Read about Day 4 here.

Day 5 of our Eurotrip found us having a relatively late start – I think we finished breakfast at around 9 because we knew that a few of our Top Deck tour mates booked the Jungfraujoch side trip and they needed to be out of the hostel by 8:50AM. We did not want to get involved in the bathroom rush that that entailed.

A and I didn’t really have any real concrete plans for Interlaken; the Jungfraujoch experience didn’t really appeal that much to either of us and we were pretty much content with exploring on our own. We grabbed a bunch of brochures at the hostel lobby and we thought we’d try to go and see the Glacier Canyon in Grindelwald (I know, the Harry Potter nerd in me was freaking out at the name too) in the morning and book a Food and Culture tour in the afternoon.

We were supposed to go to Grindelwald with M, A and M but we took too long with picking out our packed lunch so the others went ahead without us. As we were walking to the bus stop, I realized that my camera died. I kept it plugged in all night at the USB slot in hostel in Paris the day before but for some reason, it wouldn’t power up. I tried connecting it to my power bank but no go. I was stuck with the low resolution of my phone camera in one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to, great. At the time I thought that the battery was drained because of the cold weather (it was high 16degrees and low 4 degrees Celsius while we were there) but my brother tinkered with my camera after my trip and said that it doesn’t charge up fully if it’s not plugged in to a wall socket. Weird, but it kind of made sense because it worked fine in Italy.

Anyway, our trip up to Grindelwad was pretty cool because we got to feel like legit tourists as we barely asked for directions as we got on the bus and even bought our train tickets at the self-service machine. Well, until we reached the top of Grindelwald that is because then we got really lost trying to look for the Glacier Canyon. We asked the tourist information office but she directed us to take the bus but that leaves like every thirty minutes and Google Maps kept directing us to cross what looked to be private properties in the area. After getting lost three times, I decided to give up and just go back to the nice bench with the spectacular view where we ate our packed lunch (pasta salad, apple + chocolate bars) courtesy of the tour.

We went down at around 2 after checking out some of the shops – I got my mother a watch – and made our way into town for the Food and Culture tour we booked for 45 CHF at the hostel.

We also almost got lost trying to find the meeting place because the meeting place in the brochure was the old one and we found out online that there was a new one. We took a mad dash through the town and luckily our tour mates – a couple on their honeymoon from India – called our attention and asked if we were looking for the Food tour. Our guide, a soft-spoken tall willowy woman named Bergel, arrived a few minutes after we did and our tour started.

We first visited a local cheese shop were we got to sample cheeses of different ages. I never thought I’d like blue cheese but it really tastes good with mustard. I know, that sounds like such a crazy combination but I swear it’s the best.

Afterwards we walked a couple blocks to The Funky Chocolate Club, a chocolate shop ran by two awesome women who were both really passionate about chocolate. One of the owners brought out this huge tray of chocolate and she proceeded to give us a quick lesson about the differences of each kind. We went inside the shop and saw first hand that their products really were funky.

Then we walked a couple more blocks to a wooden handicraft shop that was owned by one of the greatest wood carvers in Interlaken. When we went in, she was in the middle of carving a huge piece that was going to be a frame for a clock and I was so amazed at how precise the carving was.   All of the things on display on her shop were hand carved so I got myself a little souvenir as a keepsake.

For our last stop, we needed to ride a bus but because we got the tourist card at the hostel, all bus rides in town were free. We went to a real farm and got to see these huge cows and even got to feed them! The farm owner came out and explained to us the whole process of how cheese got made. He even took us to his cellar where he was aging these two blocks of cheese.

It was a really fun and educational tour and would highly recommend it to anybody who has an afternoon off in Interlaken. We tasted so many different things that we ended up not eating dinner that night. A and I just hung out at the hostel lobby and then made our way upstairs to prepare our stuff because the bus leaves at 7:45 the next day.

I was actually feeling kind of antsy at the whole non-social vibe I was emitting but that came to pass when our roommates – C from New Zealand, J from Australia, M from the UK and M from the states – came in and we all just chatted until midnight, trading travel stories and such. That was a pretty cool experience for an introverted person like me. Hopefully they didn’t judge us too much for being “shy”.

Stay tuned for Day 6.