From Mountains to MacDo in Less Than 8 Hours

{Friday, August 29, 2008}

Good news: I am rid of the death cough, and nearly done with this cold altogether. It made yesterday much more pleasant when Isabella, Gabriel, and I drove halfway up a mountain and did some hiking after the kids had returned to school from lunch {they get around an hour and a half to come home and eat – awesome}, Carole had gone out with a friend and Isabella had forced me to eat Swiss chocolate. Yum.
To those of you familiar with my Franglais: mont-ing those pierres was wicked difficile. To those of you who still labor under the delusion that I don’t mix my languages: climbing the mountain was pretty tough. I didn’t have too hard a time of it, but Gabriel was quite discontent the entire way; I felt like a world-class athlete next to him, and Isabella and I occasionally teased him:
Gabriel: On va où? Faut monter encore? {Where are we going? We have to climb some more?}
Moi: Gabriel, il faut toujours monter avant de déscendre. {Gabriel, you must always go up before you can come down.}


I know you're probably all sick of pretty mountain pictures, but apparently I'm not. This is one of the views as we were climbing up.


Cow pie: a traditional Swiss dessert. Just kidding.

We arrived at the tiny Chapelle des Clés {Chapel of the Keys}, which was apparently where Isabella and co. had gone to mass on Sunday morning.




Being that I’d only been in Europe for 3 days, and that there was rigorous hiking involved, I don’t feel so bad for having missed church.
We hiked back down, and Gabriel regaled us with a description of his “American dream”, which involves him owning a large company and exploiting Chinese and Brazilian children for cheap labor. Charming. Also, since we had taken Virgil’s car {which is smaller than le bateau – “the boat”, i.e. the van, and there were only three of us}, we listened to electronica and Snoop Dogg’s “Gin and Juice” all the way back down the mountain road. Isabella asked me what “biotch” means. Innocently, sincerely, and in French. It was hilarious.


Rolling down the street, smoking indo, sipping on gin and juice...

Back home, we covered Marie’s books, ate a couple of crêpes, and Virgil, Gabriel, and I prepared to go meet Virgil’s friends at the new bar in Bulle, Le Buro – which I think is supposed to be a play on the word “bureau”, meaning “office”, but I’m not sure. When it was time to leave, Gabriel was looking for his shoes and Virgil was still getting ready which, as always, took an eternity. Chatting with Isabella as I waited in the doorway, I remarked that it was funny that I, the female, hadn’t taken as long to get ready as the boys. This reminded me of the Fall 2007 Brown Belt Affair, wherein two girls {myself included} and two boys went out to dinner, and the latter took longer to prepare themselves because one of them was looking for his brown belt to match his brown shoes, rather than wearing his black belt. Here’s the kicker: the way his shirt was tucked in, you couldn’t even see the belt. Isabella said that, usually, the two boys are mirror images of this story; Virgil is very metrosexual and always has to look his best, and Gabriel doesn’t really care one way or the other.
At any rate, Le Buro was completely packed, so we went to another place called “The Tea Room”…which is a bar. Yannick and his girlfriend showed up, as did Lucas and Valentin, and their friend Tiago, whose family is Portuguese. I met at least six other guys, but besides Cyril the violinist, I didn’t learn any of their names. Apparently, it’s not a problem. I chatted with Blonde Guy Wearing a Nintendo Shirt {the “See it. Touch it. Play it.” one}, Pauline {Yannick’s girlfriend}, and Guy Who Seemed Nice But Didn’t Talk Much about Swiss politics, which are so much less exciting than those of the U.S. that only 25-35% of people vote. You also can’t vote if you’re not a citizen {Tiago, for example, was born here but is actually a Portuguese citizen}, and even if you want to be one, the council of voters {read: old Swiss nationalists} in your town can reject you. This doesn’t actually seem to bother anyone, either. We also discussed stereotypes, of course, and they asked me how accurate they are; for example, if the entire country is like “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus!” {that’s pretty much a direct quote}. Then, the whole table got involved and asked me how I feel about John McCain, which was funny because then Lucas insisted that he doesn’t care what happens in U.S. politics. Fair enough, but it is the only subject matter pertaining to the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave that I’ve seen on French news stations so far.
Yannick, Virgil, Gabriel, Cyril and I took a walk to peek in on Le Buro, and Cyril and I chatted about his studies of the violin. I asked him what he plans to do with it…and he said he doesn’t know! He’s been studying the violin professionally for three years {after having already played it for eleven}, and all he knows is that he will avoid teaching if he can. Fellow Lawrentians, do you know any Connies like that? Obviously, they can’t know for sure what they’ll be doing after school, but he spoke of the violin like it was this morning’s breakfast, like he didn’t necessarily even like playing it. Weird.
After spending a bit more time in the bar, it was time for a real Swiss experience. We piled back in the cars and drove to…McDonalds; I guess it had to happen eventually. On the way, a couple of the guys asked me if I could purchase a gun for them. I said probably, because I don’t have a criminal record, and they were shocked…though whether it had to do with the gun or the criminal record, I’m not sure. At “MacDo”, I chatted with Tiago and Fat Guy with Beard Who Is Occasionally Socially Awkward while munching a couple of French fries, which were largely the same as they are at home. Maybe a little less soggy. On the way out, Fat Guy and I found a creepy booklet imploring children to join the “Junior Club”.


"Hi kiddies! I have a good surprise for you!"

We discussed the implications of Ronald McDonald’s shady statement and improvised a dialogue involving the phrase “But my Mommy said never to talk to strangers!” Oh my. Then the boys and I returned home and went to bed.
Today, Carole, Isabella, and I went to the Lac de La Gruyère {Gruyère Lake},


The lake is lovely and has many boats. Pam, I took zillions of pictures for you to consider painting :)


Random, but pretty.


And for my mommy, her favorite flowers. Aww...


and got lost in some sort of farm town,


The sign says "doctor", which I'm pretty sure means there's only one in the entire town.


On the way home, we encountered the pedestrians I mentioned the other day.

then came home and watched “L’Enquête Corse” {“The Corsican File”}, a comedy making fun of Corsica and starring Jean Reno, one of the only French actors also known in America. Sure, he always plays a French guy, but he is the French guy. A funny film, anyway.