The van pulled in to pick us up right at 9, and took us to the landing field where we waited for the 8:00 tour to land. It was cool to see the first two land so we knew what to do, what to expect, and to make sure our guides weren't incompetent. They loaded up the gliders (which he told me they ordered special from the company because they were easy to disassemble... to which I replied 'oh, glad to see safety isn't the top concern...') and we drove up the mountain that shadows the city. The driver stopped a little ways up the mountain and said, 'here we are, unless you want to go higher...' which, of course, we did! So we went about 3 times as far up the mountain, all the way to the top (this wasn't one of the snow capped ones, but we were still at 3200 meters).

Once at the top we put on our butchers' aprons to protect us during the landing, where we'd be sliding across the ground on our bellies until we stopped. Then we took some pictures and had a brief safety lesson, practiced our running start, and then got strapped into the glider. We each had a professional operator with us--mine was from Colorado and Jeff's was from Austrailia. I was instructed NOT to touch anything, just to enjoy the ride.

Once hooked in we lined up down the slope, and after about 5 steps we were airborne. We soared out over the valley and town, down over some golfers, then swirled up like hawks on a pocket of hot air. It wasn't chilly or anything, just a little breezy, and I was able to talk to the guide and hear him no problem. We saw two hawks locked in a midair battle. We did some dips and dives for a while then headed back to earth. The ride lasted about 20 minutes and was well worth it. We bought a disc of pictures from our ride, which I'll post when I get the chance (as you can see I haven't been the best about keeping up to date :S sorry!)

The trip cost about 100$ more than our bartender had told us it was going to so I wasn't too happy about that, but what can you do? It was well worth it for sure!

After that we rented mopeds; it only took about 10 minutes on the moped to cheer me up! We seriously put about 80 miles on those things in 3 hrs, driving up one valley until the road ran out at the base of Jungfrau, the tallest mountain in Europe. That valley had sheer cliffs on either side, with snow-melt waterfalls cascading down every half mile or so. We only slowed down to take pictures or to wait for a farmer to get his cattle off the road-- he walked them straight through town, luckily we had no place to be but there!

Actually I take that back, we did slow down two other times. The first was when my moped decided to max out at 30 mph, then drop down to 25, then 20. Not sure what was going on there, but pretty soon it decided to jump back up to 45 and we were off again. The second was when Jeff decided to take a closer look at the pavement as we went around a round-about. I was fortunate enough to hear the brakes squeal and turn just in time to see him lay the scooter down. He was fortunate enough to do it where there were no cars! No lasting injurys, and no noticeable damage to the moped either.

We returned the mopeds and took a siesta!! We had met some other backpackers from Canada and Michigan at the hostel, so we ate with them in the kitchen (where I cooked up a mean plate of pasta) and then went on a night hike up the little mountain again. There was a play or something going on at an ampitheatre tucked into the hillside... we found that out when 10 horses came galloping at us out of no where, scaring all of us half to death. This time we went a different way and circled the mountain counterclockwise. We sat at a bench at the top for a while telling ghost stories before heading back to the hostel about midnight.