a belgian, a dane and a redneck in the swiss alps

well i finally made it to the swiss alps after nearly missing my flight by going to the wrong airport (what's new). It's beautiful here, and what makes it pretty amazing is not only the landscape but the newly appointed UNESCO world heritage route to get here. the views from the train are no less than commanding (but don't expect to see heidi).

a select group of international journalists went up to Savognin, a small village of 1,000 but brimming with outdoor enthusiasts who like to hike, bike and garden. yep, garden.


a gondola took you 1,000 meters up for this swisstastic view...


and to this dude..


who made us zipline through the trees...


i bonded with manu (belgium, left) and magnus (denmark, right) the entire trip. because they are danish and belgium, they introduced me to binge drinking (that's right, don't trust these boys despite their glimmering smiles)


gorgeous lakes were ubiquitous...



hi.


magnus, manu and i decided to go mountain biking...


it was fucking tough going up hill and i was introduced to "bike gears". . . (and i never made it all the way to the top, thank you very much.



even still... seriously? fucking gorge.


this is like "dancing with the stars"... but with swiss flags. so, i guess, "dancing with the flags."


I'm only laughing because this belgium journalist broke her arm going downhill on a bike. just kidding. i'm laughing because she gave me some of her prescribed pain killers.


we're totally faking it. . .



the rivers were these unusually aqua-marine colors that you only find in skittles when you're tripping. or they were just really fresh...



this is about the only time you will ever see my smile this big in a photo.



take that, samtoine...


hi! come here.



because we were reporting on the UNESCO rail route, they made us try out several different trains... including this CARRIAGE-LESS train...


there were some fucked up people on the other trains we were on.


we got pretty drunk in a restaurant in the mountains with this random korean guy! not me.


and then stole a bottle of wine to drink down the gondola...


hungover, we ended up in st moritz, which is the like aspen, but the people are actually cool, and everything is a million times more expensive.



we rode a 100-year old steam engine...


but darjeeling limited tail-ending it style of course.

see you in zurich!!! here's bonus footage of drunk as hell manu playing the spoon as a flute (or "splute")