The Weekend

Alright, so just a post to fill you in on Friday, Saturday, and today since I already posted on Thursday for the other part of the week.

On Friday I woke up at 03h45, which, you know, was pretty early. I showered and ate a quick breakfast, then Béatrice drove Andréanne, Nicolas, and I to the Migros parking lot where a coach bus was waiting to pick us up. We had to pay 82.- each which covered the transportation and the ticket for Europa-Park. At 04h45 the bus left and we made a tour of pretty much the whole canton, stopping at various bigger towns to pick up groups of people. I slept through most of it though. Around eight we got to the German border and the bus stopped but we didn't have to get out and no one actually looked at our IDs, strangely enough. Then around nine we were at the theme park. The theme as you might guess is Europe.. so there were different sections with different countries, and each one had buildings and rides related to that country (for instance in "Switzerland" there is the Matterhorn roller coaster, in "Greece" there is a boat ride called Poseidon, etc.) The shops, buildings, and scenery were actually pretty cool with a large amount of detail and care put into making them. I definitely liked Iceland the best, if only because of the Icelandic Sheep pen..

We went on all of the bigger rides, the favorite of all of us being the newest roller coaster which we rode on three times (click here if you'd like to see one of those slightly nauseating roller coaster ride simulation videos!) Unfortunately the lines for everything were long, even though the weather wasn't great. In the morning it was rainy but luckily waiting in lines and boarding the roller coasters were all under shelter so the only time we actually got wet was walking between them and for the duration of the rides. In the afternoon things cleared up too so that was good. A highlight for me was definitely a house of horrors ride in which everything was in German.. cackling mad scientists, skeletons, ghosts, you name it, it was all incomprehensible. But funny. At four thirty we went back on the tour bus, which took us to some Swiss German town in the north of the canton where the French speakers (there were only five of us and we all lived in the South part of the canton) were picked up by a van. We were driven back to the Migros where Béatrice was waiting with the car, and then we ended up at home around eight. We ate a late dinner and then I watched Desperate Housewives in French with Béatrice and Andréanne until around eleven.

On Saturday, I had plans with Margaux, who was coming to pick me up at one. I don't think I've ever slept much later than eleven since coming to Switzerland (maybe the first bit when I was jet-lagged and overwhelmed by French, but it's been months) so I didn't think to set my alarm clock to wake up. But I probably should have since I woke up at 12h15 and almost died when I looked at the time (I had thought it was around ten.) I jumped out of bed, went into the kitchen to say that I had to quick shower and everyone should all start eating lunch without me, and then ate quickly afterward. At one Margaux, her mom, and her sister came to get me. Remember back at the beginning of the year when I went to the Cailler chocolate factory? Well in February they said we should go there together (it had been like four years since they'd visited) and though I said I'd already been, they suggested we go anyway. Who would argue with that? So we took a tour of the factory (with samples, of course) which lasted about an hour. Afterward, though we hadn't planned it, they suggested we visit the Gruyère cheese making factory which was more or less on the way back. We took a small tour which had an audio guide.. it was Saturday so there wasn't anyone making cheese but we still saw the facilities, the cellars where there is a robot that sprays the cheese wheels with salty water twice a day and flips them over and where they age afterward, videos on how the cheese is made, and the exhibit about the cows and culture of the Gruyère region. It was all very interesting. I learned that 2/3 of all the Gruyère cheese made is eaten in Switzerland, and that 60% of it is produced just in my canton. It takes 400 litres (105 gallons) of milk to make one 35 kilo (77 pound) wheel of cheese. They also gave us cheese samples to taste the difference between Gruyère aged for six, eight, and ten months. After that I went home.

At eight in the evening I headed to the village Salle de Gym to listen to the village brass band play their annual concert. It was packed, and the concert went really late since they also gave medals to people who had been in the band for a long time (25 years, 40 years, and 60 YEARS.. the last one was 72 years old! And he was a retired farmer!) They were surprisingly great, I have to say. It was funny because my host mom was pointing people out to me, like "oh that's the wife of the dairy shop owner playing percussion, and there's the dairy shop owner himself playing the euphonium.. over there's the daughter of the band director- she goes to your school." All in all it was very impressive (seriously, they could have been a professional band.. who would have thought?) They played a wide range of music including Rimsky-Kosakov, Riverdance, and the theme from Shrek. Afterward we went home and I went to bed around midnight.

Today my host family went pretty early to the first communion of a niece on Béatrice's side of the family. I stayed home (I don't do church-related things with my family, which they are fine with, and they understand.) I did homework and relaxed, and am just trying to enjoy the last day of my marvelous vacation (which went much too fast!)