Snow, a sunburn, frozen fingers and wearing my summer dress; all in one weekend

Switzerland is a beautiful country. After last weekend I realize what a pity it actually is that we don’t have any mountains in Holland, no breathtaking views when you look down into the valley, and no temperature differences of 20 degrees within just one country. This weekend I was walking in the sun, and just a couple of kilometers later I was standing with my feet in the snow.

My amazing weekend already started on Thursday evening. After a 30min delay (of course, Easyjet has a reputation to keep…) my brother and dad arrived here in Geneva. So good to see them again! We got our rented car, drove to Carouge – they were staying at a B&B really close by my place – and had a nice dinner at night.

Without seeing a single thing of Geneva itself, we started driving South on Friday morning. Destination: somewhere in Italy. We drove through the Mont Blanc tunnel, we had our traditional ‘Kinder Surprise Ei’ during our road trip, and we enjoyed the radio that slowly changed in more and more Italian channels. “...Bon giorno..!”

Around 3 ‘o clock we arrived in Baveno, a small town laying along Lago Maggiore; a lake next to Como. But while Como is really known and touristy, lake Maggiore is more ‘Italian’ and peaceful. We found a Résidence for the night and had a nice dinner at night along the lake.

The next day we went ‘island hopping’. Lago Maggiore has three islands lying in the middle, which you can all visit by boat. Every island was different, but all very beautiful and the water was nice to swim in!

Isola Madre

Isola Superiore


Isola Bella

After all the hopping we hopped back into the car and drove to Locarno. A small city, still along lake Maggiore but already passed the Italian/Swiss border again. After a nice dinner I tried to go out with my bro, but unfortunately the Swiss are not really into dancing on Saturday night. So we ended up having fun in our blue elevator :)

The next day we decided to conquer the mountains again, and we thus drove back to the other side of the Alps. What a beautiful trip… Ok, we were all nauseous at the end of the road because of all the hairpin bends, but the amazing views made me forget that I actually felt like puking.

Ah, and we can tell America that they can stop their search. We have found them on our way through the mountains: we know where they are hiding! :)

After a nice schnitzel in a bar with a 10kg cat and a typical Swiss grandma, we arrived in Interlaken. A very touristic town in between two lakes in the middle of Switzerland. Every house in this town is either a kitschy Swiss building with too much fake blingbling, or a school for adventures sports. Really everything is possible in Interlaken; Ice climbing, bungee jumping, and... rafting. And that's what I decided to do the next day together with my brother :)

Monday morning 12 'o clock, together with 50 American kids we were sitting on benches, listening to the first instructions. 'When you fall out of the boat, immediately put your feet up because otherwise you can get stuck behind a rock and you will drown.' 'Some parts of the river are pretty heavy, and the law forbids us to take kids with us here who are under 16.' 'The water is coming from a gletsjer that is just 20 minutes away from where we start. The water is therefore pretty cold so it's better not to fall out...' It all sounded pretty heavy... But we just decided to jump in, to try to remember as many signals as possible, and just to go with the flow of the river...






And DAMN it was cool (in both ways)! My bro and I were sitting in the front part of the boat, being the ones responsible for the rest of the group... Trying to peddle synchronized, deciding the tempo, etc. etc. My hands were freezing, I couldn't feel my fingers for a while, but wow o wow o wow this was - I think together with the paragliding - one of the coolest things I have ever done. The river was sometimes SO strong and powerful, but our cool guide 'Carlos' from Porto Rico gave us the right instructions so that we were the first boat arriving back at the lake. And for once I couldn't agree more with the way the Americans were expressing their feelings: 'OH MY GOD! That was SO amaaaazing!'

After the rafting it was mainly my dad driving back direction Geneva cause my bro and I simply couldn't keep our eyes open after all the work we did :) We drove back via Montreux, we had dinner in Lausanne and around 11 we were back in Geneva.


The next day I had to work at WHO while my bro and dad were exploring Geneva, but at night we had a nice last evening in a Swiss restaurant and after we had some drinks in a wine cafe (but we drank everything except wine :)).

And this afternoon they flew back to Holland so I'm the only Kuipers now left here in Geneva... But this Kuipers will also get on a plane quiet soon - this coming Friday - because I will fly to Belgium for a weekend where I will hopefully see my new apartment!

xY