Haven’t written anything in almost 3 weeks which in comparison to how long I’ve been in Switzerland...is a long time! Sorry about that guys but my mind’s been occupied elsewhere for the last couple of weeks. Lots of things have happened in 19 days. Kissed a boy, met a prince, got a killer cough, went skiing, got a flesh eating disease, went to a Swiss hospital and my favourite, found myself again. Sounds really corny but sometimes life is just a tad corny and I like it like that :) Just a disclaimer cause this is about to get real gay!
First thing – boy I kissed is Reto. So after our kissing to prove a point, we did find ourselves on his bed having a little kissing party on pub night 2 days later... and then the next night as well. It was on the second night that I realised my mind was on someone else even though I had a boy right next to me. Kind of a bad feeling really; wishing you’re with someone else even though you’re with someone already. So that put an end to anything that might have eventuated with Reto. It’s good between us now, never awkward when I’m over at Allison’s. I’m good like that.
S this other boy is a prince – I can’t stop thinking about him. I didn’t even see him coming but he swept me off my feet so easily and sucky thing is, I fell straight on my ass. Haha. He’s amazing; everything I could ever want in a boy. We had a really good night together and I liked him so much. I got all those butterflies when he held my hand and that warm fuzzy feeling when he kissed me. I’d forgotten what it was like to like someone. I’d forgotten all those good feelings you can have but I also forgot the bad ones that came along with it all. He brought them all back for me. Here’s the problem. He lives an hour away from me and it’s extremely expensive for us to see each other. It gets worse, he leaves the country in July until December for an international internship. When he went home the next day and I realised all this, I had the worst empty hollow feeling which took me down for a good week. I completely panicked and acted like (sorry ladies) a girl, over analysing everything and getting down about things that I started making up in my head. I want to laugh about it now because the previous day, I had just told a friend not to do exactly what I was doing. It’s amazing how bad we are at taking our own advice... well how bad I am.
Luckily I went skiing that weekend which took most of my mind off it. Had a great weekend learning how to ski and rolling down the mountain. I was bruised and sore but I had the best fun. The most satisfying part is actually getting the hang of it and skiing down the entire mountain without doing the triangle stop at the end of the weekend. It’s always funny when skiing to see the pro Swiss 5 year olds zooming down the mountain while we 20 something oldies have our legs bent inwards trying to stop. The place, Ovronnaz, was absolutely amazing and so beautiful. It really was a little bit of paradise in the middle of Switzerland. The weekend was a good distraction for me but unfortunately, a little cut on my face got infected and developed into a flesh eating disease. What started of as a very little cut grew to about 6 times its size by Monday and looked like the flesh was still being eaten. I spoke to Hieu back home and got his medical expertise and found out it’d gotten infected . All I needed was antibiotic cream which required a doctor’s prescription. That was scary, going to a Swiss hospital and waiting for 3 hours to see a doc for 5 mins only to have him tell me exactly what Hieu had already told me but I got the prescription and got some cream on it. It really was starting to look scary – people stared on the train to the hospital. It’s doing fine now, mostly gone.
Alright so back to the boy. Haven’t seen him since I sent him home and fell into my hole of despair but I have spoken to him. We don’t talk about us or how we feel and I don’t really want to do it over msn but hopefully he’s coming to see me again next week. Hopefully. A few guys asked me out over the last week and I almost said yes since me and him aren’t together. In fact we haven’t even talked about us... and it doesn’t seem like there can be an us. I was really confused over the last week about exactly how I felt. After some good advice from Asher (Lol I know!) and some serious dish washing and room cleaning (it’s what I do to think) I figured out alot of things about me.
I don’t know if you guys remember what I was like before I met Mitch but I was a very different boy with some very naive ideas. After Mitch, I kind of buried every feeling I had so I could recover and now there’re all back so it was a bit hard to handle it all at first. I don’t know what I’m trying to say but I missed being that naive boy. And I miss what I use to be like and what I use to want because that’s who I want to be. (Aw how melodramatic!) Okay so you guys probably won’t understand a thing I’m saying now but here’s the important thing. I like a boy now, and even though I don’t know where we stand and know that we probably don’t have a future, I don’t want anyone else. I’m a one man man. Haha.
Hmmm okay I give people permission to judge me harshly at this point because I’ve obviously gone loopy. But one thing I did realise is that I haven’t been this happy in a while. I’m a bit sad because I know it’s probably a dead end but at the same time, I’m glad that I got a chance to meet him and I’m glad because I also feel like I know who I am now, and where I’m going and okay okay I get it... I’m being completely gay so I’ll stop.
LOL.
I can feel again!
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Julz Leaves! Molested by Creepy European! First Kiss in Switzerland. All in One Week.
Monday 9th March 2009
It’s a Monday afternoon and it’s about the first time in a week that I’ve had a bit of time to myself where I’m not completely stuffed or tired so thought I’d update this thing. Back all the way to last Tuesday, I think, is where we left off.
I had French litt in the morning with Allison but I think we were both to stuffed from Fasnact so we both ended up missing it. I awoke at some ungodly hour and had to do my French homework that was counted as part of my assessment. That’s right people; it’s not all fun and games in Switzerland. Jun’s actually got to do some work (speaking of which, Allison’s coming over around nowish to study but I’ll try and finish this now). Matt randomly dropped over around noon so ended up making us both lunch and then afterwards we went to the post office to pay our rents. Matt could only withdraw 500 CHF a day and he needed to pay a thousand bucks so I ended up lending him 500 CHF. I’ve now got people in debit to me everywhere. So Matt owes me 500 bucks, Allison owes me 130 cause she keeps need to borrow and Juliette owes me 400 CHF or 270 Euros. It’s about over 1000 bucks of my money floating out there; I should start my own bank. Headed into uni in the arvo and slept my way through 2 classes... I physically couldn’t keep my eyes open and it was somewhat difficult trying to hide the fact that I was sleeping from the professor but I was sneaking and made it look like I was writing with my face glued to the table.
After the last class with Krista, we went over to Matt’s for dinner and the kids were making some crazy potato fritters with mushrooms in balsamic vinegar. Yummy. Chilled out there the whole night.
Wednesday!
