Scary Ass Russian Guy

Okay, so I am alive. I got back from Geneva, worked a few days and headed right back off again to the south of France. I'm an asshole, I know. Anyway, first thing is first....the Russian guy. He has a name but I just call him Porn Stache Guy. He speaks extremely little English so I can say this all I want without him knowing. He arrived about a couple weeks ago and seemed friendly enough, but my creepdar went raging wild when I met him also. I figured it was nothing and went about my business being nice. That was a mistake. I started seeing him looking out windows in my direction and once he realized I was staring back at him he would either dart away, wave or give a thumbs up. I think the thumbs up was the weirdest for sure. Anyway, I got over it. Maybe he was looking at something else. Then, I'm out weeding in the yard...I see him, with hand on his cheek, head tilted to the side, looking in my direction. Oye vey! This gets worse every day. Then, he manages to ask me my name. I realize now I should have said Winston Churchill or Paris Hilton. Anything besides my real name. Because now, he sees me and says my name like 5 times and it would be way more entertaining to hear him call me something else and I would order him to say the first and last name. I always have good ideas after the fact. The worst was right before we left for the south of France....I am sitting alone at the table and he looks at me and says "I love you." I think to myself, wait a minute, that can't be right. I say, WHAT?" And he says it again. It goes like this about 5 times because I could not believe my ears. He then asks if I am from America and when I say "yes," he makes motions and says a few words about him coming to America and then holds him arm out like we are arm in arm and walking. My first assumption is that he wants his green card and wants to get married to an American girl. Again, I realize later that I should have punched him in his 13 year old style mustache and kicked him in the dick. That would have made my point VERY clear. Needless to say, I locked my bedroom door before heading south to keep my shit locked up. Now that I'm back, I am pretty much a bitch and I pretend like he doesn't exist. It seems to be working. I alerted everyone that if I scream in the middle of the night, to grab sharp/blunt objects and come running.

If Death by Cheese is Possible, I Nearly Died

I got up stupid early on Friday to catch the first bus out of Chenoves headed towards the train thinking that my couchsurf plan was, for the most part, figured out. I arrived in Geneva at about 12:30 in the afternoon and after a text and phone call, I still had no response from my first couchsurf buddy. Granted, it hadn’t been officially confirmed, but I hadn’t heard a no either and I guess assuming was probably a bad idea. Seeing as how it was early, I decided to cruise around Geneva and await a call or text. I didn’t get a map or anything, just went down streets that looked important and found my way to the waterfront, passed hundreds of Rolex signs and important business meetings in a different language each time. I had a nice little day on my own but come dinner time, I still hadn’t heard anything. I start coming up with a “plan B.” “B” consists of either a hostel (but I heard that they sell out quick in Geneva since everything costs your soul and and first born), sleeping in the train station, wandering around all night surviving on coffee or looking sad at the bar and hoping someone takes me home. Obviously, the safest is a hostel and probably the most realistic.                                        My CS buddy texts and it looks like the car is full going to Lausanne and the floor is packed with people that plan further head than myself. I start looking for hostels/cheap hotels and keep getting shot down. I prepare myself to spend an ass load on a room and perhaps pretend I’m on a luxurious vacation. The last place I try had an opening! It was in the “hooker district,” but hey, I couldn’t exactly be picky at this point and hookers are usually friendly people. In the elevator I could tell the girl next to me was American also and we end up in the same room. We start talking and Kaitlin and Mandi are both from California but studying abroad in London and Sweden. In our room is also an older Moroccan woman, a woman from Zimbabwe and lastly a super cool woman from Texas who is dating an Eritrean refugee and had some amazing stories (she might be my new idol). The Moroccan woman only slept and ironed so staying in the room to hang out wasn’t too appealing. We went to get dinner and to our dismay, drinks were around 15CHF, so a little over $15. Balls. Looks like a drink is out of the question, especially when we saw that they weren’t the size of our heads (which would be the only way to make that price justifiable). We head back to the room to plan the night and Morocco is STILL sleeping. As I have said before, my ideas are usually similar to those of homeless people. We have a bottle of rum but there is “no drinking” in the room and an old Moroccan woman sprawled out in the bed. Homeless style, we take our booze to the bathroom and drink next to showers and toilets. Then we head out on the town and approach what we are 50% sure is a strip club, but it’s so close to the hostel that we have to check. It’s not a strip club and we meet the manager instead and ask where to just get a drink and relax. He takes us to a different bar he manages, buys us what I am pretty sure was a “Washington Apple,” not sure if that was on purpose, but I appreciated the west coast friendly choice either way. All night they play rap from only west coast artists and we are loving a taste of home. We stay awhile and decide to head home to sleep for our big day of exploring the next day. I climbed into my top bunk and fell asleep to the crunching of Mandi snacking on Cinnamon Toast Crunch, a good end to a good evening. Thank you lord everything works itself out. We planned on riding bikes around all day and sightseeing, but the rain ruined that real quick and we resorted to the bus.

