After being spectacularly one-upped by my co-blogger and annoyingly eloquent best friend/sister, I immediately vowed to step up the quality of these rambling monologues, which seemed to be turning into me giggling to myself on the internet.
Sadly, I got distracted by the youtube videos of "Mock The Week" and spent the last hour giggling to myself anyways. Alone. On the internet.
Today I got a tour of Laussane, Switzerland, the absolutely magnificent city with those mountains you see on Evian water bottles. Yep, look closely at your plastic earth-killer soon to be trash bottle and you will see me waving from the side of the lake that doesn't have a euro crisis.
The city is studded with fantastic architecture and this place called "Ouchy" (there are even "Pirates of Ouchy") which is a wharf on the bitterly cold lake. It is a very up and down, multilayered city which any tourist lacking a three-dimensional map will tell you is hella confusing.
Luckily I, the directionally confused "they always told me to just follow the northern star" child was accompanied by a local, my swiss aunt. An exchange student 30 odd years ago with my mother's family, I am now privileged enough to be welcome in their home, graciously allowed to sample chocolate and thai food.
*Heaven.*
For those of you who aren't up on your european geography and general facts, switzerland is known as a neutral, peacekeeping country and is home to four official languages. Here near the coast of France, we speak... french. Apparently there is supposed to be a funny accent, but I've only been tripped on various vocab words (like their word for towel... except I forget already). Or the fun word of the day, "casse-couilles" which means pain in the ass, although it translates as "ball breaker." Nasty image.
Not that I've been called this. Am attempting to continue my model-childdom.
I was treated to the most wonderful stories of the history of this very special part of switzerland, and also got to visit my aunt's husband's restaurant, a french-thai fusion resto. I didn't know such things existed before, but I would eat anything they make, anyday.
Dear Jacqueline,
I did research on Brussels, and I got mixed reviews. Everyone agreed that it was an exceptionally beautiful, central part of europe. It is great for those who work with the EU or the UN, or those who are well off and have decent jobs. However, life can be particularly difficult for those who are less fortunate, and I heard a couple people mention "le bulle que les ex-pats habitent dedans." It is quite easy to remain solely amongst foreigners, which is too bad given that the purpose of living in another country is to experience that country (typically).
Belgium also just got a government for the first time in over a year a few weeks ago. It has some pretty unsteady internal forces which constantly threaten to tear apart the Flemish half and the Belgian half. However, for social justice crusaders like yourself, I would say that it is an advantageous place to live and gain a reputation as a anti-bad guys heavyweight.
That is all.
Love,
Marf
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