leading us to our destination. We would follow these faded red arrows for an hour. After an hour of climbing up steep ravines, tromping through overgrown pathways, and even awkwardly slipping through people's backyards, we were sweating profusely and realized something was wrong.

Things we probably should have realized:

a) All the towns are built on the coast but we had been hiking away from the coast for the entire time and were not seeing any other people.

b) All the signs we were following were faded and often hidden behind brush.

c) We were in good shape but getting a heck of a workout and had seen overweight loafers talk about doing this hike in flip flops.

Still, we trudged on.

I don't recall the exact moment when we both decided we had messed up but I remember it happening way too late. That moment of realization that you were wrong is a terrible one. And it's especially terrible when you realize that after climbing up steep terrain for an hour, it was all for nought and you now have to climb back down.

So we scurried down the mountain, laughing the whole way at our own stupidity. We found our way back to the fourth town and then saw the giant sign we had originally missed. The hike to the fifth turned out to be a 10 minute stroll along a flat, clearly marked and paved trail. Yes, we turned a 10 minute stroll into an intense, 2 hour hike.

Luckily, we were able to laugh about it. Really, what else can you do? And we made it to our final gelato stop.

Life lessons we learned from this hike:

1) Admitting when you are wrong is painful but the sooner you do it, the better.

2) Gelato makes everything better.

That night we strolled through the quiet, quaint town and returned to our local pizzaria:

While enjoying our delicious dinner,

we were thoroughly entertained by the locals who provided live entertainment which included kids on the mic and a man doing a lively rendition of "Go, Johnny Go."

In every town we stopped in, we found that if we were able to meet the locals, our experience was much richer. Few spoke English but this local group let us sit and observe their lives as they sang and played the guitar and danced. And it was wonderful. We left the pizzaria with full bellies and full spirits and laughed as we passed a bare-chested man speaking loudly on the phone to a man named Luigi. And we laughed again when we passed by a house where a man was singing an opera-style song with gusto. Italy was turning out to be everything we hoped it to be and more.

We spent the next day in the main town and sitting on a beach, resting our tired legs. That night we returned to our spot to soak in more of the local flavor. We were not disappointed.

We met a man named "Bini" who spoke decent English and owned the pizzaria. He joined us for dinner and we had bizarre conversations about America and "Happy Days" and Rock n Roll.

What I remember most about this dinner was "Bini" making us try all different types of pizza. He didn't tell us what they were. Thus, we both had anchovies on our pizza and I almost threw up in my mouth. I had to wait til he looked away and then I spit that nastiness in my purse.

We realized while here that it is definitely the people that make a country. Munich had incredible history and buildings and Zermatt had beautiful scenery, but we hadn't met any locals there. It is our encounters with locals that made cities special. Cinque Terra is incredibly beautiful and the gelato crawl was incredible (minus the 2 hour detour) but I think it holds such a special place in our hearts because of the pizzaria. Because at this pizzaria were able to witness the typical nights of typical people. We were able to slip into their private world and they let us snoop around.

God did some pretty marvelous work when he created Cinque Terra but He did even more miraculous work when he created the hearts and minds of the people who would inhabit the land. We were blown away by the beauty of the five towns but more blown away by the warmth of variety of life we witnessed here.

Zermatt

Some people travel to Switzerland just to hike the infamous Matterhorn. We, however, were just passing through this town for one night on our way to Italy. We both have the same memory of this beautiful, quaint mountain town. It's not what you'd expect. It's not a memory of beauty and wonder and nature. No. We remembered the puking man. But I'll get to that in a minute.

We took a train from Interlaken to Zermatt and the views along the way were spectacular to say the least.

My eyes were glued to the window as we wound our way through the valleys and passed incredible waterfalls and mountain peaks along the way. Trent enjoyed the views too:

We were told that it is a rare treat to actually see the Matterhorn since it usually is hidden beneath the clouds. So we were pleasantly surprised after hiking a painful mile straight uphill to finally find our hostel with this view:

Hiking the beast never even crossed our minds since we only had a few hours here and our legs were still screaming from yesterday's hike in the Alps. Plus, we both had worked up a sweat just getting to the hostel.

Switzerland turned out to be the most naturally beautiful country we visited but also the most expensive. Trent is a born penny-pincher and I think he died a little every time I convinced him to open his wallet and buy just one more chocolate bar. Thus, eating out was never even an option. I'm sure the town offers plenty of fun activities but Trent and I found all the "free fun" the town had to offer. You may recall that we skipped rocks for a good hour in the Czech Republic. It doesn't take much to entertain us.

