Medical Day

Nowhere soft to land.

Well, we try to keep this blog fun and non-negative, but it seems this trip just doesn’t want to cooperate.  We got up and headed down to breakfast, and then back up to the room to pack up for the day.  I (Bill) went out onto the “patio/fridge” to get our chilled water bottles.  Well, they were in an awkward spot to reach from the room, so I decided to move them to the other side, which meant going down the step.  It was a wood step, smooth, and sloped a bit to not pool water, and cleverly hid any trace of the ice evenly applied to the top.  One step and I went right down, landing on my back on a hard corner near the step.  It was NOT fun.  It took me a few minutes to even get back up as it hurt so much, but I presumed it was mostly a soft tissue injury, and tried to suck it up and move on.

Beginning our Alpine trek.

We headed to the train station to buy our tickets, and headed up to Jungfraujoch, the highest point in Europe.  The train ride was nice enough, albeit painful.  Theresa kept wanting to turn back, but between stubbornness and machismo, I was not going to let that happen.  We got to the first point where we needed to change over, and while waiting for the train, took a restroom break.  And then I had an aggressive cough and it felt like something popped in my back, and the pain went up an order of magnitude!!  This was not going to be a fun day. 

Today

Yesteryear

Lots of Christmas stuff still up.

But we trudged on, and made it to the high point.  The Cog train that pulled us up the hill was mostly in a tunnel the whole way, so not much of a view.  But once we made it to the top, It was a great view!  We made the most of it.  There was an overlook (both inside and outside), but one side (of the outside) was closed due to “falling icicles”.  There was also an “ice palace”, where they carved out tunnels and rooms inside the glacier.  They even had lots of ice art.  Finally, there was also a “glacier plateau”, where you could walk out onto the glacier and get some more great views.  I gingerly headed out and made my way across the snow.  I even grabbed a clump of snow (ball) and hurled it (carefully) over the edge.

Not all of the views were ... workable!

Mt. Monch (?)

The Alps!

Falling ice!

Looking down on Interlaken.

Jungfrau:  The highest point in Europe!

The Ice Palace...and made me think of Rush's song "Xanadu"!

"Cool" music!

Left over from "Ice Age"?

Narrow halls in some places!

Out on the Glacial Plateau

An observatory.

Panorama of the Glacial Plateau.

The Aletsch Glacier from the top.

Heading out!

At that point, we headed back down in the direction of Grindelwald, a quaint little town (we’re led to believe).  The route was a gondola with more views.  But by this point, Bill wasn’t having much fun, and neither was Theresa.  So, we decided we would go find a medical clinic when we got back to Interlaken.  A few trains later, we made it, and found the “walk in clinic”.  It was on the second floor.  (Walk in?  or Walk Up?)  Anyway, after 30-45 minutes, we saw the doctor, and he started examining me.  After isolating the spot, he got some jelly and started doing an ultrasound to see if my bone was broken.  That was weird!!  But apparently intriguing to everyone who could see (namely the doc and Theresa).  Bill could not turn around to see it.  After satisfying himself that nothing was too bad, he told us:  “If it was broken, I would just prescribe pain medication.  If it isn’t broken, I will just prescribe pain medication.  So, there isn’t much point in doing an X-ray, unless it looked like there was organ damage.”  Thus, he saved us the expense of an X-ray.  It sucks to try medical care while traveling, and certainly in other countries, but all told, this could have been much worse.  So, we’re trying to be upbeat.  But, tomorrow is ”moving day”, so we’ll see how that works out!

Theresa's favorite part of the journey!

Anyway, out of the clinic, we found a place to eat (which was not much better than McD, but certainly 2x as much!), and had a quick dinner before heading back to call it a day.