Day 6: RIIIIIIICOOOOOOLAAAAAAA!

Today was the Swiss National Day! On this day, August 1, is when Switzerland declared its independence in 1291. Although we didn't celebrate many festivities, we did do other things.

The tour group went up to the Swiss village of Murren, a town high in the Alps. From there, we got an impressive view of the valley below. We even saw some paragliders. As fun as it looks, I'd stay away from stuff like that after seeing that gravestone last night. Since we had nothing better to do, we bought our own lunches, simple sandwiches from a grocery store, even though I would've rather had something from a restaurant. At least we got to try good chocolate.

While the men went on this big hike up to a mountain called the Schlithorn, the rest of us went on a gentler hike to a waterfall, and Matthias joined us. It still was a hike though, with lots of ups and downs as well as a bumpy dirt path. I was getting tired a lot of times. I even took my shirt off because of how sweaty I was getting. Luckily, the waterfall was worth it. I even got to shout "Ricola" off of the mountain while yodeling, both of which Switzerland has gotten attention for. We went down to Gimmelwald and took a gondola down the mountain, and we were lucky. The other group got down too late and had to walk all the way back to Lauterbrunnen.

We were supposed to watch fireworks against the waterfall, but we didn't. Apparently, Switzerland is in a drought (even though it's still very green) and the government didn't want to risk wildfires. The worst part is that Mark and Curtis got us all balcony rooms just so we could watch it. That was disappointing. We did have alp horns playing in the middle of the night, so that was something. Unfortunately, we couldn't hear it because it was from another village.