Hey all, yeah I know there is enough bad news already, but I am finally awake enough to post on PTT again. Jet lag sucks. Incase you forgot, I spent two weeks in france an swizterland. Great time, met interesting people, and I will probably post some happy pictures tomorrow, if other people email me theirs as well.

Ok, story time!

It started out by leaving state college. On the way there, we were passed by a house on the highway... There is something morally wrong with this. When we got to newwark libtery airport, we checked in with suprising ease and waited to get on the plane. On the plane, we played video games and were bored. By this time we have been up 10 hours. The plane ride was about 7 hours long. It was neat to see the sunrase and sunset all in a 5 hour period. BTW, I am petrified of flying. We encountered little turbulance on the way there, luckily. When we arrived in Geneva, it was 8:00 am. We have been up 17 hours. We went to the youth hosel and found to our dismay that we were not allowed to check in untill 2:00. So, we stuff our luggage in one of their waiting rooms and go out to tour around geneva. While we were walking around, we found knife shops, watch shops, and chocolate shops. We met up with a tour guide and she took us to the reformation museum. It was... Boring. It was a good thing we had bought chocolate, cause otherwise we would have been falling off the little towers. Well, actually the little towers weren't very little. It was a spiral staircase all the way up. They had a green light and a red light for when you could go up and down it was so narrow. We have been up 20 hours. We tour around for a little bit waiting for the ability to be checked in. Finally 2:00 comes around and we get our luggage safely in our room. We hang out at the hestel and go out to eat come supper time. Some people got mcDonalds, but I went for a swedish pizza. Kinda different from american pizza (thick crust on the outside, thin on the inside to the sauce is more like a pool), but it was still kinda good. We went back to the hostel around eight. I stayed up untill nine practicing on my friends guitar, but I decided that after being up 28 hours straight, it was time for bed. I slept very well that night
The next day was very much the same as the fisrt. We went back to the reformation museum and toures around the catacombs underneath. The third day we went by united nations and visited the red cross museum. That was a litle more exiting. On the fourth day, we packed out bags early in the morning and left on a train for Taize.
For those who do not know what taize worship is, you basically sing a simple song over and over and over again so you have time to meditate on the words. No sermon, only scripture reading 3 times. At Taize, they read the scriptures in several different laguages, seeing as there are people from the whole world attending. When we got there, it was not quite what we had expected. You see, they had told us that we would be sleeping with matresses and blankets and sheets and stuff, so we did not bring any sleeping bags or blankets. I had one small sheet to cover the beds at any hostel we stayed at. This was it. No pillow, no anything. You can imagine out suprise when we got to a big blue tent with two zipper shut doors, wooden palletes on the floor, and nothing esle. We apparently missunderstood that the one family that was traving with us would get the good tent, matresses and blankets, but the group ovverall, would get aproximently squat. So, we complained a little bit, and they decided to give us one blanket, and one spleeping pad for each person. The sleeping pads were about half an inch thick. Anyway, that night, we discovered why it would have been very beneficiary for us to bring another blanket: it got down to 34 degrees farenheit. The next day we precceded to go to the blanket closet and take about 23 more blankets. We had 21 people in our group. So, life went on at taize. They served us interesting meals, and we had the forementtioned church services three times a day. You don't really realize how big a number 3600 is untill you have that many people in one room chanting the same workds over and over again. It was a truly awesome feeling. The schedule for me everyday was as follows:
7:45- Wakup Bells
8:30- morning service
9:30- Breakfast (bread, butter, and a small peice of chocolate every day)
10:00- Small groups
12:20- Midday Service
1:20- lunch
free time
3:30- Small group chores (we cleaned bathrooms...)
5:15- snack
free time
7:00- supper
8:30- Evening Service
9:30- Oyak time, silence
11:00- Lights out

