Switzerland, pt 3 (Newcomers, Still Working-hard/Playing-hard, and a weekend in Paris)

We continued working hard into our third week, mixing in days of good weather with garden activities and days with bad weather with cleaning and indoor tasks. By this time, Kyle was finally getting okay with the chainsaw (still a couple of near misses and another short circuit issue, but as of this writing he still has all of his fingers). We had got into a very good schedule of waking up, making breakfast/coffee with the mountain views and sun pouring into the house, and working until late afternoon. We'd mix in workouts where we could, and tried to stick to healthy lunches and dinners (we cooked quinoa bowls and many salads). We did, however, get pretty spoiled with Swiss chocolate every day and each meal, of course, finished with an awesome baked dessert. We were having such a nice time that we even let Regula know that we would be staying an extra week!

Late in the week, we were surprised to learn that two new Workawayers would be joining us for a couple of weeks. It was two 20 year old girls from Finland, and we were a little nervous about how they would fit into the mix. Regula even had Nicole pose as her "cousin" so that, if needed, we could have an excuse to do activities as just the 3 of us. However, Camila and Noora ended up being amazing! They were both extremely handy, extremely hard working, and very much made an effort to be involved in the experience and culture exchange. Their first night there was Camila's birthday, so we set out a bunch of decorations and celebrated with some wine and Rotelli. It was great to have two more people to exchange culture with at the table each evening.

That week, in addition to our work in the house and in the garden, we spent some time at Fiteria (Regula's workplace, a physiotherapy clinic and gym) helping prepare for their Open House, which was happening in about 10 days. We went in with Regula early that morning and started with a tour of the space. The have a ground floor lobby and reception area with huge, cafe style cappuccino machine (the owner is a coffee enthusiast and wants to open a bistro in the office in the near future). On the ground floor they also have all of the patient rooms and a testing/analysis center. On the upper floor, there is a large, modern gym with all of the workout equipment, free weights, lifting racks, etc that you could ever hope for. After a few months of only running and hiking as a workout, we were definitely keen on having an opportunity to workout there!

However, that day was a work day, and ended up being a little more than expected. We started the morning by putting together a bunch of Ikea shelves. Nicole and I worked on separate shelves, so we were able to avoid the typical couple-putting-together-furniture arguments, which was a plus! After putting together the shelves, it was already lunch time so we stopped to have a meal that consisted of nothing but pie ("Hell yeah," says Kyle). After lunch, we spent time organizing documents/paperwork into binders and cleaning and arranging some of the patient rooms. By this time, it was already getting to be late, but one of the physiotherapists and her partner showed up with ~50 poster frames and large panoramic posters to be hung on the walls. We spent the rest of the evening, and well into the night, putting posters in frames and hanging them on the wall (along with clocks and other decorations). All of the walls were concrete, so it took a little extra effort to complete everything, but by this time the music was blasting and the beer was flowing, so we couldn't really complain. We finished the night with a celebratory glass of wine and went room by room as a group to soak in the accomplishment. It was truly a night and day difference and put the clinic much closer to being ready for the Open House!

Later that week, we took off for a weekend in Paris to meet our friends Tess and Lucas. Neither of us had been to Paris before, so we were excited to have an excuse to go. Plus, Lucas was planning on proposing to Tess that weekend (much to her surprise) so we tried our best to help it go smoothly! We had been in separate contact with both of them, so while we continued to disappoint Tess with news that we could not meet up, we were hammering out the exact details with Lucas in the background. We took another BlaBlaCar to Paris, and this one was a little different experience. Our driver spoke almost no English so we spent the 7+ hour drive talking in broken sentences, hand signals, and numbers written on the dashboard. He even, at one stop, paid for our snacks (after a quick argument at the counter with Kyle, who was trying to pay for HIS snacks). He was a wonderful person, and even took us directly to our hostel since we got in so late that the metro was no longer running. Our Hostel ended up being a club as well, and when we got there it was absolutely packed full of partyers. It was still pretty late for this old couple, so we went to bed to save ourselves for a party the following night. At this particular hostel, we rented two separate "rooms" since it was cheaper than a double room. The reason for this: these single "rooms" were actually plywood barriers built around the top/bottom portions of a bunk bed. So really, each room had just enough space for sleeping and almost no room for luggage, etc. We ended up using one room as our luggage station and one for sleeping.