The highlight of the day was also the same thing that nearly caused me to burn a restaurant down. Seeing as how all 3 of us get a traditional dish when we go somewhere, we decided to do it up fondue style. Now the fondue was amazing and I felt like I was 8 months pregnant with triplets by the end (not to be included with the good part), however the service was horrendous. Not sure if it was because we were American or if these old Swiss men were just straight up dicks. We almost had to start breaking shit to get attention and nothing happened in a timely matter once we did manage to pull them away from shining something to come to our table. We made eye contact with numerous waiters but they would just look at us and then clean something that didn’t need cleaning. The time was good for digestion but it was starting to get ridiculous. I have never thought about dining and dashing but out of pure anger, I tried to rally the troops to peace out, clearly they wouldn’t have noticed since they avoided our area completely. I paid reluctantly, but thought about using the fondue machinery to burn the place down. With clogged arteries and 3 cheese babies, I went off for more exploring while the other girls went back to nap. In flip flops and rain, I still managed to cover a lot of ground and get my chocolate. I had made contact with tonight’s CS plan and said my goodbyes and hopped on a bus to Gex, France. I had some time to kill in Gex, so I hit up a kebab place and watched the futbol game with drunk Frenchmen. As they were closing, Hayley and her friends arrived and we were all dead tired. They had gone to Germany all day to a theme park, so we hung out for a bit but then all passed out on the couch. Now, after an early morning bus ride and train ride, I am awaiting my next bus ride back home. All I want is a shower, nap and a talllllll glass of wine that doesn’t make me go broke. It was a great trip, I wish I could have seen more of Switzerland though! Now time to get to planning the next trip.


Switzerland Pictures:
http://www2.snapfish.fr/snapfishfr/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=3392855022/a=159385193_159385193/otsc=SHR/otsi=SALBlink/

This is Certainly NOT St Michel

I am now a black man.

If you couldn’t tell, I was crazy spoiled by Brigitte and Philippe. I always had more wine and food than I could handle. Brigitte warned me of American and English hosts being shitty about the food situation and she was totally right. My diet went from fine cheeses, fresh bread, duck and wine to cereal, sandwiches and more sandwiches and still some wine of course. I am now buying my own food and cooking it myself (or combining items on two pieces of bread). Life is not easy anymore. I figure this way at least, I can lose all that duck fat I was storing up! The French grocery stores are totally fun to explore at least. I bought some sort of nutella with cookie bits in it! Totally delicious and no help for losing duck fat, I realize this. And I have been buying random meats to try (probably as bad of an idea as it sounds). Ken and Lilli have also headed back to London so it feels like mom and dad left and now we have this castle to ourselves and the Romanian/French workers too, but oh well, it’s awesome. I found a brochure for wineries in the area, so Brittany came with me to explore. We saw some sketchy looking signs, but no front door and no one around. I managed to bust out a little French and ask a neighbor for directions. We ended up right back where we started and wandered into a tiny little winery room, but again, no one. We still remained trespassing and looked around for a minute anyway and I of course took some pictures. Then we see another man (with terrible teeth, this is how you know you are in the country). I work my French ways and we end up following him to his basement wine room. Brittany hung back since it looked sketchy, but where there is wine, I will be (even if it means possibly being attacked first). At least being attacked would have given me a reason to steal lots of wine and run I figure. It would have been a win/win either way really. It turned out totally safe and awesome though, no reason to steal. There were trophies and wine everywhere, so I knew it would be good. Unfortunately, I couldn’t talk too much with the guy, but the wine was delicious so I bought some and will be back to buy more for sure. There should be more wine the next village over also, which I plan on venturing to as well. I think about every village has some sort of hidden wine cave and I will find them all. I have said it once and I will say it again…I LOVE WINE.