Slept in a bit again. Got to try and fix my sleeping patterns cause I can’t seem to get to bed at night; rolling around thinking about the most random things. Met up with Julz after I dragged myself out of bed and she wanted to do a law class (oh the crazy French enthusiasm in her). By now you should all know Wednesday is a big night for us exchange kids so I needed to get my assignment done before the sunset (unlike Allison who tried doing it whilst we were playing drinking games). I had it finished and I had to print it off at uni; half way to uni with Julz I realised I’d forgotten my USB at home so we ended up missing the first half of the class to go home and get my USB. Then I missed the second and last part of the class because it wouldn’t print and I ran around for an hour trying to get it done – success at the end but I missed the law class (I did drop Julz off so she went to the second half). Whilst on my crazy print run, I bumped into Allison and Matt drawing cartoons of our little family (I got given small eyes and an Asian hat -_-). After Julz finished her law class we all went back to my place and chilled there for a bit. Then the other kids left and me and Julz quickly got ready then headed over to Matt’s for dinner and drinking games!
Had some crazy French onion soup for dinner made by Krista.
Jonas came over to join the festivities so there were 2 more of us then usual (that includes Julz) giving us the perfect number of people to play Kings. Basically same rules as in Australia but with some added on weirdness by the Americans. Needless to say we all got somewhat drunk and it was good fun. So I got somewhat screwed and outed to Jonas because of freaking card 5 which is never have I ever – great friends I have. We played one game (dirty dirty photos are up on facebook – Warning they’re dirty!) and then headed out into town around 12. It was probably one of the most fun I’ve had since I’ve been here, I dance liked quite the little slut (with Allison whose booty was shaken). There was this cute German guy who lived with Kimberly and we met him out; he kept on trying to dance with Juliette and she didn’t want to so I spend half the night trying to get in between them – I was later warned by Jonas that I almost got punched in the face lol. Europeans! Some chick also kept grabbing my arse - and this begins Jun’s violation at clubs – unpleasant! We all walked home around 4 and me and Julz crashed on a mattresses at Allison’s. I vaguely remember Dane (her boy) talking to her on Skype and me saying crazy crazy things. Apparently he got angry at her cause she was talking to me the whole time. We had class the next (well same) morning at 10 and Allison was suppose to set the alarm for 9. So I’m deep in sleep and suddenly I hear a voice going ‘Jun what time is it!!’ Allison is frantic and I get up to check my time and it was 10 o’clock. That’s right..Allison didn’t set the alarm and we woke up at the same time as our class. WE had to go because we had assignments to hand in so we hurled our asses out of bed and ran for the bus looking and smelling like brown things. We burst into class half an hour late and the goddamn lady asked me to translate something!
After class I went home to recover and half passed out somewhere. Then at night, straight back out to meet Kimberly’s tandem. We had dinner at a pizza restaurant and it was delicious. Her tandem was pretty cool and since there was more Anglophones, we decided that this time we’d speak in English and next time it’d be French. Spent a good part of the night talking about Aussie fashion.
Friday – spent a romantic day with Juliette and yes it was every bit romantic if only we were each other’s significant others. We went for a walk along the lake by uni and then followed some tracks through forests – that’s right this is where I live. After a day of romantic strolls, we went back to mine and I cooked dinner for Julz for the first time. Jonas was home so we all decided to cook and eat together. After dinner, Julz needed to go to drum practice because even though the musical genius has only been in Switzerland for a week and a half, she somehow got involved and was now playing the drums in Julie’s Vietnamese Music Fest. Petty crazy. Me and Jonas ended up going to Allison’s which we’d planned early that week because of ‘hip hop night’ at the Loft. Allison was dying to dance to hip hop. At Allison’s we consumed some alcohol (pictures are on facebook cause Allison’s a mole and likes taking pictures- and no Jess...Jonas is not gay – I’m assuming you were talking about these pictures) and I talked to Phoebe on skype briefly.
Hurled ass out to the clubs at around midnight and bumped into a lot of people we knew on the bus. By the time we got to town it was just past 12.30 and the tickets for the ‘hip hop’ club had gone up from 12 CHF to 18... Being the poor kids we were, the 3 of didn’t want to pay so we ended up going to Darlings where all the people we’d bump into on the bus had gone. It was a great night with some creepy stories. We ended up dancing the night and I danced like quite a little slurry only simply because no girls came with us so Allison needed a dancing partner. While me and Allison were at the bar, some seedy guy in his late 20s came over to the bar next to us and brushed against me. At first I thought I was in his way so I kind of moved over a little but then he kept touching me; when I looked over he gave me a wink and proceeded to talk to me. I got a bit creeped out so I said Allison was my girlfriend and she put her arms around me but the guy wasn’t letting up. He asked me to ‘go with him’ and I asked him where he wanted to go, at which he replied ‘back to yours... your girlfriend can come to.’ BAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. So exceptionally creepy. I told him I wasn’t interested and me and Allison split. A little bit later on in the night, he kept walking past us and touching me so I told him to just back off and leave us alone. Jonas left around this time and we were all going to go home together but Allison wanted to keep dancing (this was around 4am) so I ended up staying with her. The club was kind of clearing out so there weren’t many people on the dance floor. We were kind of in the middle then Allison tells me the creeper is sitting in a corner staring at my arse and it was really creepy so we moved to the other side. Within like 5 minutes he came over to us again and started trying to feel me up... Allison got in between us and pushed her hand out then the guy grabbed her crotch. It was official violation. I pushed him away and gave him a warning look then me and Allison went to the bar. The guy still followed and just stood behind us so I turned around and told him to fuck off in French which is what I should have done straight up. He got all angry and started swearing in French then walked off – no idea what happened.
After that me and Allison went and huddled in a corner waiting for 5am which is when the train started so we wouldn’t have to walk home. Somehow in that time, while we were trying to get water, Allison scored 2 tequila shots for us both from an Irish bartender who was trying to hit on her so we drank a little bit extra before we finally left the club and walked home. (We found out the train didn’t start up for another half an hour and it was just easier to walk home)
Had a nice little D n M with Allison cause it took us more than an hour to get home... we got lost and turned back about 3 times. By the time we got back to Allison’s it was already 6 so I just caught a bus back to mine where I crashed till 3 in the arvo. Finally dragged myself out of bed and did my laundry and assorted errands then watched Snatch which Jonas lent (ladies you need it to watch it for Brad Pitt with no shirt on!).
