Everyone’s doin’ the ‘hustle’…Lausanne, here I come!

Today was pretty interesting as Alexandre was off for the weekend so it was Alex, Pierre, Izam and myself working. I was at the oven and everything was fine except for scoring one type of bread like another but it was able to make a change so there was a difference between the 2. We managed to get done pretty early and then cleaned down and were out after 10am. Nice life...

When it got home it didn’t want to leave stuff to do for when it returned so it did washing and cooked some stuff that might not have lasted and then just chilled for a bit before heading out about 1 hour before my train.

When it got to the station it was like a bee hive...crawling with people everywhere. I had to wait to see where my train would be so had to wait and look at the departures board for like 15 min...

While waiting some young girl came up to me asking for a donation for some handicapped organisation and was quite pushy about it...it didn’t have any cash anyway so told her it didn’t and she was still like “just 2 euros”. Whatever. After waiting for a bit longer it saw there were 2 other girls also doing the same. Some guy then came up to them and looked pretty pissed (it just had my earphones in so it just watched everything happen) and asked for their papers then wanted to see what t-shirts they were wearing. They were wearing normal t-shirts...people from an organisation would have official t-shirts or at least t-shirts that were all the same with a logo or something. And after it thought about it, the donation sheet was photo copied too which should have raised alarms.

So this guy, a passenger, pretty much took their sheets and told them to piss off and the 3 girls just sulked off...embarrassed at being called out. Everyone’s trying to hustle hey...

Anyway, it got on my train no problem and it was really nicely fitted, even for second class. And like all the other public transport, you have to validate your ticket yourself before you get on (which it forgot to do since it thought trains have conductors but France is different) and if you get caught with a ticket that’s not validated they can fine you like 128 euros...once you’re on the train you can’t even do it which sucks ass. So it was kinda shitting my pants but luckily there was no one who came to check tickets the whole trip.

It was quite a pleasant trip to Geneva, even though the weather was pretty crappy. Once there it just had to walk to another platform to take my next train to Lausanne which was less than 30 min long. I was picked up by Emma and Anotonie (tony for short) ad we drove back to their place. Lausanne as a city is really cool and almost has a story book feeling with the leaves all changing colours and the tramlines and hills and curves and just a small, but busy town feeling really.

I had time to have a beer with Emma and Tony before Emma had to leave for work and tony went to watch a soccer game with some friends. No worries for me...had a shower and a little nap.

I woke up to the house phone ringing....it was Emma’s friends who had come to pick me up to go to Emma’s restaurant. Cafe Bellini was pumping by the time we got there just before 10pm. We were 6 people...3 Swiss, 1 Brit and 1 Saffa [South African] actually. All were really cool people and conversation flowed nicely in French and English. I had a Grimbergen to start while everyone else had a south African red wine...it think was something like Vriesenhof or something. I’m not sure.

I ordered a small octopus salad. For 14 Swiss francs. That R140. [South African Rands] For a starter. Switzerland is f****** expensive.

It was awesome though...Emma gave me a big boy portion ;) it was chunks of the octopus, baby potatoes, pickled cauliflower a bit too strongly pickled...really over powered all the other subtle flavours, radishes, orange segments, fennel bulb, mixed leaves and basil pesto (I know Emma loves her basil pesto. It was a delightful dish and really filling too. We stayed quite a while and Emma joined us when she was finished and we had another bottle of wine... on our way out of the restaurant to a bar across the road, the barman gave Emma and me a shot of apricot eau de vie. The shot glass overflowed. Literally. Omw that stuff sets your throat on fire...and it’s not the kind of taste you want to think about when having a shot....urgh.

Ok, so across the road we went to a bar called “comptoir”, no idea what it means. Emma had her birthday party there so they still had a huge sign up saying “Gatsby gone wild”...nice small place with a bar and lounge area upstairs and a dance floor/bar downstairs. We moved between the two, having drinks and chatting and then dancing...if had looooads of fun. But the place closed at 3 am so we went ambling along to the next place. Oh one of Emma’s friends is a Xhosa guy who’s a doctor and entrepreneur and has been staying in Switzerland for 20 years so he speaks English, Xhosa and French... J

We briefly popped into a place called “13e” or “tresieme” meaning “thirteenth” in French. I don’t know what the significance of the name was. People were still dressed up in Halloween outfits as if suppose most couldn’t celebrate it during the week. It was a really cool place, built in the old part of Lausanne and had bars and dance floors in these ancient cellars pretty much. It was too crowded so we headed off to Darling which is where Emma’s fiancé works/manages.

That place was packed...kinda like a mix of Stones and Tiger Tiger but not formal...but nice pumping music and a square bar in the centre so they could serve people on 4 sides simultaneous which makes sense....and utter chaos. A double gin and tonic cost 13 francs...R130.that is INSANE! We ended up staying there until about 5 or something and then caught a cab home. I was pretty much off my trolley at this point but was still making sensible conversation. My body just was lagging behind :p Emma and if still stayed up until sometime between 6-7am talking and drinking wine and eating Lindt chocolate .