Lake Geneva!

PS – I am working my couchsurfing ways into Geneva and Lausanne, Switzerland this weekend so I will be out of touch for the most part. Hopefully I will return with some amazing stories. Friday sounds like I will be touring Geneva, then off to Lausanne (on the lake) for a concert/festival, supposedly the biggest student festival in Europe. Then the next day will be more Geneva and a poker night across the border in Gex, France. I am totally stoked. I will be eating my weight in chocolate I am sure.

Sketchy Turin and Delicious Bologna

Smashed my head real good for this one

Monday morning we all woke up bright and early to get on the way to run errands and head off to Turin. Ken and Lilli tell us it’s about a 4 hour drive but with the errands it will be a little extra, so leaving at 9am we assume we should hit Turin by about 4pm or so. Obviously nothing ever happens as planned. We took Lilli’s mom to the airport, stopped to make some orders for the castle and then we thought we were on our way. I let Brittany take the mom’s spot in the front and Zane and I held down the fort in the back of the van like we were being smuggled into Italy. After ‘no more errands’ turned into ‘more errands,’ we get out of Grenoble by about 2pm (Grenoble is certainly not far from home). With numb asses from riding on the back floor of a Hyundai van, we were off. The drive was absolutely beautiful at least. We drove through the beginning of the Alps and lots of foothills. While the scenery was great, attempting to see it was like an obstacle course. I would scoot to one side of the van for a picture just in time to hit a switch back and get shot right back to where I came from. I did multiple somersaults in the back of the van that day. I have bruises and a sore back to prove it. But I got some awesome pictures, it was totally worth it. There were multiple times that I thought the van wasn’t going to make it up the hills. The hills were so steep and the turns so sharp, it sounded like we were going to lose something out of the bottom and go flying off the cliff. Obviously that didn’t happen, but I am pretty sure it was close. After god only knows how many hours of driving, we hit Turin at 8:45pm. Almost a full 12 hour day in the back of a van…sweet mother mary, that was terrible. And this table that we drove to pick up turned out to be a tiny table that could be found at any thrift store and the guys that were waiting for us were in a back alley and it looked like we interrupted their drug deal. Turin looked totally sketchy at night. What a great time to be dropped off in a new country where we know nothing of the language. We manage to find a hostel, say goodbye and head straight for beer and pizza. The guy making the pizza had a gigantic gut, 2 inch thick glass on his glasses and looked like his name was Mario. Clearly the pizza would be good, and it was. Thank you Italy for my pizza overload the last few days. We bought tickets to Bologna for the next day and headed to bed. In the morning we got an early start and figured we would pick up our tickets before some exploring. Long story, but we got hardcore taken advantage of by both France and Italy in about an hour. Our tickets could only be picked up back in France or by going to Milan (which would require more tickets) so we had to buy the exact same ticket again. Bad start to the day. After that we wanted the hell out of Turin and to go straight for Bologna. The train ride was one of my favorite parts. I made friends with the girl next to me (Marianna) and had a little Italian lesson, which made a HUGE difference. I was actually able to make sense to people when we got to Bologna. Not much, but some. And Alberto (another guy in our car) decided to be a part of this lesson. Marianna and Alberto both did not speak too much English, so lots of hand gestures were used. It all worked out well enough. By the end of the train ride, Alberto had shared pizza and a sandwich and Marianna had given us nearly a full bag of crackers. I love Italians! Even strangers just want to feed me. We part ways and start looking for hostels again. We find a super cute 1 star spot (I know 1 star and cute don’t match up, but having our own bathroom/shower was amazing), drop our stuff off and get to exploring. Most of the exploring was of bars and a few clothing stores. After a few hours of walking, we grab a nice bottle of wine and head to the roof of our hostel to celebrate our first night in Bologna. In the morning we buy tickets for an overnight ride home leaving at 11pm. Since it would be an 8.5 hour train ride, we might as well be asleep for it. With it being 9:30am now, we have lots of time to see the city. We walked for a solid 9 hours that day with backpacks on. Luckily, it was mainly underwear and my toothbrush in my bag, but it was still extra weight. We drank lots of amazing coffee, ate too much gelato and saved some appetite for our fancy Italian dinner that night. No menu that we looked at had good old spaghetti bolognaise though…we were in Bologna right? I ended up with tagliatelle, Brittany got tortellini and Zane got cotoletta and of course we got wine and tiramisu to close out the night. I don’t think I could say it was better than my fancy French meal but it was delicious. After something classy, I was forced to trash us back down. I bought a bottle of wine to drink in the park at night. I have way too many homeless person ideas that go through my head. I figured it would help with sleeping on a pullout train bed and that it did. 

