Part 2 of my epic fall break journey, let's start this blog off with a picture, because there is a massive story to follow. This is in Lausanne, Switzerland...doesn't really give you a good idea of the city, but I like the sunset, and you can kind of see the mountains in the background.
So after having a grand time in Germany, I took a train down to Lausanne, Switzerland. Why there? I have a friend, Maddie who is studying abroad there, and I may possibly going to school there next semester, turned in my application while I was there, cross your fingers! (you too mummzy!) Welp, right off the bat, I have quite the story to tell yall.
Before I had left, I told Maddie I would be arriving in Lausanne at 7:30 pm on Thursday...Thursday...Thursday...don't forget that. She said she would come meet me at the train station and we would go to the house from there. Ca va. Nothing out of the ordinary. Now if you remember from the Germany blog (you should read that first) I left Germany at 7 am on wednesday. Now you should be thinking, he left at 7 in the morning wednesday, and told Maddie he wouldn't get there until 730 pm on thursday...that's a 36 hr train ride. SOOOOO I arrive at the Lausanne train station at 730 pm...Wednesday, but keep in mind that still have it in my mind that Maddie is meeting me here. I get off the train, look around on the platform, no Maddie. Wait around for a little, then decide to walk around the train station, it wasn't too big. I search the main entrance and outside. No Maddie. By this time I'm starting to get a little frustrated. What the heck is she doing? I wrote down her phone number, and had the number of the family's house she was staying at. I tried using the pay phones but had no luck with that. They don't make any sense. I thought I would try using Skype on my computer then. Couldn't find a free internet signal, so I bought 30 minutes of time for 5 euro. Tried calling her, got her answering machine. Then tried calling the house and it said the number didn't work. Great. Throughout my time at the station I would try calling her quite a few times but kept getting the answering machine. Well, it was around 10 when I was like, she isn't coming for some reason, maybe I should try finding my way to the house (I had the address thank goodness). Google earth came in hand again. Looked up where the house was. Going in a straight line, it was 2.5 miles from the train station, but of course a road didn't go straight to it from the train station. I leave the train station and head across the road to the bus stop to look at the different routes. It took me quite a while to figure the system out but I knew which station I had to go to. After a good 15 minute wait for the metro due to an "accident" I eventually made it to the stop. It said it wasn't to much time before the "bus" came. After some time, a van type vehicle pulls up. Hum...this isn't a bus. Some people got in, but I just sat there because I figured a bus would come. Eventually this van left and I looked up at the display which told how long the next "bus" would be, and it said 1 hr. Hum...I went over to the bus schedule sheet, read that on certain days a bus doesn't come, this van comes. Super. So, I sat for an hr. Get dropped off at the stop which was right by the house, took out my computer with google earth showing me the way, except it took me a good 30 minutes to find the house, even though the house was a mere 2 minutes away from where I was dropped off. I get to what I think the house is, can't see the address number so I wasn't for certain, I tried calling Maddie one last time, no go. I see I have a new message though. Maddie saying that she would just see me tomorrow (thursday, when I'm supposed to arrive). I was pretty frustrated with this. I thought how could she just give up on looking for me! But then a not so happy thought hit me, "did I tell her Thursday or Wednesay". I check the message I sent her and sure enough as you know, I told her I would arrive on Thursday. I was then super frustrated with myself. I stood and contemplated what I should do then. I COULD ring to doorbell, even though it was around 130 in the morning. I eventually knocked on the door (quietly) and rang the doorbell quickly. Even though I'm sure the Foster's, the family Maddie is staying with, wouldn't have been toooo disappointed with letting me in this late, I just didn't want this to be my first impression on them, so I left. I decided I would walk back to the train station and sleep there, because lots of people do that while they are waiting for trains. Well, it took me a good 1 hr and a half to find my way back to the train station. Hum it looks kind of dark inside, get to the door, it's closed until 4:30. Scratch that plan. I then decide to walk down to the water and sleep until 6ish then I would go back to the station and try calling Maddie again. I get down to the port and find this point that extends off the path a ways. I park myself at the end of it with open water infront of me and across the lake I could see the lights from the French town Evian. After about 30 minutes of off an on sleep, I decide I couldn't take the cold and head back to the station and by the time I got there it was 4:30 exactly perfect! Found myself a nice soft bench and tried to sleep. I did this for quite some time, and then decided I should just try and catch the family or Maddie in the morning by going to the house. Unfortunately my computer had died so I couldn't make a call. I eventually got to the house around 10 in the morning. Ring the doorbell, no one there. Great. The house is in a culdesac so I go and sit out infront of the house. 11...12...still no one. During this time school must have gotten out because tons of kids and parents were walking by me and were giving me some interesting looks. I probably looked like a random homeless person and they were wondering why I all of a sudden showed up in this area. The neighbor across the street eventually came out and asked nicely what I was doing and I explained I was waiting for the Fosters. She came back a little later and asked if I wanted a chair. Nice lady. Finally around 1 a car comes up to me, now we are getting some where. It's Mr. Foster. So we have a good talk inside and I explain my mistake of telling Maddie the wrong day while he makes me some pizza. He tried calling Maddie a couple times during this but no answer. I parked myself in a nice soft chair and fell asleep pretty quickly. And not long after, Maddie gets home and I explain my story once again. They insist I take a nap, but of course I didn't want to waste my vacation time so I resist! Maddie then took me to the center of Lausanne where I had spent some good 1 on 1 the night before, and showed me around.
