I remember, quite clearly, the week after my 19th birthday. This was the week that I had been dropped off at the airport to catch a flight to Switzerland to live a month with my mother's friend, Eric Dupasquier, who lived in Bulle, the French part of Switzerland. He would show me the ropes of traveling and after that I was free to roam around Europe for the next nine months. I hadn't slept the night before and had planned to sleep on the long flight, but I was too excited. I didn't sleep a wink.
I was quite unfit back then, pretty chubby with long dark wavy hair that all my friends and family kept telling me to cut. I didn't like the hair either. I didn't cut it simply because everybody wanted it cut. That's how I was back then, stubborn. Also, my fashion sense, as my sister informed me daily, was quite horrendous. I sometimes took her shopping with me so she could pick out outfits that actually matched. I really wasn't too concerned with much back then.
My flight had two stopovers. The first was somewhere in the eastern part of the US. Mom was all worried that I was taking this flight alone so I had to give her a call to tell her that the plane hadn't crashed or anything. The next stopover was in London, Gatwick airport.
I had to pick up my bag because I was changing airline companies then I had to pass through Immigrations. I thought the guy behind the counter would just look at my picture then my face and stamp the passport, but he started asking me questions. Why am I here? If it's just a stopover why am I picking up my bag? How did I get the money to come here? Do I have enough to stay in Europe? Can I prove it?
I spent ten minutes with this bloke interrogating me and finally I talked myself through. My heart was pounding and my hands shook. I had the naïve American outlook back then and felt insulted being asked these questions. Certainly Americans should be able to go anywhere they well pleased without being questioned?
In the waiting lounge I sat at a small café, Costa Coffee I think it was, and had fun people watching while sipping on a latte. Most of the fun was listening in on conversations; I thought the English accent was the coolest thing ever. It felt like I was in a movie. I just sat there, listening.
As the Easyjet flight took off from London to Geneva I scanned the earth below looking for Big Ben or the Tower Bridge. Neither did I see. In Geneva I collected my bag again and looked around for Eric in the arrivals area.
He used to live in my hometown, Parker, and owned a sporting goods store that mostly sold snowboards, skis and other snow gear. He sold me my first snowboard. I had only met him once or twice in my life but I didn't have trouble picking him out of the crowd. He was taller than I was, in excellent shape, and had short reddish or light brownish hair.
I was awkward with conversations back then so the hour long car ride over to Bulle was quite silent. I thanked him for taking me in and he told me he has taken other students my age into his house before. He asked me why I had decided to travel and I could not think of a better reason than ‘to get away'. He told me this was a terrible reason to travel and as I look back now I quite agree.
Looking out the window on the ride back I remember thinking that this place is practically tropical compared to Colorado. I didn't know what green was until then. In Colorado you can see the brown earth through the grass in most stretches of land. Here the grass was thick and lush and the air smelled so clean, even compared to Colorado. The roads were even cleaner and nicer, and faster. I was impressed.
I hadn't slept in nearly two days but Eric felt inclined to take me to a restaurant; said I had to stay up as late as I could so I could get on schedule and wake refreshed in the morning. It was only seven or so and he normally went to sleep at ten or eleven.
At the restaurant he ordered me a strange soup that had melted cheese on top and also some kind of French wine. I was happy about the wine since I wasn't even legal to drink in the States. When the waitress set down the wine I started sipping it straight away. Eric shook his head and stared at me. He raised his glass and expected me to cheers with him (or Santé, in French, which means Health). I clanked glasses with him and started sipping again. He still stared at me and still had his glass risen, unsmiling. "We make eye contact when we Santé, all over Europe. Americans never understand this," he said. He seemed kind of pissed off and I was too tired to worry about it.
When we were ready to leave I told him I would pay for the tab. "Don't make me hit you in the face," he said, and I don't believe he was kidding. Those were his exact words, I remember them quite clearly. I was just trying to be polite, paying the bill. After all he picked me up from the airport and he's keeping me for a month. Why not pay for dinner? He explained that he had taken me to the restaurant and he should pay, and to offer was insulting. Touchy, touchy, I thought. How the hell do you enjoy a meal with so many rules?
Eric lived just outside the town center of Bulle in a nice neighborhood. His house was fairly large with wooden floors and neat architecture. However, my room consisted of a mattress and a sheet; fine with me. The room didn't have a closet or any furniture but I didn't have too many possessions anyways. I made neat little stacks with my clothes and books and things and put the toiletries in the bathroom.