Sunday was Julz’s last day and it was also her birthday the day before! I took her to Luzern for the day which is about a 2 hour train ride from Lausanne. It’s absolutely the most beautiful city in Switzerland. It’s on the border of the lake like Lausanne but alot more picturesque and every building in town looks ancient. There are 2 cute bridges that go over the river and a castle at the top of the hill looking over the town. Me and Julz took a 2 hour boat ride out into the lake then went and explored the city followed by a romantic picnic by the lake facing the ranges – we’ve decided the entire time she’s been in Switzerland, we’ve basically been caught in romantic situation without our significant others. Quite sad really.
We left Luzern around 6 at night after I’d bought 2 cheeseburgers to snack on. I took her to Zurich but we didn’t end up seeing much of the place since it was already dark and freeze out so we just chilled at the airport. She caught a plane out to Germany at 9. By the time I got back to Lausanne, it was half past 11 – it was about a 2 and half hour train ride from Zurich to Lausanne. Love how small Switzerland is! (at the same time, hate that I was on a train for 2 and half hours squished by military men who for some reason attacked my train)
Monday was....supposedly the day I’m writing this but it’s actually Wednesday now because I’m just that slack haha! Monday night went to Allison’s for dinner and kissed her housemate Reto. So this is my first kiss in Switzerland haha!
Oh wait that’s kind of sad.
So Allison, as always, needed to talk to her boyfriend on skype so she went inside whilst I stayed outside and cleaned up after dinner. It was just me and Reto and we chatted for a bit then the other housemate, Tvisha, came out. Somehow we got to discussing political things and she asked me what my view on abortion and gay rights were. I told her of course I was for pro gay rights since I’m gay – she didn’t believe me. Apparently I’m too much of a prankster and I was pulling her leg. At this time, Reto also decided to come out and say he was gay too. She didn’t know that either so she thought we were both yanking her legs. After 10 minutes of us laughing about it, me and Reto decided to prove it to her by kissing and hence the 5 second kiss where he stuck his tongue in my mouth. I was expecting just a smack but he actually really went for it. And that was that for Monday night. Who knows what could happen haha? Bye kids.
It’s a Monday afternoon and it’s about the first time in a week that I’ve had a bit of time to myself where I’m not completely stuffed or tired so thought I’d update this thing. Back all the way to last Tuesday, I think, is where we left off.
I had French litt in the morning with Allison but I think we were both to stuffed from Fasnact so we both ended up missing it. I awoke at some ungodly hour and had to do my French homework that was counted as part of my assessment. That’s right people; it’s not all fun and games in Switzerland. Jun’s actually got to do some work (speaking of which, Allison’s coming over around nowish to study but I’ll try and finish this now). Matt randomly dropped over around noon so ended up making us both lunch and then afterwards we went to the post office to pay our rents. Matt could only withdraw 500 CHF a day and he needed to pay a thousand bucks so I ended up lending him 500 CHF. I’ve now got people in debit to me everywhere. So Matt owes me 500 bucks, Allison owes me 130 cause she keeps need to borrow and Juliette owes me 400 CHF or 270 Euros. It’s about over 1000 bucks of my money floating out there; I should start my own bank. Headed into uni in the arvo and slept my way through 2 classes... I physically couldn’t keep my eyes open and it was somewhat difficult trying to hide the fact that I was sleeping from the professor but I was sneaking and made it look like I was writing with my face glued to the table.
After the last class with Krista, we went over to Matt’s for dinner and the kids were making some crazy potato fritters with mushrooms in balsamic vinegar. Yummy. Chilled out there the whole night.
Wednesday!
Slept in a bit again. Got to try and fix my sleeping patterns cause I can’t seem to get to bed at night; rolling around thinking about the most random things. Met up with Julz after I dragged myself out of bed and she wanted to do a law class (oh the crazy French enthusiasm in her). By now you should all know Wednesday is a big night for us exchange kids so I needed to get my assignment done before the sunset (unlike Allison who tried doing it whilst we were playing drinking games). I had it finished and I had to print it off at uni; half way to uni with Julz I realised I’d forgotten my USB at home so we ended up missing the first half of the class to go home and get my USB. Then I missed the second and last part of the class because it wouldn’t print and I ran around for an hour trying to get it done – success at the end but I missed the law class (I did drop Julz off so she went to the second half). Whilst on my crazy print run, I bumped into Allison and Matt drawing cartoons of our little family (I got given small eyes and an Asian hat -_-). After Julz finished her law class we all went back to my place and chilled there for a bit. Then the other kids left and me and Julz quickly got ready then headed over to Matt’s for dinner and drinking games!
Had some crazy French onion soup for dinner made by Krista.
Jonas came over to join the festivities so there were 2 more of us then usual (that includes Julz) giving us the perfect number of people to play Kings. Basically same rules as in Australia but with some added on weirdness by the Americans. Needless to say we all got somewhat drunk and it was good fun. So I got somewhat screwed and outed to Jonas because of freaking card 5 which is never have I ever – great friends I have. We played one game (dirty dirty photos are up on facebook – Warning they’re dirty!) and then headed out into town around 12. It was probably one of the most fun I’ve had since I’ve been here, I dance liked quite the little slut (with Allison whose booty was shaken). There was this cute German guy who lived with Kimberly and we met him out; he kept on trying to dance with Juliette and she didn’t want to so I spend half the night trying to get in between them – I was later warned by Jonas that I almost got punched in the face lol. Europeans! Some chick also kept grabbing my arse - and this begins Jun’s violation at clubs – unpleasant! We all walked home around 4 and me and Julz crashed on a mattresses at Allison’s. I vaguely remember Dane (her boy) talking to her on Skype and me saying crazy crazy things. Apparently he got angry at her cause she was talking to me the whole time. We had class the next (well same) morning at 10 and Allison was suppose to set the alarm for 9. So I’m deep in sleep and suddenly I hear a voice going ‘Jun what time is it!!’ Allison is frantic and I get up to check my time and it was 10 o’clock. That’s right..Allison didn’t set the alarm and we woke up at the same time as our class. WE had to go because we had assignments to hand in so we hurled our asses out of bed and ran for the bus looking and smelling like brown things. We burst into class half an hour late and the goddamn lady asked me to translate something!
