Thirty Things, number 11: visit Jördis and Tineke in Switzerland.

I can’t recall ever sleeping through an alarm, yet whenever I set an alarm for a time earlier than 6:30am, especially if its imperative I wake up on time in order to make a train or some such thing, I instantly lose the ability to sleep. Consequently, when I went to bed on the 8^th of March, with my alarm set for 4am, I didn’t expect much. And I wasn’t proved wrong. I Drifted and dosed in out of sleep and wakefulness was almost relieved to see 4am approach and to bound out of bed with bundles of insane, sleep deprived energy, splash water on my face, get dressed and walk from my friend’s place in Sloane Square to Victoria station in order to get the 4:30 Gatwick express and begin my adventure to Switzerland to visit Jördis and Tineke, number 11 on my list of things to do this year.

And what a wonderful, if somewhat sleepless, adventure I had. I flew into Zurich and was met by Jördis – who I’d not seen since I visited her in Düsseldorf in 2009 – and her young son Emil. We had a lovely wander through the morning sunshine in Zurich. I spent my money on amazing macaroons in The Sprüngli café rather than in the Bodum shop – tempting as all those teapots were, and went into the Fraumünster to check out the windows designed by Chagall, which I though lovely with great splashes of colour, his disrespect for colouring within the lines or suggesting the presence of gravity, a thing which I usually quite like in his paintings, I found somewhat out of place on a church window, where the colours and figures seemed to sprawl all over the glass and fight to be freed from the restriction of the narrow panes of glass. But hey, who am I but a pleb without an art degree.

In the afternoon I headed to the railway station to embark on my next three hours of travelling. Now, perhaps its living in London and being squished on the tube all the time, where if I stand against the door I’m too tall to stand up straight, or memories of being squished into those horrid green seats on a country train to the blue mountains or central coast, or just being in an unknown city, but my goodness, those European intercity two storey trains are absolutely giant, and I’m a bit ashamed of how much I became like my memory of brother circa 1993, pressed against the window of our parents’ bedroom, staring transfixed at the trains in the distance, and how I stood on the platform and looking up my train, simply thought, ‘wow’. The train ride itself was equally stunning, with three hours of amazing scenery as we chugged through Berne and Fribourg and along lake Geneva.

Once in Geneva, I met up with Tineke, tried to work out how long it was since we had last seen each other (we think it was at Zac and Jayans’ baptisms in Sydney in July 2010) and consumed a lot of cheese and wine. An hour or so in a tapas bar and I’m a total convert to manchego – how had I never eaten this cheese before? The next day we caught the boat to Yvoire (so I’ve now been to France too!), ate ice cream and chocolate for lunch and witnessed the playing of alp horns. We delighted in the signs that winter was over and spring was upon us. Flowers, sunshine, no need for gloves (except when holding said lunch ice cream), sitting outside at a café in the afternoon with no need for our coats, daylight after 5pm.

In the evening I enjoyed a lovely interactive raclette dinner party with Tineke’s uni friends, because there is no such thing as too much cheese.[1] After much cheese and wine and girl chats it was finally sleep time with the alarm set for another early morning as my time in Switzerland was almost done and it was back to London in the morning.

Sunday 10^th March, I’m back in London by 10:30am, sleepy, and desperate for a coffee even from Nero to make up for the terrible one I bought for an exorbitant price at the airport in Geneva, and very pleased with my super quick visit to my friends in Switzerland, happy it was on my list, because it was about time I saw them both and it was great to get out of the UK and hear other languages (I’m reinspired to learn a language now), see new places, and eat new cheeses.

Huzzah.

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[1] Actually, there is such a thing as too much cheese. I experienced this at a café in Wales when I ordered a butternut squash risotto with some local cheese, that turned out to be essentially a very yellow cheesy soup with some risotto rice in it, that was amazing for the first three mouthfuls, but less and less so each mouthful after that.