July 12th-July 17th: Interlaken, Nice

Sweet, sweet Interlaken

I have never spent so much in four days but it was worth every penny…I mean Euro. Wait…I mean Swiss Francs.

So here’s the deal with Interlaken.

It’s not really a place.

It’s a beautiful area where very few people actually live.

It generally consists of upscale fast food restaurants, hotels, cowshit, and EXCURSIONS!

I don’t know if excursions is the right word but it sounds sexy and exotic so go with me.

The second I got there I was overwhelmed with all the things you could sign up for:

White Water Rafting

Canyoning

Ropes Course

Bungee Jumping

Paragliding

Skydiving

Walking on Hot Coals While Holding Weights While People Throw Rocks At Your Crotch

All excursions were generally crazy, terrifying, and not what were evolved to do in any way, shape or form. (just accept my last point, I know it makes no sense)

Now if you ask anyone from my lower/middle school (NORWOOD!) who did overnight field trips with me, I was pretty badass. Back then, when my peers referred to “Extreme Sports”, they would call them “Gianmarco’s Typical Recess Activities”

LOL!

…

…

For real though. I’ve always been generally cowardly when it has come to anything involving my body, which is another way of saying everything.

But I look back fondly on those Middle School trips where I went into a cave (and cried because I felt claustrophobic), went white water rafting (and cried because the instructor called me “incredibly lazy”), and zip lined (where I cried…you get the idea)

Despite the tears, they were all incredible experiences and created for a special, desperate bonding with my otherwise hostile classmates.

(For some reason, as people get older, gradually loathing each other more and more, these intense group activities are abandoned…)

So I wanted to push myself. I’m nearing the end of my trip and if I’m not going to get cast in Downton Abbey, I would like to have a nice little cap to my travels.

So I pushed myself.

I signed up for Paragliding and Intermediate Canyoning.

Paragliding was glorious.

It was the least frightening and thus a good way to start.

Basically, the parachute picks you up before you leap off the cliff.

You are sitting very comfortably and it eventually feels like sitting in an airplane without the whole airplane part. Aside from the dread you feel before departure, it is a peaceful experience.

Canyoning-not so peaceful.

First, I repelled 50 Meters (I think…it might be km, cm, or liters)…

That’s basically strapping yourself to a rope, standing on the edge of a cliff…and then leaning backward.

Overall, including my last excursion, this was one of the scariest things I did.

After that there were a series of leaping into freezing water that left you speechless.

An improvised zipline where you had to let go at the right time…or you would fall into a pit of rocks.

And finally a series of oddly perfect slides made of rock.

It was glorious.

Fortunately and Unfortunately, I went with a group of 13-year-old boyscouts so I had to man-up (or woman-up or ze-up, whatever)

I finished tear free.

So I got back to the Hostel and I said

Fuck it, I’m such a badass, I’m going to sign up for sky diving tomorrow.

If I wimp out-too fucking bad, Gianmarco, you already signed up.

So I did.

About an hour later I was a mess. A disastrous, disgusting, dreary mess.

(Uh-Lit-Er-A-Shun!)

What the fuck was I thinking? I watched videos online and it looked crazy.

I looked up the death rate for skydiving in general and in Switzerland (There was 1 in 2011)

I googled “Is it safe to skydive” on several occasions generally getting the same reply

“Uh…no. You are jumping out of a plane dumbass. But it’s no more dangerous than driving!”

I KNOW! THAT’S WHY I DON’T DRIVE!

I decided to put on my FCBK status that I was going to go skydiving. Nothing motivates me more than extremely general peer pressure. I asked all the people in the hostel, “Should I go?? Did you like it?!”

I didn’t tell them I had already paid for it.

Everyone said yes, of course.

Good. On one hand I had my life and the other approval from strangers. I would have to go.

Then I watched another skydiving video.

Nope. I can’t do this.

It didn’t matter that I went canyoning and paragliding. There is no ‘building up’ to sky diving.

YOU ARE JUMPING OUT OF A PLANE.

But I have to go! To be a better Actor!

Yeah, and if you die how are you going to be on Downton Abbey? Or season 6 of the Wire? Hm?

Poor Leah got the brunt of this indecisive nightmare.

In our two-hour Skype session we went through this general cycle:

Leah: You don’t have to go.

Gianmarco: What! How can you say that-I have to go.

Leah: Okay. You’re right. Go. You’re going to love it.

Gianmarco: HOW DARE YOU PUT THAT PRESSURE ON ME! THIS IS MY LIFE WE’RE TALKING ABOUT!

Leah: It’s really okay if you don’t go, Gianmarco.

Gianmarco: You are really something. I want to do this. I need encouragement not this absurd babying…

Leah: I don’t know what to say.

Gianmarco: Fine, just don’t care. Whatever.

Leah: Just do it!

Gianmarco: DO YOU EVEN CARE IF I DIE!?!

(reapeat ad infinitum)

I ultimately decided I wasn’t going to go.

I called my Dad and apologized (he was footing the bill…for this whole trip <3) for wasting his money. He was very kind and forgiving.

