Tamara in Switzerland: Lausanne

So my trip to Lausanne this weekend was really nice. On Friday I left at 2pm, caught my 2:20 train into St. Gallen and then the 3:11 train all the way to Lausanne. I finally arrived at 6:40 and was very thankful to get off the train. I had to wait for a little bit for Cassandra to come pick me up, but I took the opportunity to go into the tourist office and pick up some brochures. If there's one thing I've learned from my travels it's to always pick up the free tourist brochures. They're very handy with all the info for landmarks to see and maps, plus sometimes they have good coupons in them too that come in handy. And they can be a nice souvenir as well. I didn't use them really because I had my own personal tour guide, but they're interesting all the same. So when Cassandra picked me up we went to eat dinner at a Chinese restaurant that was fairly nice and not too expensive. Then we walked around a little bit by the lake, and in the front of the Olympic museum because it was closed, but she said it wasn't that interesting anyway. There was a nice fountain in front and there are some statues and stuff representing certain people and places, and of course where they keep the Olympic flame (though it wasn't on, it had been raining so they probably moved it inside). Then we headed to her house and just hung out while we planned what to do for the weekend.

The train station when I arrived

Lake Geneva at night with France on the other side

The fountain

Olympic Museum

Where the flame is normally lit

On Saturday I was woken up bright and early by the sound of screaming children. Oh joy. But then we headed off to Geneva because I really, really wanted to go to CERN where they do all sorts of scientific research and have the large hydron collider. Not that I'm really into science or anything, but like I mentioned before there was an episode of The Big Bang Theory where one of the guys gets to go there, and I decided I needed to too and take a nice photo (and funnily enough I saw that exact episode on one of the British channels later that evening). So we made it there and browsed one of the exhibits that was fairly nifty and had a lot of stuff I really didn't understand. Then Cassandra started feeling really badly and decided to wait in the car while I explored a different exhibit in "The Globe" which is a giant dome building made out of wood. The room was pretty cool and looked like you were in space, but again there was a lot of physics stuff that went over my head. So after that Cassandra wasn't feeling so well, but we drove into the city to eat some lunch and stopped at a pizzeria. She progressively became worse and I convinced her to stop at a pharmacy where she got some things to help her nausea (In the end she had thrown up about 5 times and we obviously had to leave). So while driving out I took some quick pictures, but as far as I can tell, Geneva is pretty but there isn't really a lot to see. The medicine seemed to help her enough to drive back and while she was recovering in the afternoon we just hung out for a while. She was feeling much better in the evening so we went out to a Mexican restaurant that was really good. We came back fairly early and she went to bed, though she started breaking out in hives that apparantly kept her up a good deal of the night. And if you're wondering why she was so sick, apparantly the weekend before she had gone to Croatia to see her boyfriend, and most likely it was from the water. She said she'd been a little sick all week, but had been better, but apparantly it just got really bad on Saturday. Luckily the mom of the family she's with is a doctor so she's in good hands.

CERN

Cool electro ball thingy

What the Large Hydron Collider looks like (but not the actual one)

The dorky picture I just had to take

Lake Geneva in the day

My enchilada plate, yum!

So on Sunday Cassandra wanted to go to the church she attends in Lausanne, so I went with her. It was pretty nice. They sang songs in English and French, and the one song I did happen to know they sang in French. Then the message was given by the pastor in French and was translated in English by his wife. Then after that we ate lunch in a little cafe and I had some ham and cheese crepes, yum! Then we headed off to Gruyere to the cheese factory. Cassandra started feeling badly again and decided to stay in the car and rest while I did the tour (she'd done it before anyway and I didn't mind). The tour had these audio guides and the narrator was a cow, which I found amusing. It was pretty interesting and they give you sample of different aged cheese so you can taste the difference between 6 months, 8 months, and 10 months. Needless to say I enjoyed all three. Then there is also Gruyere castle so we went up there as well and only stayed long enough to snap some photos before we headed off to the Cailler chocolate factory. Cassandra wanted to do the tour again, but decided she couldn't, so I went in by myself again, but no matter it was way cool. As much as I love cheese, the chocolate factory totally trumped it. The tour was almost like an amusement park ride. You would go in one decorated room and there would be speaking and some animation, and then a wall would open into the next room. It was pretty entertaining. Then after the history part was over there was a room with giant bags of all kinds of nuts they use that you could smell and eat. Then there was some machinery making a certain kind of chocolate they sell, from the beginning all the way to the packaging, and at the end they had samples you could eat. Then there was a room showing some of the big machinery, and then a wall where you could write when you like to eat chocolate, and then finally at the end a room with samples of every chocolate they make, and you basically could eat all of it. It was freaking amazing, and the whole tour only cost 10 franks, and I had a coupon so I only paid 8. It was totally worth it. They also had a cafe and you could buy all their products, and it was much cheaper there than you would buy at the grocery store. So since it's packaged and the expiration dates weren't till next year I went ahead and bought some to bring home (and I bought some dark chocolate just for you Heather). Plus I bought a box to eat now because you just have to. So I finished earlier than expected to Cassandra went ahead and took me to the train station and I managed to catch an earlier train than I had planned and managed to get back home at about 10:30 pm. So it was a really good trip, and it sucked that Cassandra was sick, but I got to do all the things I wanted so that was good.