When I mention that I had stacked my books I mean I had brought the entire Harry Potter series (5 of them by this time) and some other classics. I don't know why I brought so many books and I didn't have to wonder why my back ached. Half my bag was filled with books. The other half consisted of three shirts, a pair of shorts and jeans, and underwear and socks of course.
I fell asleep right away and at six in the morning I heard a knock at my door. Jesus Christ, was it already time to get up? Not wanting to disappoint I got ready and went down stairs for breakfast; protein cereal, bread and jam (homemade by his mother), and orange juice. Eric looked sweaty but refreshed as he sat at the table; he had just been for a run, a few kilometers he said.
Eric drove a red Ford car that had surprising pickup. I noticed how, near the town centre, he stopped and let the people at the crosswalk make their way to the other side of the street. He explained how in Switzerland people have the right away, not cars, and people hardly look before crossing.
Since we arrived at dark last night I didn't notice my surroundings. Now I saw the beautiful green mountains and hillsides that surrounded us and some small houses in the middle of lush land. It reminded me of the Lord of the Rings the way it looked, a real dreamland. The air was slightly hazy but had a nice scent to it and sometimes I could make out the faint aroma of something burning. I asked about it and Eric said that some people burn their trash outside their house. And although it was mid summer the air still had a chill to it.
His work was only about fifteen minutes away. He rented out a fairly large office on the second floor of a small white building and a large warehouse twenty yards away from it. He also had a secretary who must have been in her late forties and who couldn't speak English so it made for an awkward introduction.
Eric explained his work to me a few times but I still didn't understand it. Apparently he had a few lines of work. He bought and sold random things on eBay (like office chairs), and he also bought clothing from China, or somewhere in Asia, and sold them to department stores wholesale. Aside from this office and warehouse he also had ones, much larger ones, in the south of France, near his summer house.
For the first few days he had me stacking and moving boxes inside his warehouse. I'll admit that I hadn't done an honest days work in my life until then. This was the first time that I actually worked my ass off, and not because I wanted to either, but because I was actually afraid of Eric. I wasn't worried that he'd hit me or anything like that, but the dude was just intimidating. Once in a while he would come in to the shed and check my progress. Actually, I think he just checked to see if I was still sweating, if I was then it meant that I wasn't lazing around.
At noon we would retreat back to the house for lunch and usually it was no more than bread and cheese (Swiss cheese mind you) and maybe a few vegetables. God, I must have lost ten pounds in those first few days. Eating so little and working so hard just didn't set well with my chubbiness.
By the weekend I was ready to experience the nightlife and Eric was quite keen to throw me out into the wilderness of French speakers to see if I'd make any friends, not speaking French and all. I dressed up (and remember what I said about my fashion sense) and slicked back my long hair. Eric drove me to the centre of town and dropped me off at a lively student hangout. When I asked how to get back he told me get a girl and find a ride. Then he told me to not get in trouble. He said he knew many of the people who worked at the local jail and said he could get me out, but better not to go there in the first place. I think he was scared I was going to do something stupid. I just nodded - eyes wide, teeth clamped. I was nervous. What I should have asked is how he knew these people who worked the jail.
One of the first words Eric had taught me in French was beer, so I ordered myself one and sat down. I finished that off quite quickly then ordered another. The little skill that I had for picking up girls or making conversation with anybody was diminished with my not being able to speak French, but at least the beer stowed a little confidence in me.
Pretty soon I found myself in another pub ordering another beer and I asked the girl working at the bar if she knew English. Turns out she was studying English in school and wanted to practice. Her shift ended an hour later and she invited me to a ‘Foam Party'. I had never of it before so she opened up a beer and hit it on the top with the palm of her hand and foam erupted from it. I still didn't understand. She smiled and told me to walk with her.
We walked for seven or eight blocks and I remember it being quite chilly. Then out of some obscure warehouse I heard the sound of a club playing rock music. Just outside of it I saw guys changing into shorts and t-shirts, girls in shorter shorts and bikinis. I should have taken this as a hint. I myself had on a long sleeve shirt and jeans.