You may be wondering what the oyak was. In short, it was the only real fun spot in the camp. After evening prayer, you can go there, sing songs, drink, smoke, and do many other not-so christian things :P There were kissing games, flirting, and for some reason, a bunch of Europeans sining a White Stripes song.
My small group consisted of 6 germans, 2 italians, 2 lithuanians, and two americans (my friend and I). Ironically, there were no french people in the camp to speak of. Now, We would normally discuss the days prompt, and start to play a agme to get to know eachother. I learned some good lessons in small group, and I met a coupld new friends, too. Both the lithuanians were very nice and spoke english suprisingly well. One of the italians was another very nice person. As for the germans... Well, lets just say they were a little wierd. And this will bring me to how we named people. Seeing as we were the only americans in the place, all of the people we met were from somewhere else. Many of them had weird names. So, the first time we met somone from another country, guess what their name became if we couldn't understand it?
"Hey germany, wait up!"
"It's POLAND!"
"Italy, please pass the marker"
Yeah. Other nicknames (after we had used the country already) came up from the persons adjectives.
"Where's blueberry?"
"Where's strawberry?"
"Hey Peter Pan"
"Octoberfest, go hang out with Crazy Bones" (both girls :P )
So, we rapidly bcame know as they americans who could not pronouce foreign names. However, our naming system actually spread through the camp. Anyways, in the free time during the day, there was really not much you could do. We had a frisbee and a guitar. I played guitar sometimes, my friends played guitar, sometimes people just randomly showed up and sat dow while we were playing guitar. The same applied to frisbee. Some people would just ask if they could join, and we always let them. The best day was when two german showed up, followed by a coupld more germans, then some italians who were friends of the germans, and so fourth. By the time supper came around, we had about 13 people besides our group throwing the frisbee. There was also a very veautiful and quiet lake near the monastery. I liked to go there and just lie down in the sun and sleep (it was warmer and easier to sleep in the grass then the herd 30 degree tents at night). However, even though we had blankets, by the end of the week, after sleeping in below freezing weather, we were almost all sick. Luckily, I had some prescription medicine with me and I started taking as soon as I could when we left. There wasn't much of a going away party for us, seeing as we left very early in the morning so we could make our train. Anyway, I am going to skip over the four hour train ride it took us to get to grindelwalt, and actually talk about us arriving in grindelwalt. Grindelwalt is a small village in the valley of the eiger (top of europe). Whe we first saw the alps, it was amazing. You don't realize how cool it is to see snow capped mountains untill you actually see them. Our hostel there was beautiful. When we arrived, there was a slide that was about 30 feet long and it went down the mountain. Keep in mind our hostel is on the side of a steep slope forest, so when you reached the end, you better slow down or esle you will be launched off the mountain. Why don;t they have dangerous stuff like that in america? :P Now, after we all got checked in, we went down into the town and found a nice returant. I got a large plate of sausage and french fries. So good. Keep in mind this is the first real, not prepared in mass meal I have had in a week. We went back up to the hostel and tried to sleep. Unfortunately for me, I was very sick and couldn't really sleep. Oh well. Next day, two of the group members went off the hike the Eiger trail. They were more experienced hikers than us, so the leaders let them (they were both considered youths). We decided on an easy trail headin up to a glacier. The guy at this resturant stop place thing on the mountain told us it was a simple trail. Now, what is wierd is that my mom had visited this same spot almost exactly 30 years ago. Anyway, he said the trail would take about an hour and a hlaf to go up and down. Now an hour and a half up, but the all around trip. So, we payed out three franks and started out. It seemed like a fun trail at first. When we were coming around a bend, we saw three people wearing bright red parkas, hiking backpacks, stoable tents, and the hikinh stick things. We wondered what they needed all that stuff for. After the hilke, we were sure that they were thinking "I wish I could speak english so I could wanr them." So, we continued on, and were very happy with the trail- untill we came to the first ladder. When we came around the corner and saw two logs going up at a 75 degree agle, we though that it was just two trees that had fallen over. The we realized that there were split peices of wood nailed to the. The ladder itself was about 12 feet tall. It was one of the most scary things we had ever seen. Now, it would not have been so bad if not for the fact that it had rained last night, and it was very cloudy and overcast that peticualr day. So, the ladder was very very slippery. My friend Timmy went up first, and my other friend Neil second. People said I should turn back with one of the leaders, seeing as I was so sick. I said "screw that" and went up the ladder third. We encountered about three more ladders untill the hell ladder. By this time, Timmy, Neil, Joey (other friend) and I were decently far ahead of the rest of