After class I went home to recover and half passed out somewhere. Then at night, straight back out to meet Kimberly’s tandem. We had dinner at a pizza restaurant and it was delicious. Her tandem was pretty cool and since there was more Anglophones, we decided that this time we’d speak in English and next time it’d be French. Spent a good part of the night talking about Aussie fashion.
Friday – spent a romantic day with Juliette and yes it was every bit romantic if only we were each other’s significant others. We went for a walk along the lake by uni and then followed some tracks through forests – that’s right this is where I live. After a day of romantic strolls, we went back to mine and I cooked dinner for Julz for the first time. Jonas was home so we all decided to cook and eat together. After dinner, Julz needed to go to drum practice because even though the musical genius has only been in Switzerland for a week and a half, she somehow got involved and was now playing the drums in Julie’s Vietnamese Music Fest. Petty crazy. Me and Jonas ended up going to Allison’s which we’d planned early that week because of ‘hip hop night’ at the Loft. Allison was dying to dance to hip hop. At Allison’s we consumed some alcohol (pictures are on facebook cause Allison’s a mole and likes taking pictures- and no Jess...Jonas is not gay – I’m assuming you were talking about these pictures) and I talked to Phoebe on skype briefly.
Hurled ass out to the clubs at around midnight and bumped into a lot of people we knew on the bus. By the time we got to town it was just past 12.30 and the tickets for the ‘hip hop’ club had gone up from 12 CHF to 18... Being the poor kids we were, the 3 of didn’t want to pay so we ended up going to Darlings where all the people we’d bump into on the bus had gone. It was a great night with some creepy stories. We ended up dancing the night and I danced like quite a little slurry only simply because no girls came with us so Allison needed a dancing partner. While me and Allison were at the bar, some seedy guy in his late 20s came over to the bar next to us and brushed against me. At first I thought I was in his way so I kind of moved over a little but then he kept touching me; when I looked over he gave me a wink and proceeded to talk to me. I got a bit creeped out so I said Allison was my girlfriend and she put her arms around me but the guy wasn’t letting up. He asked me to ‘go with him’ and I asked him where he wanted to go, at which he replied ‘back to yours... your girlfriend can come to.’ BAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. So exceptionally creepy. I told him I wasn’t interested and me and Allison split. A little bit later on in the night, he kept walking past us and touching me so I told him to just back off and leave us alone. Jonas left around this time and we were all going to go home together but Allison wanted to keep dancing (this was around 4am) so I ended up staying with her. The club was kind of clearing out so there weren’t many people on the dance floor. We were kind of in the middle then Allison tells me the creeper is sitting in a corner staring at my arse and it was really creepy so we moved to the other side. Within like 5 minutes he came over to us again and started trying to feel me up... Allison got in between us and pushed her hand out then the guy grabbed her crotch. It was official violation. I pushed him away and gave him a warning look then me and Allison went to the bar. The guy still followed and just stood behind us so I turned around and told him to fuck off in French which is what I should have done straight up. He got all angry and started swearing in French then walked off – no idea what happened.
After that me and Allison went and huddled in a corner waiting for 5am which is when the train started so we wouldn’t have to walk home. Somehow in that time, while we were trying to get water, Allison scored 2 tequila shots for us both from an Irish bartender who was trying to hit on her so we drank a little bit extra before we finally left the club and walked home. (We found out the train didn’t start up for another half an hour and it was just easier to walk home)
Had a nice little D n M with Allison cause it took us more than an hour to get home... we got lost and turned back about 3 times. By the time we got back to Allison’s it was already 6 so I just caught a bus back to mine where I crashed till 3 in the arvo. Finally dragged myself out of bed and did my laundry and assorted errands then watched Snatch which Jonas lent (ladies you need it to watch it for Brad Pitt with no shirt on!).
Sunday was Julz’s last day and it was also her birthday the day before! I took her to Luzern for the day which is about a 2 hour train ride from Lausanne. It’s absolutely the most beautiful city in Switzerland. It’s on the border of the lake like Lausanne but alot more picturesque and every building in town looks ancient. There are 2 cute bridges that go over the river and a castle at the top of the hill looking over the town. Me and Julz took a 2 hour boat ride out into the lake then went and explored the city followed by a romantic picnic by the lake facing the ranges – we’ve decided the entire time she’s been in Switzerland, we’ve basically been caught in romantic situation without our significant others. Quite sad really.
We left Luzern around 6 at night after I’d bought 2 cheeseburgers to snack on. I took her to Zurich but we didn’t end up seeing much of the place since it was already dark and freeze out so we just chilled at the airport. She caught a plane out to Germany at 9. By the time I got back to Lausanne, it was half past 11 – it was about a 2 and half hour train ride from Zurich to Lausanne. Love how small Switzerland is! (at the same time, hate that I was on a train for 2 and half hours squished by military men who for some reason attacked my train)
Monday was....supposedly the day I’m writing this but it’s actually Wednesday now because I’m just that slack haha! Monday night went to Allison’s for dinner and kissed her housemate Reto. So this is my first kiss in Switzerland haha!
Oh wait that’s kind of sad.
So Allison, as always, needed to talk to her boyfriend on skype so she went inside whilst I stayed outside and cleaned up after dinner. It was just me and Reto and we chatted for a bit then the other housemate, Tvisha, came out. Somehow we got to discussing political things and she asked me what my view on abortion and gay rights were. I told her of course I was for pro gay rights since I’m gay – she didn’t believe me. Apparently I’m too much of a prankster and I was pulling her leg. At this time, Reto also decided to come out and say he was gay too. She didn’t know that either so she thought we were both yanking her legs. After 10 minutes of us laughing about it, me and Reto decided to prove it to her by kissing and hence the 5 second kiss where he stuck his tongue in my mouth. I was expecting just a smack but he actually really went for it. And that was that for Monday night. Who knows what could happen haha? Bye kids.
Saturday, March 7, 2009
FASNACT CARNIVAL: BASEL STYLE
Monday 2nd March!