The next morning, we decided to do some Paris exploration before Lucas and Tess arrived later in the afternoon. We booked tickets for the Louvre and were part of the first group in the door. The Louvre is truly an amazing museum, but there is an overwhelming amount to see from thousands of years and spanning many different cultures. We opted to use our free Rick Steves audio guide to see the highlights. We had used a similar approach for a couple of city walking tours and other museums and sites as well! It was nice being able to understand what we were looking at, as well as understand the significance of the extremely popular works (such as the Mona Lisa!) while we were there.

After the Louvre, we rushed back to our hostel to get ready to meet Tess and Lucas and to prepare for the proposal. Lucas wanted to do it in front of the Eiffel Tower, so we set up a picnic basket full of French wines, cheeses, meats, fruits, flowers - the whole ensemble. We had borrowed a basket, blanket, silver serving platter, etc from Regula so we ended up with a very nice array and the perfect location on the green space overlooking the Tower. It was nice enough, in fact, that while we waited many people came up to take pictures of the set up! We had everything ready to go at the agreed upon meet up time of 2:30, but Lucas let us know it would probably end up being a tad bit later. We had scouted out locations to hide and take pictures, and had a few beers from street vendors that walk around the area. A couple of hours (and a couple of beers) later, we were still waiting. Since we were overseas and communication devices were spotty, at best, we really had no way of knowing when they would show up. And, of course, Lucas could not really rush Tess as she didn't know she was getting proposed to. Out of nowhere, Nicole whispered "Kyle, they're here, right in front of us." Kyle scrambled away to hide and take a video, but Nicole was stuck 5 feet away from the basket with no time to move. Luckily, Tess was so caught up in the excitement that she didn't even notice. Lucas got down on one knee, Tess said yes, the crowd cheered, and we got some amazing videos/photos. We both snuck away from the area to give them some time, and came back after about 30 minutes to celebrate together (and to surprise Tess who still had no idea we would be there). As a side note - all of the beer and waiting meant Nicole REALLY had to pee. While there was a free bathroom near us, it had a long line and took about 3 minutes in between each person for "Covid sanitization." Kyle usually asks, on a scale of 1 to 10, how bad Nicole has to go in these situations. This one appeared to be about a 22.

After Nicole had finally gone to the bathroom, and we finished more wine and snacks, we all went our separate ways to get ready for the evening. We met up later that evening for dinner (we were able to try a couple of French dishes - escargot and duck confit). After dinner, we squeezed into an amazing basement cellar French Cabaret bar. We had planned on staying for just a drink, but that proved to be impossible. The music was (literally) non-stop, with singer after singer hopping on the stage (sometimes performing duets with the previous singer, sometimes with an entire ensemble of other singers as well). The crowd alternated between drinking, clapping, and dancing and some of the singers even danced on the tables (plus, one time Kyle got dragged on stage to dance as well). We ended up staying there until 4am and, even at that time, the place had no signs of slowing down. There was NOT A SINGLE PAUSE in the singing for the entire time we were there, and there wasn't really a pause in our wine drinking either! We wandered around Paris afterwards (surprise nightime pictures of Notre Dame the next day!) but no bar would allow our stumbling, mumbling crew in so we had to head home. We were on a lively bus of others just getting home from their night parties as well, and it was the perfect cap to an amazing night.

The next day we nursed our hangovers (some better than others - cough, Nicole, cough) and spent our time exploring the Palace of Versailles. It was a nice, relaxed way to spend the day, but since we were all moving so slow we actually spent more time there than intended. After dinner, we were in a rush to catch our overnight bus back to Switzerland. At this point, all hell broke loose: When we got to the train station to catch our metro back to the hostel, it ended up being delayed for almost 45 minutes. After waiting that long, it was then canceled! The next train was not leaving for another 30 minutes, so Tess booked us an Uber (neither Nicole nor Kyle had service at this point). The Uber got LOST trying to find us, but eventually made it. The Uber ride back was faster than expected, which gave us a slim margin of error to make our bus. That margin was quickly extinguished. We had left our baggage in a automated locker in the hostel, but when we got back there were no reception employees to let us in the locker room. After finally getting a security guard to allow us in, out locker ended up being broken! The security guard spent 15 minutes trying to jimmy the locker open before a reception desk employee finally showed up with a special code to release the automatic lock. We took another Uber to the bus station (this time the Uber found us right away), and made it to our bus the exact minute it was to leave.......only to be told by the bus driver (who didn't speak English) that "You need QR code" over and over as we showed our US Covid certificates. We overwhelmed the driver with English and urgent voices so eventually relented and let us on the bus. From there it was a cramped, although relived, trip back to Switzerland.