I think we spent a total of about 10 dollars in this town. After we plopped our gear down in our room and checked our MySpace accounts (because yes, this trip was that long ago), we headed to the kitchen to see what we had to work with to make for dinner. A water heater. That was all. No cooking utensils or bowls or any utensils period. I noticed Trent eating some cheese and with a grumbling stomach, I demanded to know when he had bought it. He laughed and opened the fridge to reveal several individually wrapped cheese wheels. It was a moral dilemna. I was starving and overpriced food was a good 30 minute hike away. And here was free cheese wrapped in pretty red, wax paper, staring me in the face. I'm not proud to admit it, but I too stole cheese from some fellow backpackers. Desperate times, people. Despite my guilt, the cheese was delicious.

We spent the day wandering through the mountain town, drinking in the fresh mountain air.

During our self-guided tour of the town we discovered a really cool, really old church with a graveyard housing some really old bones.

We passed shops selling ridiculous hats.

And we saw other tourists who must have entertained me quite a bit since I took their picture as they snapped pictures.

These folks are standing on a bridge that we passed later and left in pain from laughing so hard. After we had purchased a giant bag of tortellinis to cook for dinner, we made the trek back up to our hostel. Right as we passed a man on this bridge, he leaned over and blew chunks everywhere. I'm guessing it was due to altitude sickness and this poor man was losing his lunch in a major way. Trent has a bit of a gag reflex and had to cover his own mouth, fearful that he was about to lose it as well. This poor man continued to heave for a very long time. Trent was trying to walk away quickly so he wouldn't barf too but I was struggling to walk because I was laughing so hard. I know. It seems cruel that I would get so much pleasure from another man's pain but if you could have heard how violently he was throwing up, I think you would have laughed too. We stumbled up to our hostel in hysterics. Just when we thought it was over and we could hear the birds chirping again, that poor man lost it again, Trent covered his mouth, and I bent over laughing so hard it hurt. When I think of Zermatt, I don't think of this beautiful mountain:

I think of the puking man on the bridge.

That night, we cooked the tortillinis using the water heater. I'm still not sure how it worked but I remember feeling quite proud of my resourceful, albeit cheap and thieving, brother as we devoured our cheap dinner. We watched Germany beat Turkey on a tiny tv in the kitchen with one other pair of backpackers who didn't care to frequent the bars at night.

Waking up the next morning, I rolled over in my bunk bed and was met with another sunny day and clear skies revealing the glorious mountain peaks. We strapped on our bags and headed to the train station but not before snapping a few pictures of the town:

and the famous mountain:

This would be a long day of travel. We began this day breathing the cool, mountain air beneath the Matterhorn and would spend hours in hot, dirty, frustrating trains. We left the beautiful, clean, efficient country that is Switzerland and entered a whole new world. Italy.

Interlaken

Some missionary friends in Mozambique had told me that if I went to Switzerland, I had to go to Interlaken. They described it as heaven as earth and I was sold and booked the hostels. We needed a place that was "heaven on earth" after our hellish stay in Munich. We needed to see beauty and God's hand after we had witnessed the death and destruction of Dachau and seemingly non-existent hand of God. Munich had been a bit of a let down and I was really hoping the Bowers hadn't built up Interlaken too much. I tend to build things up which typically leads to let downs. For instance, I recently introduced my team to a new burrito place and I said, "The burritos are bigger and better than Chipotle and they will change your life forever." However, the Bowers' description of this city was spot on. It was just as incredible as they described it- one of, if not THEE, most naturally beautiful places I've seen on the planet.

Our journey to Interlaken, Switzerland was laborious to say the least. It involved four different trains through the night and an overnight stay in a German train station. I stayed awake the entire time worried about getting robbed and engrossed in a book while Trent, my brother the protector, did this:

Our stay in this majestic mountain town was strikingly similar to the landscape as it was peppered with insanely incredible high moments (not a drug reference) and a low valley as Trent and I had our infamous "say 'please' fight" which involved an hour of hiking side by side in fuming silence. But I'll get to that later.

We arrived in town early in the morning having slept little (recipe for disaster for us two) but weren't cranky just yet as we surveyed the most beautiful lake I have ever seen. Here are our tired faces:

Unable to check into our hostel at this early hour, we walked through the eerily silent town and found a quiet spot without a soul in sight.