the group. It starts to rain, and I get out my little emergency poncho. I start to worry that I am underdressed. You see, when Joel (leader) said that is was going to be an easy and relaxing hike, I simply put on two t-shirts and a hooded sweatshirt. Now, I was wishing I had put on somting more. Once the rest of the group caught up, we started up again untill we came to what we have named the hell ladder. The hell ladder is not just one ladder, but a series of six that went up contsantly for a little under 200 feet. When we started the fisrt 30 ft one, we thought we were idiotic. When we start the next one, which went up straight and curved in, we thought we had lost our minds. When we got to the fourth one we though we were going to die. When we finally got to the end one, we knew there was a god. :P Here we waited for about 20 minutes waiting for the rest of the group. During this time, we were able to observe that the path seemed to end. When joel told us to scount ahead, we found that it did not, indeed end, just go up very very sharply. We realized at this point that is any of us took a wrong step, we were dead. By now the rain was quite persitant, and we were slowly becoming soaked to the bone. Finally, after going arcross paths that you needed to hold on to a wire to get across, we reached a large platau where you could see the glacier. There were also two large chunks of ice that had a glacier stream flowing down it. We were amazed that it wasn't frozen. We spent some time up there, drank glacier water, and started back down. Out of the 19 of us who originally started out, there were only seven of us left. The rest had fallen to their DOOM!... Actually one of the mom's who had a seven year old daughter with her took a large group back when they got to the hell ladders. So, after spending a half an hour at the platau. Then we made the long trek back down. Going down the ladders was suprisingly easier than going up. Anyway, when we got back down to a souvineer shop where a bus was supposed pick us up. While there, we were talking to the lady who owned the store. The coversation went somtihng like this:
Lady- So where did you hike to?
Joel- Oh, we went up on the Jungen trail.
Lady- Oh, that is a beautiful hike. Over there, right (pointsto her front-left)
Joel- No, it is over there (points behind her to where we came from)
Lady- Oh no, the Jungen Trail is that way (points to same place)
Joel- Well, we definately just came from there (points to where we came from)
Lady- Wow! You went up there! Don't you have to be harnessed in up there?
:o
You can imagine how much the parents flipped out when they heard that one! So, after being in shock, the bus came and took us back to the hostel. There we had some of the best mashed potatoes I have ever had in my life. I slept slightly better that night. The next day, we decided to go to a lake thing higher up. There was a gondola for this one. On the way up, I managed to take a picture of where we hiked the previouse day. We figured it to about a mile high. After the 23 minute ride in the gondola, we arrived at 7600 feet. It was about 18 degrees, and me being a dumb human only had a short sleeved t-shit and a long sleeved t-shirt on. All my other shirts were wet from the previouse day. We preceeded to hike up the mountain a little bit more to around 8000 feet. Here we found many, many cows. When we got to the lake, we figured with the wind chill it was about -3 degreese farenheit. Insane. Luckily, one of my friends had though ahead and brought a turtlent jacket with him. He gave it to me. Even with that, though, I was still very cold and sick. People were saying I was quite literally turning purple. We ate lunch, and split up. Some people wanted to hike down, and some wanted to ride these scooter bike things. I chose the scooter bikes. On our way down, we went through a large pine forest where we had pine cone wars. Very fun, as it had started to go back above freezing. When we got to the scooter bikes, we were amazing at how fast they went. We started out and and within the first 30 second, Clay (joel son) crashes into a hill. All I see when I come around the corner is him walking towards his scooter bike which is just laying on a hill 10 feet away from him. So, I thought we had had the only major wipeout of the trip, and I was proved wrong shortly after. I am riding my breaks down a hill when I hear clay shout "coming up on your left" and he zooms by me at about 36 mph wooing and shouting in glee... Untill he runs off the road. After this, he scream, jumps off his bike which preceeds to somhow get 10 feet in the air and flip over twice before rolling 40 feet away from clay who landed in a large mud puddle. I reclaimed my spot as second, timmy in the lead. Then I hear one of my friends saying wait up, so I do. Timmy preceeds to fly ahead of us, while me staying slightly slower for my friends. By the time we got back down, timmy had been there half an hour and Jake (slower one) starts blaming me for going so slow. Oh well. We went back up to the hostel and had our last dinner there. It was kinda sad, but we were all ready to go home. The next day we went back to geneva where we caught out plane home. Now, we had survived two plane rides, a week of sleeping in freezinf weather, climbing the alps, but when our carhit a curb pulling out of the gas station 2 hours from home, the car broke down. Damn. So, after some clever people swithcing in cars, we were on our way back home with me sitting on a makeshift seat of pillows and luggage. But, we got home just fine and quickly went to sleep. The end.

