jet-setter that ive become, this weekend mandy and i swung out to la suisse to see le suisse, avant son depart pour les etats unis. translation: we went to see ivan's town, Lausanne (olympic capital), before he peaces out on the 21st to go sell wine on long island. ivan, in case i havent mentioned him yet, worked for Georges, our wine man in Tains, and we've hung out with him a few times. he's swiss-american - his dad is from the Bronx, so he speaks perfect english (and we sadly default into english most of the time with him), and he's our age, chill, and very generously invited us to see him before he left. of course we couldnt pass up a local contact, so we went on yet another trip, despite the fact that vacation just ended.mandy almost missed our 8h15 train from valence sat morning, but luckily she ran onto the platform just in time, and we settled in for the 3-hour ride through the mountains to geneva. it has just turned cold enough that there is a dusting of snow on the tops of the mountains. i was glued to the window, the sun half-whiting out my view, the scenery was that stunning. i never had real mountains in my life, with the exception of our trip this spring to NM, and i think that this might have to be a more permanent part of my life. beautiful.
sadly, once we passed the french alps and reached geneva, the weather turned grey and drizzly. Lausanne (30 min from geneva) sits on Lac Lemans (Lake Geneva), but we didnt have much of a view, since it was too hazy.
Nevertheless, mandy and i took to the streets, found a pizza joint for lunch - and made friends yet again with the italian servers. this time was more intense than our previous random friend stories, bc basically the whole place knew that we were the beautiful american english teachers, the servers kept talking to us in italian even though they spoke french,...and i 'married' our server. you know, these things happen. Ivan met us downtown and gave us a brief insiders' tour: the little old shopping streets, gaufres (waffles, local specialty), a cathedral overlooking the city, the special clock that tells the story of how the Swiss chased out the Swiss-Germans back in the day (every hour, on the hour, it tells the story and little mechanical dolls act it out - a fave for the local enfants, including Ivan when he was younger). freezing from the rain, we opted to hole up in a pub and watch the liverpool-fulham football game. there we also met denton (sp?), another american (yaay Pittsburgh) who works in the wine biz. Denton actually worked for the same firm that Ivan's going to work for on Long Island before he transferred over here in Feb. He's cool.
then it was fondue dinner. my first time with fondue - again, typical suisse fare - but i have to
say, im not a huge fan. buuut dinner was fantastic. first, the guys picked a great, light white wine that went well with the fromage (benefits of boys that know what theyre doing) AND it was senior dance party night or something - we dubbed it "bouge ta booty" night - for real, the 70+ population was out in full force, dancing to really really BAD the techno-latino-polka infusion that senor guapisimo with the silk shirt was playing on the keyboard...omg, we died laughing. i mean, as soon as we arrived and saw the disco ball and the mic set-up, and the old folks started wandering in, some in pairs, some solo but hopeful, all dressed up and drinking their Perrier, we knew we were in for a treat. incredible. ivan tried to incite mandy and denton to bust it out on the dance floor, and they were almost convinced, but alas, none of us had had enough to drink...so instead we were entertained by the atmosphere for a while, then peaced out to find crowds more our age.ivan led us to a few local hangouts, and mandy and i had to fight the guys to let us pay for their drinks - denton had bought dinner, ivan has bought us i dont know how many rounds, but they're very insistent on the whole gentleman thing! it's crazy talk! my excuse for paying was that ivan's moving to the states, where us liberal, feminist-minded girls like to pay too...but really, even good ol' american denton showed more class than ive ever seen.. funniest moment for me: we were leaving the pub to go to dinner, and i grabbed my jacket and put it on my stool while i was putting on my scarf. denton takes my jacket from me, and im all like "no dude, thats my coat" - thinking he'd thought i was handing him his coat, but he was taking it to put it on for me! he just smirked and i laughed...and then he pulled out my chair and everything at the restaurant. quelle classe! soo, long story short, it was yet another wonderful night, mandy and i just in awe of how lucky we've been to keep running into fantastic, amazingly friendly people. hopefully i'll see ivan in the states sometime, and who knows, we might go visit denton in suisse again!
on the way home we had an hour stop in geneve, so we wandered to the lake to see the jette d'eau...i'll have to come back to see geneve for real, now that ive passed through it twice without really stopping...and we found a tea stand in the lausanne gare that had tea a emporter! really, that is one american thing that i cant find fault with. when it's cold outside, you should be always be able to take 12 oz of warmth with you.
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