So we met Allison at the train station and the three of us hopped onto a train for Basel; which would have cost us 30CHF one way but thanks to our beautiful Voie 7 (which we freaking paid 250CHF for) we get to travel for free in Switzerland after 7.
The train ride took about 2 hours but we found ways to amuse ourselves with photos and chit chat. Allison said the ride would have been amazing if we had taken it during the day because the countryside between Lausanne and Basel is beautiful. Guess that’s what saving 30 bucks cost us. When we got to Basel, Allison was the only one with good enough German to actually help us find our way around the place; but since Swiss German and real German is completely different and Swiss Germans hate speaking in real German– Allison was petrified to talk to them because apparently they ‘just look at her and want her to die’. Haha.
We somehow found our way onto a Basel tram which took us to Jonas’s and he picked us up at the station. We crashed at Jonas’s on Saturday night and decided we were in love. When we arrived, he showed us his house and then took us to a room where he’d prepared mattresses and sleeping bags; there was a computer, TV, DVDs. He then showed us the bathroom, got a hairdryer for the girls and told us if were hungry we could go to the kitchen and have whatever we liked. Basically the perfect host. We basically spent the rest of the time before we went to bed discussing how great Jonas was and how both girls had boyfriends so they should both stop discussing how great Jonas was. We eventually fell asleep.
We woke up pretty late Sunday morning and had delicious cheese and bread at Jonas’s for brekkie. He then took us for a walk just to show us a bit of the outskirts of Basel and we ended up in Germany! I love Europe! So for those who don’t know, Basel is a Swiss city on the border of Germany and Switzerland – oh and also the language Swiss German (spoken in Basel) is very different to High German (Spoken in Germany) – to a degree that they’re basically differently languages spoken out loud (oo like Cantonese and Mandarin). We went back to Jonas’s place for lunch and his family were awesome. They made us some crazy traditional Swiss food which was both delicious and satisfying. Jonas is half Swedish and so his family has all these Swedish things around the house and I’ve decided that I now love Swedish people who not only invented IKEA and Swedish meatballs but are tall, blonde and blue eyed and have the coolest dispositions (big word!) I am therefore going to marry a Swede or at least have a fantastic European fling with one... and no. Not with Jonas -_-
After lunch, me, Julz and Allison went into the centre of Basel to further explore the great city. Basel is like a big city crossed with a small town. There are no skyscrapers but there are shops and restaurants somewhat similar to Queen St mall, but then at the same time, there’s little alley ways and streets with olden day houses that looks like it should be on the movie set of something set in the 1100s. The best thing about this town and especially for Carnival is that it actually feels like you’re in a Roman carnival running down alleys and going down mini walks with stone walls and to either side. The city was preparing for the Carnival that starts on Monday morning (so we’re currently on Sunday afternoon) There were people selling Plaggedde which is a Fasnact (name of the Carnival) badge that everyone has to wear during the Carnival. It’s the only way that the Carnival is funded and it comes in bronze, silver and gold. Being the poor students that we were, we each bought a bronze one in preparation for the following day. Allison said that people who are seen during Carnival not wearing a badge gets the confetti stuffed out of them...we had badges... we still got the confetti stuffed out of us! Around 6 we went back to Jonas’s and had dinner (cheese and breadJ) with him. We bummed around his place until about 8.30 then we left to go meet up with the other kids (Matt, Kimberly etc and my parrain Tobias who’s place we were staying at on Sunday night). Jonas went home on Sunday night because he had class the next morning and he’d been to Fasnact countless times already.
We met up with Tobias and the others at the train station and there was like 9 of us cause he had some other Japanese friends who were going to stay with him...that’s where the trouble began. We went to his mum’s house and she was a really nice lady. Very big house! It was like aristocracy, all the furniture in the house were more than 200 years old and the china which she used to serve us tea were like designer cups covered in beautiful patterns etc. We were peasants in a noble’s house. Now here was the problem, when we were all going to sleep (there were definitely enough room) she asked me and Matt where our quilt coverings etc were. We were like...um we didn’t bring any. She was obviously very proper so every bed we slept on needed quilt coverings or at least sleeping bags and none of us had brought any so she got really angry because she had to use her own covers– the anger was directed at me and Matt whom she was talking to - she did not want to have to do laundry for 9 people. The girls were quick on their feet and pretended they all brought stuff so she was just pissed at me and Matt. Obviously the girls didn’t bring stuff so we were all kind of scared cause we were in this angry woman’s house and we couldn’t sleep on things without the appropriate covering. 5 of us huddled into one room and on one bed and kind of just stayed awake the whole night in fear. Very pleasant evening. It was our fault and I completely understand why she was kind of annoyed... I wouldn’t want to have to do laundry for 9 people so we all felt really bad and bought her chocolates the next day to say thank you.
Now finally for Carnival!
We got up at 3 in the morning... well didn’t really sleep and headed into the town. There were people everywhere and the weather was shit...it was raining. Swiss rain which means it was just drizzling but still cold and miserable! Everyone gathered in the town square and at exactly 4 in the morning, every light in the place went off plunging us into total darkness. Then the flute and drums started and we were told it was the music armies use to march to whilst going to war. People in masks holding lanterns marched across the street and just dispersed all throughout central Basel. We spent an hour just running down the alleyways following marchers playing the flute and drum. It was definitely an experience. I just remembered thinking how like a real Roman carnival it felt. Phoebe will appreciate this cause we both did Carnival as a subject for a semester last year but it was actually exactly like the way Veronica described and it was so weird to actually know theory behind the whole thing haha. The parade went for an hour and stopped at 5 at which time we all went and got coffee and breakfast. Afterwards we all went back to Tobia’s mum’s place and squeezed back into the one room. We decided we actually needed some sleep if we wanted to keep going during the day so 2 people sat on the couch and fell asleep and 4 of us got into a standard queen size bed and squeezed. It went Matt, Allison, me and then Julz. We physically couldn’t move, we were all our sides in our jeans inside the cover and it was like a 1000degree oven for me and Allison – meanwhile her ghetto booty haha was all up in my space... just jokes Allison! Apparently the two kids on the side got cold cause me and Allison hogged the blankets while me and Allison were dying of heat and kept trying to push the blankets off. It’s not an experience I want to have again too soon. But we did manage to get some sleep and got up around 10 in the morning. Tobia’s mum made us coffee and we all sat around the posh table sipping away. She turned out to actually be really cool and nice and told us all about Basel history and the things that you can do in the city and in Switzerland. She’s well into her 50s and still goes to Uni to just keep learning new things. We actually all ended up really liking her and talked till past noon. We left her place and went back into the town to grab some lunch – chocolate bread – but she let us leave all our bags so we didn’t need to carry them around all day. The afternoon parade didn’t’ start till 2 so we chilled in a cafe and also went to see the Basel cathedral. It was huge and ancient; designed in the Gothic style. I can’t really imagine ever going to a church in a building like that cause it has such a ghostly feeling and it’s just huge!
