bungee, bastille, and back!

OK, lets get the bad part out first (well, at least for our moms). Our lovely hostel provided reservations for some fun adventurous things, paragliding, skydiving, cannyoning (really wish we had time for this), a big swing, hiking, ice climbing, but we wanted to stay low key, so we chose the bungee jump, but not the 'small' 260 ft jump, but the 440 ft one...out of a gondola...surrounded by huge snow capped peaks...over a lake!!!!!! whoo, the jump was AMAZING! our brains could only partially comprehend what was going on, but the cloud of adrenaline as we jumped out was unreal. falling so rediculoiusly fast towards the water from so so high does things to you, and for jen it the whip when the bungee caught helped crack and lengthen her spine, very refreshing. much scarier than skydiving. i have never seen jen so nervous until we got to the final gondola, but it was a blessing because making stupid jokes to calm her nerves helped calm mine also. and holy crap i was nervous, the worst part being when they were hooking me up in the gondola, realizing that i was actually going to do this stupid stupid thing. hahaha. just to show how nervous we were, everyone got a free beer when they picked us up and we couldnt even finish them. the CRAZY out of control driver up the twisty mountain roads didnt help much either. overall it was an incredible time, especially for the chiropractic benefits.

earlier that day we (Jen) dragged ourselves out of bed and hit up our last 'long' run in Europe, only about 6.5 miles, but i (scott) could feel the altitude a bit (3000ft, its scary coming back here to 5500ft!). We then took advantage of our eurail pass and skipped off to Brienz (not really sure how to spell it), another small town nestled between a huge lake, and bigger mountain peaks. we only had a couple hours there, but had a nice time walking along the lake, making a peanut butter/nutella (we ate SO much nutella) sandwich, and throwing rocks at ducks (mostly scott).

the switzerland bungee (see above)

then we headed to Bern, our last stop in Switzerland. We arrived late to a swealtering and stinky little hostel room (we think our next trip, having duel incomes we will opt for private rooms). Then next morning we roamed around Bern, a fun smaller town (120k) and the capital, walked past Einstein's house where he lived for a couple years and onto the rose gardens which smelled wonderful, and even got to see another kitty! (I think we saw a cat in every country except canada (we didnt leave the airport) and England, but the multitudes in Croatia and Italy made up for it!).

That afternoon we hopped on our last train ride to PARIS! Tres Bien!!! another time to use our french, well, jen used her french, while all i said was 'pardon' and 'excusez moi'. fun though. Our hostel was in a bit of a sketchy area of town, but paris is paris, and it was awesome! we found a nice kebab place across the street and hit that up, oh, so delicious! we poured a bottle of wine into our nalgene water bottle and headed to the metro to go to the effel tower to watch the fireworks for bastille day (their independence day). I'm not sure i have ever been in a crowd that big except maybe for new years eve in new york, it was insane, i was SO glad i wasent driving a car because pedestrians (me included) totally took over the roads, swarms and swarms of people were everywhere along with many cops and baracades. the fire works were good and the lit up effel tower was really cool, but as much as we loved paris and being there, we both began missing America during the show. especially watching the fireworks show on the 4th of July with our friends at Coors Field...sniff. Anyway, the walk home was even more crazy, with people seeming to materialize out of no where, we walked for about an hour to another metro station with a smaller crowd and still had to shove our way onto a subway car! but we made it back to our hostel and hit the sack at about 1, preparing to get up at 7 for our 24 hours of travel back home.

the plane rides were fine, and we are in love with air canada and want to date it. they have the coolest touch screen movie/tv shows things, and pretty good meals! We had a 6 hour layover in toronto, which we spent looking at magazines (runners world and michael jackson tributes) making a final pb/nutella bread roll, sleeping for about 15 minutes, and reminiscing about our trip. our final ride to denver was a blur, as was the ride from our friend pete, seeing their new awesome house, and driving up to loveland with a wife who was struggling to keep from drifting in and out of sleep, but i could count on every couple minutes some singing from her and a well needed poke or two :-) By that time we had been awake for about 24 hours! good!

What a great trip, thanks so much for all the comments, they made us laugh and miss you all the more!

Things we loved about europe:
- train travel
- cool archatecture EVERYWHERE
- lack of strip malls
- great, and sometimes crazy foods
- tons of history, like WAY old history, not like 200-300 years, 1000-3000 years old!
- meeting new friends, especially cruse buddies!
- nutella being everywhere
- great beers
- beautiful scenery
- new cultures
- speaking french and other languages
- seeing family while we were there!
- public transportation
- bungee jumping (sorry mom)
- stuff within walking distance
- cruise ships, everything about them!
- store brand beer (like kroger, ha!)
- paying with a credit card at your table in restaurants
- chocolate and wine

Things we missed about the US:
- grocery stores being open late
- nutella not being everywhere (scott may have eaten too much, i think we went through 3 jars while we were there!)
- air conditioning
- big beds
- cookie dough
- free bathrooms and water fountains!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- having a bit more room
- nail clippers
- our family and friends