Day 13 - Chamonix

So it's been awhile, so here's a little taste of what's been going on:



Thursday night, we slept out on the beach of Cinque Terre until we got kicked off by some Italian police around 7:30am. We headed right for the train station to begin our journey towards Riley's aunt's place. We waited in Cinque Terre for about an hour for our train, and that train broke down about twenty minutes into the ride, so we transferred to a different train that kept stopping and got us in to our first layover about twenty minutes late. All of our tranfers were really tight, so we thought we had missed our next train, but it was delayed thirty minutes, so we made that one. The train after that one pulled out as we got in, so we were a little screwed by Italian trains. Then we took a roundabout route hopping all over different trains until 11pm when Casey, Riley's aunt picked us up for an hour car ride to their place.



We got in late, so we couldn't see the mountains that Riley had so fondly mentioned so the view would wait. We went to sleep almost immediately, and woke up to a view better than Riley had even remembered since his last visit. His aunt's house is a good ways up on one of the many mountains that surround Chamonix, and there is an incredible view of the other mountains from so high up. None of us could get over the sight; we often found ourselves zoning out in amazement. We had some breakfast and just hung out around the house; it has been so nice to be in a place where we can just be after being on the go so much for almost two weeks straight. Casey and Sersh's fourteen year old daughter, Annie plays the piano, so Riley and I fooled around on it for awhile as others napped and sat outside taking in the view. Then we had some lunch and went into town to watch some of Annie's tennis lesson and go exploring through the town a little. In the one part of town, there were a bunch of board gmes set up (including blockis) so we hung out there for awhile and then headed back for dinner. After dinner, we went back in to town to experience the night life a little, but we tunred in rather early because we had plans to go hiking in the morning today.

Sure enough, we woke up early to get to hiking with Casey, Annie, a girl from the states named Alex, and a woman named Karen from New Zealand. I wish I could tell you which of the mountains or trails we went on, but I have no idea. I can't explain the views or the trails well enough to do it justice, but I will say (again - but it is true) that it was the most beautiful view I have ever seen. After about an hour or two of hiking, we had some lunch and then us guys separated from the group and summited a peak off the trail. I haven't ever done any real climbing aside from a couple of walls in gym class, so this was tough for me. I wasn't quite sure what I was doing, and I got tired really quickly because the air was so thin. But, with ecouragement and guidance from my brothers, I made it - and I only thought I was going to die once, not bad. We took a different path down that was covered in snow - all the snow up there boggles my mind, it was easily 80°F up there - and it was pretty steep, so we fake skied all the way down. It was so much fun; we would run down the mountain until we got enough speed, and then jump into the snow and ski with our feet. We later caught up with the rest of our group by this lake. Mike found a little cliff we could jump off of, so he and Riley jumped in first, and then Buck and I followed suit. The cliff was nothing compared to what we have seen so far on this trip, but the catch was that the lake was freezing - literally. There was still plenty of snow in the lake, and I would say the water wasn't much above freezing, if that. We had to swim about twenty feet to shore; it was the fastest we have ever swam for sure. It was so cold that my jaw froze up and I couln't talk for a couple minutes - kinda funny. After the polar bear training, we headed back down a different trail and had a victory beer at a restaurant at the bottom. All in all, we were on the mountain for about six or seven hours - quite a hike.

Now we're all showering up and napping and preparing for dinner. A good calm time after today's excursion. Tomorrow, we head out for Switzerland and after that, Munster to visit another contact of Riley's.

It has been so nice to be in a house again, to get laundry done (Casey was kind enough to do ALL of ours), have meals prepared for us, and hang out with Riley's family. Chamonix is also such a cool town; it seems that everyone participates in some extreme sport, and most everyone who has moved here did it for skiing. One of the best stops by far. But I guess they all are. Europe is awesome!