The afternoon carnival was so much fun! Unfortunately it was still raining as you’ll probably all see from the photos hence we all look like drowned rats but god it was amazing. When the parade started the flutes and drums came back on and people in all sorts of crazy masks marched but there were also giant floats where masked people threw confetti and assorted goods into the crowd. Some of them threw candy, flowers, some threw vegetables and fruit and others threw out plush toys etc. We collected about 20 mandarins, 2 cloves of garlic, a cucumber, and alot of candy! The girls also got about 6 or 7 roses. The funny thing is these guys trick people too so they’ll hold out a flower from the float and when people reach up to grab it, they grab the person’s arm and won’t let go then they stuff confetti all down the person’s clothes. All the girls had confetti down their bra haha. The best bit was when Allison got grabbed and they actually pulled her onto the float and went home with the confetti. She was absolute covered! I got confetti punched in the face a couple of times so I didn’t get off any better. By the end of the parade we were all wet and covered in assorted colours of confetti but we loved every minute of it. Around 6ish we started to walk back to Tobia’s and just followed the parade and everyone going crazy. The entire city floor was covered and apparently all during carnival, the confetti can come up to your knees but at the end of the carnival, the Basel cleaning team cleans the entire place up in the early morning like schoolies and Basel goes back to being completely clean.
We had coffee with Tobia’s mum again after we got back just to warm ourselves up before we went and took a train back to Lausanne. The Carnival goes for 3 days but we all had class the next day and we didn’t have anywhere else to stay so we all went back early. On the train, we emptied out our pockets and bags and covered our train in confetti J That’s Carnival for you kids.
So we met Allison at the train station and the three of us hopped onto a train for Basel; which would have cost us 30CHF one way but thanks to our beautiful Voie 7 (which we freaking paid 250CHF for) we get to travel for free in Switzerland after 7.
The train ride took about 2 hours but we found ways to amuse ourselves with photos and chit chat. Allison said the ride would have been amazing if we had taken it during the day because the countryside between Lausanne and Basel is beautiful. Guess that’s what saving 30 bucks cost us. When we got to Basel, Allison was the only one with good enough German to actually help us find our way around the place; but since Swiss German and real German is completely different and Swiss Germans hate speaking in real German– Allison was petrified to talk to them because apparently they ‘just look at her and want her to die’. Haha.
We somehow found our way onto a Basel tram which took us to Jonas’s and he picked us up at the station. We crashed at Jonas’s on Saturday night and decided we were in love. When we arrived, he showed us his house and then took us to a room where he’d prepared mattresses and sleeping bags; there was a computer, TV, DVDs. He then showed us the bathroom, got a hairdryer for the girls and told us if were hungry we could go to the kitchen and have whatever we liked. Basically the perfect host. We basically spent the rest of the time before we went to bed discussing how great Jonas was and how both girls had boyfriends so they should both stop discussing how great Jonas was. We eventually fell asleep.
We woke up pretty late Sunday morning and had delicious cheese and bread at Jonas’s for brekkie. He then took us for a walk just to show us a bit of the outskirts of Basel and we ended up in Germany! I love Europe! So for those who don’t know, Basel is a Swiss city on the border of Germany and Switzerland – oh and also the language Swiss German (spoken in Basel) is very different to High German (Spoken in Germany) – to a degree that they’re basically differently languages spoken out loud (oo like Cantonese and Mandarin). We went back to Jonas’s place for lunch and his family were awesome. They made us some crazy traditional Swiss food which was both delicious and satisfying. Jonas is half Swedish and so his family has all these Swedish things around the house and I’ve decided that I now love Swedish people who not only invented IKEA and Swedish meatballs but are tall, blonde and blue eyed and have the coolest dispositions (big word!) I am therefore going to marry a Swede or at least have a fantastic European fling with one... and no. Not with Jonas -_-
After lunch, me, Julz and Allison went into the centre of Basel to further explore the great city. Basel is like a big city crossed with a small town. There are no skyscrapers but there are shops and restaurants somewhat similar to Queen St mall, but then at the same time, there’s little alley ways and streets with olden day houses that looks like it should be on the movie set of something set in the 1100s. The best thing about this town and especially for Carnival is that it actually feels like you’re in a Roman carnival running down alleys and going down mini walks with stone walls and to either side. The city was preparing for the Carnival that starts on Monday morning (so we’re currently on Sunday afternoon) There were people selling Plaggedde which is a Fasnact (name of the Carnival) badge that everyone has to wear during the Carnival. It’s the only way that the Carnival is funded and it comes in bronze, silver and gold. Being the poor students that we were, we each bought a bronze one in preparation for the following day. Allison said that people who are seen during Carnival not wearing a badge gets the confetti stuffed out of them...we had badges... we still got the confetti stuffed out of us! Around 6 we went back to Jonas’s and had dinner (cheese and breadJ) with him. We bummed around his place until about 8.30 then we left to go meet up with the other kids (Matt, Kimberly etc and my parrain Tobias who’s place we were staying at on Sunday night). Jonas went home on Sunday night because he had class the next morning and he’d been to Fasnact countless times already.