So naturally we took squatting pictures

and then found a bench.

I've often found benches to be holy spots; spots on earth where heaven dips closer and God's whispers are sweetly and softly uttered. This bench was one such place.

I imagine that for hundreds of years wanderers have stopped in this exact spot and heard His whispers as they've marveled at His creation. And so someone built a bench. Because when you find a spot like this on earth, you really must sit for awhile. I tried to nap on this bench but was unsuccessful. How could I close my eyes and enter a dreamland when I was living in the midst of one? So I read and took pictures of Trent sleeping/tanning.

When my tanning brother finally awoke, we still couldn't check in so we went exploring around this stunning lake. We climbed on rocks,

did odd poses in front of rock tunnels,

I took my infamous "flower" pictures that Trent mocked me for taking,

and we took our typical weird faces pictures.

I had never seen water this beautiful so, despite the freezing "melted snow" temperatures and numerous funny looks from local hikers, I got in and floated around,

and then tredded water with arms out of the water to try to get warm.

I've never swam in a more beautiful body of water. But I'd be lying if I didn't say I was a bit concerned about what Swiss creatures were lurking in the water.

Once we finally were able to check in, Trent did some smooth talking and got us the best room in the hostel. Not really. The girl assumed we were a couple and offered the honeymoon suite to Trent who chose not to correct her. This was by far thee coolest hostel we stayed at.

We had our own room with bunk beds and a private balcony with this view:

As the sun began to sink behind the mountains, we bought some ice cream cones and enjoyed the view from our balcony.

The town is so small that there are no stores and only one restaurant. On our way to the restaurant, we stopped to enjoyed one of thee most picturesque sunsets I've ever seen:

I don't remember why were laughing. It was most likely because we were both pretty delirious at this point. I was working on 1 hour of sleep and we were finding everything funny. I vaguely remember stopping at a public playground and playing on the jungle gym and swings but that is only a cloudy memory.

When we ate in the tiny restaurant, we stopped to pray beforehand and when we opened our eyes, a local Swiss girl sitting at the adjacent table, was gawking at us. She immediately asked us all about why we pray and what we believe. I don't remember exactly what we said except something along the lines of encouraging her to continue to search for truth. Because when you live in a place so covered in God's fingerprints, it seems His truth should be easy to find if you are sincerely searching.

We walked back to the hostel at around 9, just in time to marvel at this:

and to watch another soccer game in thee prettiest spot of all Europe's soccer-watching locations:

I had only booked one night in this tiny town because there wasn't much to do so the next morning we bought bus tickets into town, bought some Swiss hats and sat on the one bench for the one bus station in the whole town. We had missed the first bus and had to wait an hour so we killed time making faces and playing charades. Have you ever played charades with only 2 people? It's surprisingly fun unless your partner decides to mess with you and purposely not guess the right thing. I have a vague memory of acting out "Beyonce" for a good 10 minutes while Trent laughed and kept guessing wrong answers.

We were both in high spirits after our restful night in our own room and I remember having so much fun just sitting on a bench with my brother, laughing and playing charades and counting our chins.

We feared the next hostel would be a disappointment since we had just stayed in such a fantastic one, but though it was markedly different, this hostel was another one of our favorites. I was pretty jazzed to discover the "hammock room" and spent many hours reading and eating Swiss chocolate while "hanging out" in this room. The major difference in this hostel, however, was that there were no "honeymooning couples" but rather, lots of young Americans. Young, rich, drunk Americans. Maybe the worst type. They annoyed us with their stories of bungee jumping and sky diving and river rafting because we couldn't afford to do any of those. However, we found cheap alternatives that were pretty phenomenal and there was one moment when Trent feared for his life so we got the adrenaline rush as well.

Our first day we found a "ropes course" place where you can zip line through super tall trees. It was one of the most fun adventures we had in all of Europe. Trent and I knew nothing about ropes or zip lining and we got a 5 minute instruction session and then were told to have fun. This might not seem strange but we were climbing rather high and zipping rather fast through these trees to have no supervision. Plus, we're both a little too proud and when there was an option to take the easy, medium, or hard route, of course we chose the hardest one though we didn't really know what we were doing. Trent would regret this decision later.

So we slipped on our harnesses that would supposedly save our lives if we fell,

climbed some insanely high and quite wobbly ladders,

clipped ourselves onto the ropes, prayed we had paid close enough attention, and went flying through the air.