Friday
We went to UNIL, the school which Maddie goes to and the one I applied for. She showed me around and I turned in my application, so hopefully they get back to me soon. There are a bunch of sheep and we even came across some donkeys. It seems like a nice school and it's right next to the lake with grand mountains in the distance, even though it was hazy every day. We walked down to the shore and stumbled across some sea glass, so we collected a whole hands worth. I thought it would be a interesting to make a lamp shade with all these different color glass pieces, so if I end up going there I'll keep you all updated on that. Here we have a picture of a friendly donkey and Maddie being weird. There were tons of leaves on the ground and she wanted to make a big pile to jump in, but then we stumbled across a pile made by the person cleaning up all the leaves.
In the afternoon we parted for Geneva. Her english teacher told her class they could go to this "preformance" having to do something with english (I don't quite understand) anywho, for students, they could go for free. Maddie asked about me since I wasn't a student there, and the teacher said she could pay for one way of the ticket, so I only had to pay 20, which isn't bad at all. We didn't really know where we were going when we arrived, so we started walking. After a good while we finally came across a map and we had gone the wrong way. So we had to walk all the way back, and then we found a tourist help building and the lady inside gave us a map and told us exactly where we had to go. The weather wasn't very nice at all that day, very cloudy. Here is a picture of the "famous" (I think) water "gyser" in Geneva. It's not real, made by people but it runs 24/7.
As we were walking, we saw this massive purple ball/dome in the distance. We couldn't pass this up. It turned out being a free installation for the public about the human genome. It was interesting and weird at the same time. I took a picture of some manican people inside that had some really scary faces.
We walked out to this mini lighthouse when this man in just a speedo came walking towards us. I thought he was going to tell us we couldn't be there, but he just gave us a nod and walked down the stairs to the water, splashed a little on himself, and jumped right in and started swimming. We figured these little huts further back must have been saunas, they sit in there for a while and then for some reason these people want to go swimming in freezing water, then they probably head back to the warmth.
We made it to the preformance on time. It was in a small cinema room which had typical cinema seats in the middle but on the outside there were nice comfy chairs and couches. It was nothing neither of us had expected. A movie was first shown, and then one of the actors in the movie came on the stage and did a little act. It was...unique.
Saturday
Adventure day. Before I came to Switzerland, Maddie sent me a message saying we might have the chance to go to Brienz to help a friend of hers (who lives there) cut wood for her family for the winter. I had never heard of Brienz of course, but we both decided it would be something interesting to do. We got up Saturday morning, ate breakfast, keep in mind what we ate. A left over taco with tobasco sauce, and yogourt. Maddie had checked the time of the bus we needed to catch to get down to the train station, all was good, we left earlyish. As we were walking up the path to the bus stop, about 3 minutes before the bus was supposed to come, we see the bus in the distance and start running towards it. We miss it at the first stop and it goes to the next stop so we run after it. A lady standing at the bus stop sees us running towards the bus and trys to open the door to keep the bus waiting for us be it zooms off, even though the bus was ahead of schedule! We couldn't miss the train, sooooo we started running, with taco and yogourt in the tummy. Wasn't very fun. I'd say we ran for a good 5-10 minutes when this car pulled up along side of us. It was the lady at the bus stop who tried to keep the bus there. She told us to get in, and we got a ride down to the station! Was very nice of her. We met Maddie's friend Cecile at the station with about 10 minutes to spare but we still needed to get the tickets. Found out that the ticket for me cost 100 bux which wasn't very exciting news. O well, couldn't be like I dont want to go after what we went through. After being in Brienz I would've been pretty angered if I wouldn't had gone. Brienz is in the mountains mountains. It's surrounded by crazy huge mountains. While we were on the train ride there, it was pretty cloudy, and I was kind of worried that I paid 100 bux and wouldn't get to see these mountains. Slowly but surely as the sun began to rise, the clouds burned off, and the mountains were showing themselves. I was fascinated with the first mountains I saw, and Cecile said that these were nothing compared to the ones where she lives. We got on a bus that took us to the town of Brienz, and as we were cruising along I see this familiar word and ask Cecile if it was a town, and sure enough it was. Here yea go Alyssa! Alyssa is a friend and this is her last name.