When we entered I was stunned. Music beat the drums of my ears, lights flashed all around me, and hundreds of people danced, smoked, and drank deeply from the beer in their plastic cups. The girl and I made our way to the center of the club and I didn't quite understand what I was seeing. There was a massive pit with people dancing in white foam that came up to their necks and sometimes above their heads. The foam came from a huge tube about fifteen feet above the pit. I was amazed; I had never seen anything like it.
The girl I was with saw some of her friends and went to meet them while I stood mesmerized and confused at this pit thing. I lost sight of her and actually forgot what she looked like, even her name. No bother. I jumped into the pit and started dancing. I had never been to a club and I had never danced before; I was always too shy to dance. So what a better way to start but in a giant pit filled with foamy stuff where nobody could see me - perhaps just my head bobbing up and down I expect.
I don't recall how long I stayed there in that pit but when I left the club I saw that the sky had turned a lighter shade of bluish black. I asked a few people if I could hitch a ride with them but they mostly said that where I wanted to go was in the opposite direction. I was sopping wet from the foam pit and freezing my ass off, shivering and looking pathetic. Finally one guy offered to drive me to the train station.
It was around five in the morning and the station opened at seven thirty. Eric only expected me to stay out a few hours; I bet he thought I was dead or in jail. The train to Eric's was only five or six stops away from the city centre so I figured I could walk the roads back.
I thought wrong though. I walked a half hour, got myself lost and returned to the train station. Just outside the station I saw a large phone booth. I walked in and found it to be quite warm. I slept inside for an hour or so. It wasn't good sleep because it was uncomfortable and I was still freezing my tits off. Seven thirty didn't come around soon enough but it finally arrived. The station doors opened and I purchased a ticket. My train was to leave in twenty minutes so I just sat on the benches and waited.
On the train I had to keep an eye out for where Eric lived because the train didn't stop and every neighborhood. Most of the stations I passed weren't even stations at all; just little wooden huts to indicate where a person should stand while train waiting.
After ten minutes of being on the lookout I fell asleep. I couldn't help it. The train was actually quite warm plus the rocking motion left and right didn't help. I passed right out. Fifteen minutes later something jerked me awake. I looked out the window and I knew immediately that I had passed up the stop by some miles. I didn't know how to stop the train so I played charades with another passenger and he finally got the point and pressed a little red button that made a little ‘ding' sound.
Minutes later I was off the train and looking at the tracks opposite of where the train was heading. My clothes were almost dry by this point and the sun was out and people were going for their morning jogs; refreshed people. Here I was, feeling disgusting, looking disgusting and, quite probably, smelling disgusting. I didn't care, I just kept walking. Ten miles I must have walked. I asked directions a few times for Eric's neighborhood and finally I found it.
When I walked in Eric was on the phone and he looked pissed. He muttered something in French and hung up. He said he was on the phone with his friend at the jail to see if they had checked me in. I laughed. "Well, here I am," I said. I told him about my night out and he told me to get some sleep. I went up stairs and at the top I noticed Eric's room door was open. Lingerie was scattered about the floor and some nameless beauty lay in his bed. At least he did well for himself last night, I thought.
For the next two weeks I worked in the same way, in the warehouse, and sometimes I'd be called up to the office to get some computer work done. One time Eric gave me the keys to his car. He had just made a large purchase on some office chairs that a guy nearby was selling and he wanted me to make a few trips to pick them up. The car was stick but that was no problem. The problem was that I had nearly run over a few people about to cross the street on the crosswalk, I wasn't used to people not looking and just blindly walking across the street, not even waiting. I may have run over some dudes foot but nothing serious ever happened.
I'm terrible with directions. I really am. I got myself lost several times going back and forth from picking up those damn chairs - and sometimes for hours. I think Eric got pissed off about the wasted gas more than the wasted time. Bulle has mountains on two sides of the town and they both looked the same to me so it was hard to tell which direction I was headed sometimes.
As for the nightlife for those next couple weeks I don't think I went out again. I was afraid I was going to end up in the same state as last time and I don't think Eric was too keen on throwing me back into the wild and telling me to find my way back. So during those next two weekends we hiked up massive mountains for "just a short trek" as Eric once put it. He lent me some goofy looking clothes. Some kind of short black spandex shorts and a large black long sleeved shirt for the hikes. I looked like an idiot.
