Bonjour from Lausanne, Switzerland! It is my second day on the road for this trip and I have traveled from one side of Switzerland to the other, switching languages three times. This tiny country has three official languages…(actually four but very few people actually speak that one). I left Lugano hearing Italian, took the train west to the French speaking part of the country and am on a train back to Zurich where the speak Swiss German.
I spent the better part of the day on the train yesterday, making my way across the country to visit some tiny schools up in the Alps. The area that I was traveling to is called the Alpes Vandoises, and is home to a few isolated skiing villages and the two Swiss boarding schools that I was going to visit. The town of Villars, way up at the top of the mountain is accessible by a post bus and also a quaint little Edwardian train. The views from both were amazing as we wound our way both up and down the mountain. I arrived to find a sleepy little town, finishing the last of its hibernation as it prepared for the start of ski season in the next few weeks. The weather had changed dramatically from what I had left behind in Lugano and I was thankful that I had remembered to bring along my winter coat. The counselor at the school that I was going to visit said that it had snowed the day before and that the town would be encased in snow in a few weeks time when the slopes would be open for ski season. Had I been there as a tourist, I could have gotten on one of several gondola’s and skied down the nearby glacier. The counselor said that he skis about 80 days out of the year and often gets in several runs during lunchtime! Short of skiing, there really isn’t much to do in the town…I left for civilization after my presentation because there didn’t even seem to be any place open in the town to get dinner.
I returned about an hour later to the modern town of Lausanne and to my hotel for the night…I am always amazed at just how tiring sitting on a train all day can be! I am on my way back to Zurich for two more visits tomorrow before heading back to Lugano tomorrow evening. The stores stay open late tonight…9 PM instead of the usual 6:30 so I am hoping to do some shopping! I have two days at home before heading out again for my last and longest trip of the recruiting season. I will spend a week in Eastern Europe and then will return to Switzerland to finish out the rest of the Swiss boarding schools. I’m signing off from Zurich and off to find some good Swiss fondue!
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