Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Zurich!!! "Party in the Woods"


My friend Maggie and I decided to embark on a weekend trip to Zurich (top middle part of Switzerland). We left on the train Saturday afternoon and were in Zurich by 5pm. We had both decided to try couch surfing so that we could save money and experience a bit of a local aspect of the city. Well, we were certainly in a bit over our heads!

Our host was Jonas, a Swiss local who goes to school in Zurich and had a spare room since one of his roommates was out of the country. He was really chill! He took us to this hippie, organic outdoor bar where we were entertained by pharmacist musicians and the US - Ghana Football Match. On our way to the bar we were greeted by a French Condomman. We stopped and talked with him a bit since he spoke French. I wish I had taken a picture though he was seriously dressed as well... Condomman. He gave us candy, it was quite yummy actually :-)

Once we got to the bar we watched the game and drank some organic beer! Unfortunately Ghana won. (Maggie and I were the only two cheering for the US... even though she wore a Ghana jersey - that confused many). Our host is in the yellow shirt and his friend Mitch is beside him. We are sitting on some sweet big bean bag type chairs.
The bathroom at the bar was pretty awesome! It was all neon and black lights with graffiti. Very punk rock grunge (which seems to be the style of choice for Swiss-Germans).
Next Jonas told us that there was "A party in the woods" (This became our phrase of choice for the trip). We told him we didn't really care what we did as long as it was fun! Well... off we hiked through some woods up a hill and all in flip flops! We came to literally a party in the woods. There was a DJ, lights and bar all set up in well... the woods! Oh.. and no bathrooms,... we got to experience some girls scout camping 101. The party was pretty lame when we got there so Maggie and I decided to show the Swiss how us Philly girls like to dance. They didn't really get the hint until a little later. Swiss techno rave dancing was a bit like a middle school dance though. Boys were together and girls were separate, just side-stepping to the music and talking, drinking and smoking. Probably fun if you were on drugs (which I'm sure some were) but for Maggie and I it was probably only fun for about an hour. Then we just found a nice spot to sit and chat or danced some more. It was a pretty cool experience though.

On the way back to the apartment Jonas and his friends stumbled on this Euro sign and decided to take it with them! It was really funny, I took pictures!

The next morning we were woken up by bells announcing the start of church... and then after trying to get back to sleep announcing the end of church. We ended up just crawling out of bed and going into town. We let Jonas sleep in since it was a bit of a late night.

We got into town and walked around most of the day! It was quite beautiful by the river and lake, although I still like Geneva more :-)



Finally we found a nice cozy plot of grass near the lake and laid down and relaxed. We were so lucky to have such nice weather! We then embarked on the trip to the train station to come back to Geneva.
Fortunately the fun didn't stop there! Towards the end of an exhausting train ride a guy asked us to wake up this guy who was asleep on the train. We had over heard them talking about a "Super Fete... Super Fete!!" They guy who was asleep had told us he was a little drunk. Well when it came time to wake him up Maggie tried to yell at him... kick his foot... poke his shoulder... everything to wake him up while onlookers laughed and motioned to just shake him awake. Once he woke up we're pretty sure he didn't know where he was. He jumped up and started looking for his daughter (we think)... he was telling some poor little girl they had to go "On y Va!!" On y va!" and she was just like "pas moi!" (It's not me!) haha. He got off the train and went over to the window of the girl he had thought was his daughter and just shrugged then went to the map of where he was... we really hope that he didn't have a daughter on the train... it was so funny though!

Anywho, Zurich was a success!!! ALSO, this weekend I have a date! :-) I probably won't go into details about that online but just want to mention it because it's on my to do list! :-) I will say that he's French and doesn't speak much English!

Next up: My big July trip in 2 and a half weeks! AND NEW I'm going to Barcelona Aug 20 - 23!!!!! HOORAY!!!!

Signing out,

B

No comments:

Post a Comment