I was going to try to get someone to take my place.

I even found an American girl who said she would use my ticket the next day. She would see what she could afford and give me some of the money back, I’d replace my name with hers on the ticket (that’s allowed somehow) and it wouldn’t be a complete bust.

That night I couldn’t sleep.

I had somehow transferred all the ‘pressure to make the most of this trip’ and ‘every existential crisis I have had since watching Final Destination in the 7^th grade’ onto this one event.

I woke up at 7 the next morning. I had til 1150 to decide.

Another Skype session with Leah

(seriously, if you’re in the LA area, take her out to dinner or something)

Basically the exact same thing.

I wasn’t going to go and that didn’t make me any less of a man.

And then they came.

And I was like, gross, clean that mess up!

LOL!

But really. The bus came for the skydiving.

I went.

Oh My God.

I tried to force my mind into some kind of careless, semi-suicidal place. I didn’t see any other way I was going to get through this. I listened to Coldplay’s “Death and All His Friends” Full Volume 3 times in a row.

I knew once I got on that bus that I would have to do this thing. 

Fortunately, the skydiving people weren’t having any of my bullshit.

On the contrary, they made a series of ‘you’re going to die very shortly’ jokes, which have never been my cup of tea.

The guy who I was tandem jumping with, Dave, had been on about 7,500 jumps in his lifetime and looked and acted exactly like the lead from “The Transporter”.

We boarded the plane. This was truly the most frightening 10-minutes of my life. This plane was tiny, crammed with about 9 people and a good chunk of it was a plastic sheet that could be raised once we were in the sky.

We got up to a nauseating height. Dave told me we were 1,000 Meters high.

Oh, that’s nice. How high are we going?

10,000 meters.

…

Dave began to strap me in. I was going first. The crew started calling me “The Crash-Test Dummy”. I could no longer think. 

I asked Dave if he had any children. A girlfriend, perhaps?

He responded, “No…no one really. I have nothing to live for…and I’ve been feeling a little bit depressed recently. Thinking of ending it all”

At this point, this high in the sky, with no turning back (you can’t change your mind once in the plane. There is not enough space for others to maneuver around you), I began to go crazy in a wonderful way. I took Kierkeggard’s “Somersault of Faith”, at least for this moment. I was certain I would be fine.

They opened the door. The cold air rushed in.

“Shit, it’s starting to rain,” someone said.

“Is that bad?” I replied.

“Yup,” someone said.

“Wooo!” I exclaimed. I was no longer I.

I scooted to the edge. My legs hanging over the edge, my body tightly strapped to Dave’s, and with my head arched backwards as much as possible.

I was very lucky because the plane, upon my departure, was inside of a giant cloud.

Looking out, I could see nothing but white, voluminous cloud. A beautiful, billowing sea of pure white fluff.

If modern science hadn’t violently extricated the traditional view of heaven out of my poor little heart, this was what I would have thought heaven looked like.

It was heaven.

It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.

We rocked forward, rocked back, and went out.

I free-fell for 50 seconds. About 2,000 Meters.

People say that Interlaken is the number one place to skydive because the Alps are so gorgeous.

I don’t remember seeing anything.

Just:

WOOOO! HOLY SHIT! AHAHHHH! WHAT THE FUCK AM I DOING! WWWOOOO!

While at the same time trying to breathe, which was exceedingly difficult.

Because it was raining I got the rare opportunity of doing the opposite of “Raindrops Are Falling On My Head”.

(I was falling on the raindrops.

(in case you couldn’t figure that one out))

After that, Dave pulled the parachute and slowly glided down the remaining 8,000 Meters. I couldn’t have been happier.

If there were any tears this time, they were tears of joy. Or raindrops.

So yeah.

I fucking did it.

Thinking about it, I’m just as frightened as I was before.

I don’t know if those fears will ever go away (maybe they shouldn’t) but by occasionally conquering them I will build a body of evidence against them so they are slightly in my control.

I would totally go sky diving again.

So yeah^2.

Anything else that happened in Interlaken pales in comparison so I’ll close on that.

Except…

Later that day I went to the train station to book my ticket to Nice, France.

I was told it was high season and there was nothing available. Nothing. Like. At all.

Well, there was but it was a 10-hour multi-switching route that I had to book immediately. No choice.

I better book my other tickets now!

I tried to book my ticket to Barcelona, Madrid, Granada, and Lisbon.

Nuh. Thing. Nothing. Nothing. Not a single thing. No night trains, no 6AM trains. Nothing.

So I’m probably gonna skip Granada. I bought some plane tickets. Life’s a bitch.

BUT I WENT SKYDIVING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!      

Now I’m in Nice.

Just watched Vicki Christina Barcelona.

I have some ridiculous expectations for Barcelona now.

Wish me luck,

Thank you for reading,

I don’t even care if you care because for one of the few times in my life, I’m proud of myself!

Love,

Gianmarco 

(I'm going scuba diving in Nice today)

(I finally got a new bag. The old one was making me look like Richard III)

(LOL!)

(Anna Karinininina is wonderful)