Day 39 - Fly like an eagle...

Rememeber when we were in Hallstatt I said that I was going to paraglide in the Swiss Alps? Well, I believe I said WE were going to paraglide...I DID IT!!! Yes, just me. I think it was a bit too expensive for Mark to thouroghly enjoy it...he's going to wait for a friend to buy into the company and then do it for free. He missed out!!!! Has anyone out there ever done it? What an amazing feeling to literally RUN off a mountain and the next this you realize, you're flying over the trees and mountains! Incredible, exhilerating, relaxing, and fun. What a way to enjoy the Alps. My guide, Ben, was right behind me (we flew tandem). We were the 2nd to leave the mountain and the last to land. It took 21 minutes top to bottom. Mark greeted me with a kiss at the bottom. I tried to take pictures, but after looking at them, the camera didn't do the flight justice. I recommend it for anyone.
Next, we headed out to Gimmelwald...this great little village way up in the Alps. but beofre we left we hit up a grocery store becuase this place had a fulle furnished kitchen for us to use! With our bags and 3 bags of groceries for three days we took a train, a bus, and then finished it off with a cable ride up to Gimmelwald. We walked 100 feet off of the cable car and literally ended up right in front of our hostel! This hostel is awesome... It was a first class hostel, no roughing it hear. Nice beds, clean place, great bathrooms, hot tub over looking the alps... please, need i say more. All this for about 17 dollars a night! We dropped off our stuff and explored the town of Gimmelwald. Did some hiking around and as usual my ears were tuned for cow bells. Not much longer we ran into some, ahhhh i love that smell and sound. We ran into a hotel owner and got some tips on maybe where we could get our hands on some big, fat, smelly utters!!!! Yeah baby. We also checked out the place we wanted to stay at, the cow barn, well we are glad they didn't have room. Still stunk and a TONNNNN of flies. Cool place though. We headed back ate dinner, met some people and of course played chess. The evening will probably end in the hot tub. Man this roughing it is not for everyone. Riiiiiiiiiiiicoooooooooola. I just want to shout it from the mountain tops.