Interlaken, Switzerland to Lausanne, Switzerland to Geneva, Switzerland
This morning we left our hostel at 7:30 AM and walked to the sandwich shop for more bircher muesli and coffee before heading to Lausanne by train. I was surprised by how cold it was! We locked our bags in a train station locker and grabbed lunch at a sandwich stand. This was the first place at which I have had complete difficulty with language. Neither the cashiers nor anyone in line spoke English! Lausanne was our first French-speaking city, so none of our German we’d picked up was of any use. I tried to order a turkey sandwich and ended up with tuna. On the way out of the train station we walked by a tea stand with a large back wall covered in big yellow tea canisters! I ordered a cup of jasmine sencha green tea, which was served in a tea sack, just like at home! I also introduced Jenn and Amy to lapsang souchong (a smoked tea) that they found quite strange.
We hopped on a bus (thanks to the extremely helpful and kind bus driver who got off of the bus to help us with the French ticket machine) and rode down to Lake Geneva. Here we found a large chess board on the ground in a park, and Jenn and I played a game in the freezing rain and wind. We walked along the lake to the Olympic Museum where we learned about the games and saw memorabilia and equipment from past games. I was THRILLED to see Katarina Witt’s skating dress that she wore when she won the gold medal in the 1980s. I also loved finding the name of my old figure skating coach in the database of Olympic athletes. Cynthia Kauffman skated in the pairs division in the 1964 Winter Olympics in Innsbruck and the 1968 Winter Olympics in Grenoble and place 8th and 6th, respectively. Here we also met a couple from Canada that was so friendly! The gentleman attended University of Oregon in the 1960s and taught at Oregon State University in the 1970s. Small world again!
After leaving the museum, we stopped by a crepe restaurant for an afternoon snack and to get out of the weather. Here we learned a few more words of French by comparing the French menu to the English menu. This was the way that we learned most of our words and developed our limited vocabulary. From the crepe restaurant we took a bus back to Old Town for a self-guided walking tour of Lausanne. The tourist information office had given us a printed brochure with a suggested route to “see the city”. It was great to have a planned out path, and we wandered through the pedestrian streets of Lausanne, up and down rows of perfume stores, fur stores, and brands such as Louis Vuitton. We also walked up to the cathedral, but by this time, we were practically delirious with cold. I was wearing a wool dress with a cotton long sleeve shirt and tights, but I’d left my coat in the train station locker (it was supposed to be sunny)! After it got dark, we stopped into a Chinese restaurant for our biggest splurge meal of the trip, dinner with lots of meat in a sit-down restaurant! We ordered a plate of sweet and sour chicken and a plate of peanut chicken with rice and shared them between the three of us.
Our tummies full of protein and our bodies warmed by the restaurant and hot food, we walked back to the train station. I paid chf 2 ($1.75) to use the privately run train station bathroom that was described as “clean and safe” and even had an attendant! We caught a train to Geneva and walked to our hostel. Unfortunately, we’d written down directions to the wrong hostel in Geneva and had to leave to try to find our correct hostel. We finally made it there, checked in, used the lobby computers, and went to sleep.
Jenn and I played a massive game of chess in a park in front of Lake Geneva. Notice that you can see the lovely passport belt under my dress. I wore it to make my Grandma happy, so I had to point it out! There you go, Grandma!
In front of the fountain at the Olympic Museum
The library in the Olympic Museum gave me a print out of my figure skating coach's results in the 1964 and 1968 Winter Olympics! I also bought a postcard of the poster from the 1964 Olympics in Innsbruck.
It was REALLY cold in Lausanne!!!
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