We saw maybe 4 other people the entire time we were zipping through the air and were a bit dumbfounded as to why it wasn't busier. This was one of the coolest things we had ever done. We were flying through the Swiss Alps at some crazy heights and speeds, and it was pretty much just the two of us.

I would have taken more pictures but at one point I dropped my camera which turned out to be quite durable. I wish, however, that I could have captured the moment when Trent thought he was going to die. I don't remember all the particulars but it was a section of the course where you had to take a bit of a leap of faith and if you leaped wrong, you could fall hundreds of feet. Trent leaped wrong. But he caught himself and hung precariously from a rope while I watched, secretly laughing quite hard because I didn't realize he was actually in danger. He then showed me how to leap so I wouldn't be in the same predicament and we laughed long and hard about his near-death experience. Since I don't have that picture, here is a picture of his nastified beard that was collecting lint from his gloves:

Sweating hard but laughing and smiling harder, we finished the course on an adrenaline high and walked back to our hostel. Other Americans were washing up for a night out and fine dining, but Trent and I walked to a local grocery store and bought rice, beans and tortillas. We enjoyed our cheap/delicious homemade burritos, read in the hammocks, and played some ping pong while the rest of the hostel was out on pub crawls. This was one of my favorite days in all of Europe. It was filled with laughter and beauty and adventure and chocolate.

The next day we found another alternative to expensive extreme sports and took a train to a mountain where we embarked on the most beautiful hike I've ever been on. We passed insane waterfalls in the distance

and right as we began, Trent found two giant walking sticks which came in very handy as the mountain got steeper and steeper.

And then we fought.

I don't remember all the particulars but I do remember Trent being rude and telling me I had to say "please" when I asked if he wanted to take a picture. (He was mocking me for earlier telling him to be more polite and say please) He continued to push my buttons and I continued to fume until one point we stopped to rest and I just left him and kept going. I came back about half hour later and he was sitting there smirking and we continued on. I pounded that walking stick into the ground hard and walked faster than I normally would and we basically speed walked up the mountain- me fuming, Trent smirking.

However, when we got to the top, I looked around and felt my anger dissipate. How could I be angry when I was engulfed by such beauty? Sometimes it feels good to be mad. Sometimes I don't want to let go of my anger because I'm right and have a right to be mad. But I didn't want to be mad here. It didn't feel right. My anger felt silly and foolish and completely out of place in the midst of such raw beauty; in the midst of God's so evident hand.

So I laid down my pride and we took some timer pictures. And I said, "please." Because I could not live with the regret of getting to such a marvelous place in God's creation and missing the beauty and wonder of it because of my pride and irritation. I fear I sometimes miss out on beauty and wonder in this world because I get wrapped up in my own issues. This picture is my favorite from our whole trip. It serves as a reminder to me that I am continually surrounded by God's glory and I can choose to look around and marvel at it, or I can keep my head down, pound the walking stick into the ground, furrow my brow and be upset because life doesn't always go exactly as I want it to. This picture reminds me of God's beauty, but even more, it reminds me to lay down my pride and look around.

The hike down the mountain was much more enjoyable. We laughed about our silly fight and I noticed things I hadn't noticed while I was fuming like these wild flowers:

I wonder what else in life, what other "wild flowers," I've missed because I've kept my head down and silently fumed.

When we got back to the hostel, we rested, ate some more chocolate and read in the hammock room, and then we cooked dinner for ourselves again. While the others were out drinking, we went out exploring. We were annoyed by our rowdy and entitled fellow tourists so we searched for the locals. We found them at parks and school yards playing random games that we didn't understand but we stopped to watch. We walked through their neighborhoods and fields and stumbled upon cows like these:

Indeed, Interlaken proved to meet all our expectations of "heaven on earth." God proved to be marvelous and big and creative beyond measure. It seemed odd that so many tourists didn't seem to notice Him. It was sad really to watch them experience this beautiful spot of heaven on earth and think only of beer and sky diving- like horses trotting about wearing blinders, ignorant of the wonders and truth surrounding them. However, I too fell prey to the enemy's traps. For a moment, for a long, steep and painful hike, I too wore blinders and lost sight of the beauty around me. Truthfully, it will probably happen again. I'll probably lose sight of God's hand today, or this week. I hope I realize it soon enough so I don't miss out on what He has for me, so I don't miss out on the wild flowers and the cows and the wonders I can't even imagine.