Tuesday, October 11, 2011

I'm back! Saturday in Switzerland

I have returned from the Big Swiss Adventure! We got back on Saturday night. I had a lovely time. Nothing substantial went wrong. All events happened relatively smoothly. It was a wonderful vacation. I feel like I ate several pounds of cheese last week, because I did. I made a kale, bean, and turkey sausage soup last night with the hopes that I'd feel less gross after eating something so full of fiber. I think it worked but my schedule is still off and I fell asleep at 8:30 last night. I'm sure I'll be back to normal by the end of the week.

I didn't blog from Switzerland because I have a huge laptop and it was too much trouble to lug it along with me. So now I'll write down the details I most want to remember. And I have some pictures too, of course.

On the Saturday of our arrival, we were very tired and grumpy after a horrendously uncomfortable 7-hour plane ride from D.C. to Geneva. We left at 5 pm (our time) and arrived at 8 am (their time). So it felt like 3 am or so as we obtained our rental car and set off onto the Swiss roadways. This was initially quite scary. Boyfriend did all the driving and found the first day of adjusting to European highways a little stressful. But we were thrilled to be off the airplane, even in our exhaustion. We drove from the airport toward our resort in Valais, along beautiful Lake Geneva. It was a foggy morning, and the humidity felt good after being in the plane. The hillsides were covered in vineyards, and I got to enjoy the amazing views as Boyfriend adjusted to kilometers and traffic circles.



We stopped in Lausanne around lunchtime to eat and see the sights. Driving and parking felt very stressful in Lausanne, but we got a parking spot and we wandered through the city's center. It was market day. People were selling fruits and pastries in little stands. There were giant figs that impressed me very much. We had trouble getting francs from the ATM. My card wouldn't work at all (we still don't know why, because it worked two days later). Boyfriend was able to get 200 francs and so we went to have lunch at Manora Restaurant, which I had read about before our trip. It took us a good while before we found Manora because it is in a crazy huge department store called Manor. Manor was I think 7 stories tall and included a grocery store and departments for furniture, home goods, women's clothing, men's clothing, shoes, children's things... and on the top floor, there was Manora Restaurant, a self-service place crowded with Swiss people on market day. Boyfriend found it to be a bit overwhelming, but we found him a chicken salad sandwich that made him very happy. It was the best chicken salad sandwich I'd ever tasted. I had eggplant pizza and salad and fruit for dessert. We ate it on the restaurant's patio and watched little birds beg for food. A Swiss boy with a toy sword also made faces at us while we ate.

  

After lunch, we visited a church, which I thought was the Cathedral de Notre-Dame, but I later discovered that it was not. Well, it was a nice church anyway...


Then we were back on the road and driving toward our "resort" in Champoussin. We got lost once and accidentally went up a mountain, which was beautiful. We also stopped at a Coop grocery store to pick up some cheese, bread, eggs, and microwavable meals. I had refused to spend $75 on a GPS for a week, but luckily our little rental car came with navigation. It was a necessity. 

We finally arrived in Champoussin at 5:00-ish, and we were mighty happy to find ourselves near a bed. The apartment we stayed in was in a ski resort that we booked through RCI. I would not recommend it or stay there again, but we spent such a short amount of time in our apartment, it didn't much matter. And we did have a beautiful view from our little chalet apartment. 


On Saturday evening, we ate bread and cheese for dinner and explored our TV channels (mostly in French in German). Then we fell asleep at 7:30. Next time... SUNDAY! And a story about the city of Martigny.

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