Now, pictures!

This is the lake at Taize. Very peacful and quiet.

In this picture you can see the meals we got. From the left- Neil, Joey, Clay (standing) and Timmy.

This is timmy jumping over chad to catch a frisbee

This is about a quarter of the people coming from the church after prayer for lunch.

This is the veiw out my window every morning from Grindelwalt

A neato water fall from the warmer part of the second day's hike.

Ok, here you can see where we hiked to the fisrt day. You see a small cloud in the center and a kinda crevase in the mountains? Well, if you go up from that, you will see two little white dots. Those were the two massive chunks oice that the stram was coming from. That is aproximently at 5800 feet.

And this is from the plane leaving Geneva. You can see a massive fountain on the lefthand side of Lake Gene`ve. That thing was over 150 feet tall.

And that is my trip. I will try to get more pictures up and maybe even one of me...
Don't get your hopes up, though. :P

"Life is what you make it, nothing else."
Brother Rodger, Taize founder

Last edited: Saturday, September 09, 2006 at 11:23:02 AM

Welcome back d00d! :)

WB PGG! We sure miss your Rudeness..LOL XD
jk ;)

Last edited: Friday, September 08, 2006 at 12:14:11 AM

Who's "proud_gaminggeek"

Are you new?
Wecome to Planetthinktanks!! Hope to see you in game!!!

XD
Welcome back, did they talk wierd?

-Ice

Don't you have homework to do???

So you didn't come across any suicide-terrorist-kidnapper-muggers then?

Hi PGG hope you enjoyed your holiday

PGG get to work!! XD

^^^ Actually, we had a close encounter with a picpocketer and our room at the hostel got robbed, so yes. No terrorists, though,

^I did more work that you did and I didn't even have a computer :P

Hey PGG, hows red strike going?

They were terrorist pickpocketers...

^ actually, they came up behind my friend, started rubbing their leg against his, and walked away. Luckily he checked his pocket and found his camera was missing, asked the guys if they took his camera, and they pulled it out like it was a joke. As for our room being robbed, they guy could have taken all of our passports, three digital camera, and over $500 worth of swiss franks and euros, but only stole 75 franks from my friend, 10 usd from another, some of my presciption medicine, ADHD pills from another the 75 friend, some of my alegra d (?) and a pack of gum... We were very lucky. Still, swedish gum is good, man.

Some pictures and a story will be up later tonight. The idiots at the development shop only gave me one of the cd's instead of both, so there is only the second week present in da pictures. I will have to bug some of my friends for more photos.

@ titan- You know where to find the site link... Your not banned :P

Pitcures have been added and the full story of the week for whoever feels like reading it.