We arrived in Brienz and it was stilly cloudy. We had a little walk to get to Ceciles house, it was more like a hike throught the woods on a magical path. The first is a picture of what it looked like when we arrived, cloudy and icky. The second is us on a path to Cecile's house.
We got to the house and pretty much started working right away. The house keeps warm by burning wood during the winter. I thought we were actually going to get some axes and chop some trees down, but the trees are cut down by true mountain men, not me, even though I have a pretty mountainous beard coming along. We just had to stack the pieces of wood that Cecile's dad was cutting into a little trailer, drive it back to the house, and unload. That was our job. Nothing tooooo crazy exciting, but when you have a view like we did it made for an enjoyable time. Here is a picture of Cecile's dad with his protective mask, Cecile, Amy who is Ceciles brother's girlfriend, Cecile's brother Andreas is hiding behind Amy, and Maddie sleeping on the job.
Andreas and Amy racing down to the house
Maddie showing off her muscles
We worked for I'd say 3 hours? Wasn't bad at all. There was a little house nearby that was cooking food for people because there was a dog competition that day? Something like that. But Cecile's dad was super nice and bought us all lunch for helping him, even though we volunteered to help and he didn't have to do this for us. Meal, salade, and dessert. Was super good. We worked a little more after lunch and then fini! We went back to the house and met Cecile's mother. Interesting story here. Cecile's mummzy is french, father is German (right?) anywho, they both can speak french and german, but Cecile usually speaks french with her mother and german with her father...she also speaks english of course. So Cecile is fluent in three languages and she didn't even have to try with french or german because she was brought up with those two. Cecile's mom fed us some delicious cake and drinks inside. It was interesting because Cecile's dad woul talk to Cecile's mom in german, and she would then speak back to him in french. Bizarre and amazing. The whole time Cecile was switching between the three like it was a piece of cake. Cecile's dad vanished for a while and then returned with some mugs he bought for Maddie and I with a picture of a (famous?) road in Brienz. It was very nice of him! (I unfortunately left mine in Lausanne though, sad face) It was very enjoyable to meet all of them. I hope to one day return to visit and I REALLY want to hike up one of the mountains! Any takers?
Here are a bunch of pictures I took of the mountains
And a picture from their porch. Would be nice to wake up from this every morning.
Sadly, it was time to go. Cecile was super nice and walked us down to the bus. The first picture is Maddie and Cecile walking on that path that leads to the house. It's photoshoped slightly ok, I like it. We all took pictures of eachother one last time when we were down by the bus. The second is of Maddie and Cecile infront of the grand mountains.
Halloween!
So when we were on the train back to Lausanne, Maddie had the fantastic idea of making a scavanger hunt for Noah and Jake, the Foster's kids. Luckily there was an abandonned paper bag sitting right next to us, so we ripped that apart and started writing down the clues. And I have to give most of the credit to Maddie for coming up with the clues. We got back to the house a little before Noah and Jake arrived with some other kids they were trick-or-treating with. They sang a song in french which was really cool. Maddie and I had to hide the clues when the kids were home which was kind of tricky but we managed. We had them run all over the house for the clues, and then finish in the basement where they got their treats. We put their candy in some bags.....because we filled a pot with water and flour to give it a nice icky feel. They didn't know this so when they came down to the dark basement we told them for the final task, they had to trust us by covering their eyes and giving us their hands, in which we grabbed them and put them in the water/flour mix. Eventually we threw in the bags of candy. It was quite a fun time.
Vacation
Done
I bought way to much fruit to make this though, so I also brought a bowl of the remaining fruit. I didn't think it would all get eaten but sure enough it did. Not too much else to say, except that I ate a ton! I weighed myself when I got home and I had gained about 5 lbs. The food was excellent and I think everyone had a good time. Near the end, everyone was complaining about eating too much and hyped up on wine! Enjoy the pictures!