We met up with Tobias and the others at the train station and there was like 9 of us cause he had some other Japanese friends who were going to stay with him...that’s where the trouble began. We went to his mum’s house and she was a really nice lady. Very big house! It was like aristocracy, all the furniture in the house were more than 200 years old and the china which she used to serve us tea were like designer cups covered in beautiful patterns etc. We were peasants in a noble’s house. Now here was the problem, when we were all going to sleep (there were definitely enough room) she asked me and Matt where our quilt coverings etc were. We were like...um we didn’t bring any. She was obviously very proper so every bed we slept on needed quilt coverings or at least sleeping bags and none of us had brought any so she got really angry because she had to use her own covers– the anger was directed at me and Matt whom she was talking to - she did not want to have to do laundry for 9 people. The girls were quick on their feet and pretended they all brought stuff so she was just pissed at me and Matt. Obviously the girls didn’t bring stuff so we were all kind of scared cause we were in this angry woman’s house and we couldn’t sleep on things without the appropriate covering. 5 of us huddled into one room and on one bed and kind of just stayed awake the whole night in fear. Very pleasant evening. It was our fault and I completely understand why she was kind of annoyed... I wouldn’t want to have to do laundry for 9 people so we all felt really bad and bought her chocolates the next day to say thank you.
Now finally for Carnival!
We got up at 3 in the morning... well didn’t really sleep and headed into the town. There were people everywhere and the weather was shit...it was raining. Swiss rain which means it was just drizzling but still cold and miserable! Everyone gathered in the town square and at exactly 4 in the morning, every light in the place went off plunging us into total darkness. Then the flute and drums started and we were told it was the music armies use to march to whilst going to war. People in masks holding lanterns marched across the street and just dispersed all throughout central Basel. We spent an hour just running down the alleyways following marchers playing the flute and drum. It was definitely an experience. I just remembered thinking how like a real Roman carnival it felt. Phoebe will appreciate this cause we both did Carnival as a subject for a semester last year but it was actually exactly like the way Veronica described and it was so weird to actually know theory behind the whole thing haha. The parade went for an hour and stopped at 5 at which time we all went and got coffee and breakfast. Afterwards we all went back to Tobia’s mum’s place and squeezed back into the one room. We decided we actually needed some sleep if we wanted to keep going during the day so 2 people sat on the couch and fell asleep and 4 of us got into a standard queen size bed and squeezed. It went Matt, Allison, me and then Julz. We physically couldn’t move, we were all our sides in our jeans inside the cover and it was like a 1000degree oven for me and Allison – meanwhile her ghetto booty haha was all up in my space... just jokes Allison! Apparently the two kids on the side got cold cause me and Allison hogged the blankets while me and Allison were dying of heat and kept trying to push the blankets off. It’s not an experience I want to have again too soon. But we did manage to get some sleep and got up around 10 in the morning. Tobia’s mum made us coffee and we all sat around the posh table sipping away. She turned out to actually be really cool and nice and told us all about Basel history and the things that you can do in the city and in Switzerland. She’s well into her 50s and still goes to Uni to just keep learning new things. We actually all ended up really liking her and talked till past noon. We left her place and went back into the town to grab some lunch – chocolate bread – but she let us leave all our bags so we didn’t need to carry them around all day. The afternoon parade didn’t’ start till 2 so we chilled in a cafe and also went to see the Basel cathedral. It was huge and ancient; designed in the Gothic style. I can’t really imagine ever going to a church in a building like that cause it has such a ghostly feeling and it’s just huge!
The afternoon carnival was so much fun! Unfortunately it was still raining as you’ll probably all see from the photos hence we all look like drowned rats but god it was amazing. When the parade started the flutes and drums came back on and people in all sorts of crazy masks marched but there were also giant floats where masked people threw confetti and assorted goods into the crowd. Some of them threw candy, flowers, some threw vegetables and fruit and others threw out plush toys etc. We collected about 20 mandarins, 2 cloves of garlic, a cucumber, and alot of candy! The girls also got about 6 or 7 roses. The funny thing is these guys trick people too so they’ll hold out a flower from the float and when people reach up to grab it, they grab the person’s arm and won’t let go then they stuff confetti all down the person’s clothes. All the girls had confetti down their bra haha. The best bit was when Allison got grabbed and they actually pulled her onto the float and went home with the confetti. She was absolute covered! I got confetti punched in the face a couple of times so I didn’t get off any better. By the end of the parade we were all wet and covered in assorted colours of confetti but we loved every minute of it. Around 6ish we started to walk back to Tobia’s and just followed the parade and everyone going crazy. The entire city floor was covered and apparently all during carnival, the confetti can come up to your knees but at the end of the carnival, the Basel cleaning team cleans the entire place up in the early morning like schoolies and Basel goes back to being completely clean.
We had coffee with Tobia’s mum again after we got back just to warm ourselves up before we went and took a train back to Lausanne. The Carnival goes for 3 days but we all had class the next day and we didn’t have anywhere else to stay so we all went back early. On the train, we emptied out our pockets and bags and covered our train in confetti J That’s Carnival for you kids.
Friday, March 6, 2009
Julz Arrives in Switzerland!
Wednesday 4th March 2009
Before I start writing anything, I’d just like to mention a special shout out to the one and only Matt Dolan who’s awesome and definitely exists and therefore should be mentioned more in this blog.
So going back to last Wednesday when I went to Julie’s to go see the beautiful Juliette on her first day in merry Switzerland! (This may get confusing for everyone so I will refer Aussie Juliette as Julz and her swiss buddy Julie) It was so great to finally see a familiar Aussie face but damn Julz and her French ways, she proceeded to talk in French the rest of the night. As her boyfriend puts it, it’s for my own good haha. Julie’s family is really nice and they cooked me a delicious Asian meal... awww Asian food, how I’ve missed thee! We spent a good majority of the night at the dinner table talking away in rapid French
Because I went and saw Julie Wednesday night, I didn't end up going on Carnival pub night where everybody dressed up in kinky costumes, but I got to hear some great stories the next day over our Kebab lunch after my English Translation class. I've also discovered that Jonas has the perfect turtle neck sweater ninja style that would have my costume 100% ninja.
Came home in the afternoon and made enough spaghetti sauce to last me a good week, of course being the fat boy I am I finished about half of it in one serving. It was the Med Ball (which is not actually a ball...just a night out clubbing but organised by the Med Students) that night and I’d planned to meet Julz and Julie at 9 outside the club MAD to get tickets. We were in line for about half an hour and just as we got up to the front of the line, the guy tells us that the tickets had just sold out. And I mean the front of the line! The next batch of tickets got released at 11.30 and I was going to take the last train home at 12.30 so I didn’t think it was really worth 20 bucks for about half an hour. We ended up going to a bar and getting a drink till 11 then the girls went back to the club and I hopped on a train home.