I Live in a Castle.

It was incredibly hard to leave Brigitte at the train station. She told me that I could always call the next family and tell them there was an emergency and that I could not make it and just stay in St Michel for another month. I think if I had done that, I never would have left St Michel though. I was texting with both Brigitte and her son as my train pulled away and part of me almost jumped off and hitchhiked back, but I stayed strong and continued on my way. I had to stop in Lyon, which was just as busy and crazy as Paris. I was so glad to get the hell out of there. Now, I had emailed a reminder to my new hosts that I was coming, but heard no response. I was a bit nervous that no one would show up for me and that I would have to sleep at the train station or find somewhere else less homeless style to stay. I was actually 99% prepared for that. I thought for sure I would be on my own. Luckily, I wander off the train and look around for someone looking confused also and I instantly find Ken and Lilli. Ken is from the US and Lilli is from Romania. They are an absolute awesome couple. I love them already and am also very intrigued by them. They seem mysterious besides the fact that they live in London and bought a gigantic chateau in France. There is another couple here, which is awesome also, and we get along great and are trying to figure out as much as we can about our hosts. We know that they are stupid rich, own tons of properties and cars, Ken is like some super genius that finished school as a surgeon but now is a CEO of some company and could have retired years ago but didn’t. They are completely normal people though, extremely social, love the outdoors and have an English bulldog named Winchel. I want to know all about them but I know I never will. The internet has been out for like a month here so that’s probably why I never heard back from them. I guess being in an 18^th century castle has its downfalls! It is crazy beautiful here though. I go for walks and runs through vineyards and plan on drinking from every winery I can find. I am in the Bourgogne region now, no longer Bergerac. I am in awe at how many different wine regions there are. France is my favorite. Oh ya, the castle….OUTRAGEOUS. The two towers connected to it are from like the 13^th century and they look just like out of a story book. There is a chapel, huge barn, caretaker house, a couple random houses and a vineyard all on their land. This place is so big that Ken didn’t even know he owned the vineyard on his land until the mayor told him. Who accidentally owns a vineyard?! I think I will have a lot of good adventures staying here. Tomorrow Ken and Lilli are heading to Turin, Italy to pick up a couch, so Zane and Brittany (the other 2 workawayers) and myself asked if we could hitch a ride into Italy. We figure if they are going, we had better take advantage of it. I think we will be hitting up Turin, then to Genoa and maybe Bologna before coming back. We can only be gone a few days so we don’t want to spend our whole time on the train OR all our money. Who knows how this will work since we have had no way to plan besides looking at a map, but we figure if we can’t catch a train or bus, at least we have our thumbs and hopefully can look pitiful enough to catch a ride on the back of a hay truck.