Spent Friday with Julie showing her Lausanne. That’s a bit of an overstatement since I don’t know this city particularly well having only been here for 3 weeks. We went to the Supreme Court of Switzerland (why it’s in Lausanne, I don’t know) which overlooked this park that overlooked the lake and the mountain ranges. It was an amazing view and there were a lot of couples around, just enjoying the sun and possible cunoodling. Me and Julie got out the camera and ended up taking a lot of photos. We also asked a few people to take photos for us; embracing the true heritage of the Asian tourist. After the Court, we went up the town (literally, it’s a steep mofo) and went to the giant cathedral which isn't half as impressive as the one we saw in Basel (wait for the next blog) followed by the Lausanne castle (which is more like a building in my opinion). This little tour around the city was also interrupted by Julie peeing in a boy’s toilette in what can only be described as the hole on the toilet floor. The memories!
Around 7, we headed over to my friends house for dinner and all the kids (Allison, Matt, Krista, Kimberly) were there. We had yummy yummy tacos, followed by interesting talks of interesting topics. At some stage of the night, Julz fell asleep – I think jet lag finally settled in.
Saturday –
Julie’s parents picked me up around 11.20 then we went and picked up Julz and Julie from sitar practice... (That’s right, Julie plays the sitar!). We drove out of Lausanne to the far north; to the region known as Gruyere which is renowned for its cheeeeese. (It's really yummy cheese, I'm a bit of a psycho cheese eater now...cheese and bread! I finally understand!) We hiked up the damn mountain and spent the day in the region seeing the sites and taking photos, don’t really know how to describe the place to you other than that it was amazing. I’ll put photos up; they say a picture is worth a thousand words. So go on facebook people and I'll caption its ass so I won't go into detail here.
We spent the whole day out and got back to Julie’s place around dinner time. I’d told Julie’s mum how much I love Vietnamese food especially PHO which I had basically eaten once a week back home and she was so nice she made it for me on Saturday night! Awww delicious beef noodle soup! After dinner, me and Julz rushed off to the train station to meet Allison and the 3 of us took a train to Basel for the beginning of CARNVAL BASEL STYLE: FASNACT.
I'll write the other blog now lol.
Before I start writing anything, I’d just like to mention a special shout out to the one and only Matt Dolan who’s awesome and definitely exists and therefore should be mentioned more in this blog.
So going back to last Wednesday when I went to Julie’s to go see the beautiful Juliette on her first day in merry Switzerland! (This may get confusing for everyone so I will refer Aussie Juliette as Julz and her swiss buddy Julie) It was so great to finally see a familiar Aussie face but damn Julz and her French ways, she proceeded to talk in French the rest of the night. As her boyfriend puts it, it’s for my own good haha. Julie’s family is really nice and they cooked me a delicious Asian meal... awww Asian food, how I’ve missed thee! We spent a good majority of the night at the dinner table talking away in rapid French
Because I went and saw Julie Wednesday night, I didn't end up going on Carnival pub night where everybody dressed up in kinky costumes, but I got to hear some great stories the next day over our Kebab lunch after my English Translation class. I've also discovered that Jonas has the perfect turtle neck sweater ninja style that would have my costume 100% ninja.
Came home in the afternoon and made enough spaghetti sauce to last me a good week, of course being the fat boy I am I finished about half of it in one serving. It was the Med Ball (which is not actually a ball...just a night out clubbing but organised by the Med Students) that night and I’d planned to meet Julz and Julie at 9 outside the club MAD to get tickets. We were in line for about half an hour and just as we got up to the front of the line, the guy tells us that the tickets had just sold out. And I mean the front of the line! The next batch of tickets got released at 11.30 and I was going to take the last train home at 12.30 so I didn’t think it was really worth 20 bucks for about half an hour. We ended up going to a bar and getting a drink till 11 then the girls went back to the club and I hopped on a train home.
Spent Friday with Julie showing her Lausanne. That’s a bit of an overstatement since I don’t know this city particularly well having only been here for 3 weeks. We went to the Supreme Court of Switzerland (why it’s in Lausanne, I don’t know) which overlooked this park that overlooked the lake and the mountain ranges. It was an amazing view and there were a lot of couples around, just enjoying the sun and possible cunoodling. Me and Julie got out the camera and ended up taking a lot of photos. We also asked a few people to take photos for us; embracing the true heritage of the Asian tourist. After the Court, we went up the town (literally, it’s a steep mofo) and went to the giant cathedral which isn't half as impressive as the one we saw in Basel (wait for the next blog) followed by the Lausanne castle (which is more like a building in my opinion). This little tour around the city was also interrupted by Julie peeing in a boy’s toilette in what can only be described as the hole on the toilet floor. The memories!
Around 7, we headed over to my friends house for dinner and all the kids (Allison, Matt, Krista, Kimberly) were there. We had yummy yummy tacos, followed by interesting talks of interesting topics. At some stage of the night, Julz fell asleep – I think jet lag finally settled in.
Saturday –
Julie’s parents picked me up around 11.20 then we went and picked up Julz and Julie from sitar practice... (That’s right, Julie plays the sitar!). We drove out of Lausanne to the far north; to the region known as Gruyere which is renowned for its cheeeeese. (It's really yummy cheese, I'm a bit of a psycho cheese eater now...cheese and bread! I finally understand!) We hiked up the damn mountain and spent the day in the region seeing the sites and taking photos, don’t really know how to describe the place to you other than that it was amazing. I’ll put photos up; they say a picture is worth a thousand words. So go on facebook people and I'll caption its ass so I won't go into detail here.
We spent the whole day out and got back to Julie’s place around dinner time. I’d told Julie’s mum how much I love Vietnamese food especially PHO which I had basically eaten once a week back home and she was so nice she made it for me on Saturday night! Awww delicious beef noodle soup! After dinner, me and Julz rushed off to the train station to meet Allison and the 3 of us took a train to Basel for the beginning of CARNVAL BASEL STYLE: FASNACT.
I'll write the other blog now lol.
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