I was still out of shape and Eric kicked my ass up the mountains. I don't think he was meaning to walk fast or anything, just his usual pace, but I was out of air not even half way up and took frequent stops. He said the hike up and down should take just a few hours, but on both occasions it took most of the day. The hikes were amazing though. Although I bitched and complained, not to him but to myself, I actually thoroughly enjoyed it. It's like the scenery you see in movies. We walked along the top ridge of one mountain, one wrong step and you're dead because it was so steep on both sides and had long green slick grass. I knew I was slowing Eric up but he always walked a ways ahead, I think he was just trying to push me.
On one of the weekends we went to a dirt motorcycle derby to see his brother race. Eric's brother was on all the coke cans in Switzerland for some time, being sponsored by Coca-Cola and all. We even helped out in the race, setting up run down fence posts and helping out those guys who crashed or got stuck. I had never been to a race like that and I was quite entertained.
We also took a daytrip up to Hockenheim, Germany to see the Formula 1 race. It's like the Indy races in the States. It had been sold out for a while and Eric couldn't get me a ticket but I still tagged along and walked around the stadium where a large Formula 1 festival was going on. On the way there and back we took the Autobahn. Eric didn't let me drive and I don't think I would have wanted to. If any car went under a hundred twenty miles per hour then that car would be run over. We kept a steady pace of about one twenty five. Other cars must have been passing us at about a hundred fifty but only the good cars, like BMW and Mercedes.
At the end of July Eric said we needed to go over to France to visit his other warehouse. We took a white van with some stuff loaded in the back. I remember it took nearly an entire day to get there where his summer home was, just west of Nice. On the way there the scenery was amazing, just amazing. You wouldn't believe how they build some of those highways and tunnels. We passed through parts of Italy as well since we had to travel south for a bit.
His summer home in... well, I can't remember the name of the town to be honest - but it was on a hillside overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. It had some land with it as well and seemed to be in some kind of forest. I remember the road we took to get up there, a windy cobbled thing. The house wasn't much really, just a few rooms and a kitchen. But the location and the scenery from the windows made it spectacular.
It was already getting late when we got in so we didn't bother going to his work. He just cooked some meat for us on the oven outside and I read a book. The weather here was much warmer and I was already dreading working in the warehouse the next day.
The warehouse was massive and his office was connected to it. Hundreds of boxes larger than I was needed to be wrapped in tight plastic and loaded on to crates and the crates needed to be loaded into a semi truck. For nearly a week I worked my ass off in the searing heat of the warehouse but the payoff was quite nice because each evening Eric took us out to a restaurant somewhere in town. Some were awesome little whole-in-the-wall restaurants that have been around for five hundred years and others were next to the ocean in candlelit tables. And with each meal we had the best wine and a beautiful meal. While I worked in that warehouse all I really thought about was the meal that evening.
I really grew to like Eric a lot even if I thought he could be a real prick sometimes. As I look back now I realize what he was trying to do for me. He was trying to help me get a life and stop being such a bum.
I remember the next weekend after we got back from France Eric saw me reading a book up in my room. He told me it was a gorgeous day out and I should be outside. There was a castle not a mile from where he lived and I had yet to go visit it. He got a bit angry that I was still being such a bum and he actually kicked me out of his house for that weekend. He told me to come back in a few days. He suggested I visit Geneva since it was still the French speaking part but he knew I still couldn't speak a lick of French and I told him I was off to Zurich. I felt like a bit of an ass for not even trying to learn French while Eric spoke seven languages.
In a way I was a bit relieved, it meant a few extra days off of work and I finally got to go out on my own; my first big boy trip. I packed my bag but left most of the books behind. He told me to stay at a Youth Hostel, I didn't know what the hell that was but told him I'd look for it. I took the train and I was amazed at how large, fast, and smooth they were. On a train I had room to move around; stand up stretch my legs and even go to the other compartment and order a beer. The train went about a million miles an hour and if you didn't look out the window you wouldn't even have known you were moving, the thing just floated across the rails.
Zurich was like a wonderland, beautiful architecture, both buildings and bridges. And the river that ran through the city centre was turquoise and clean. I had never seen anything like this place. I found the Youth Hostel and was surprised to find so many others my age traveling and it was mostly Canadians and Aussies that I met. I don't think I met any other Americans.
My first idea of travel was that a person had to stay in hotel rooms and have a lot of money to travel. Or be like me, work and travel at the same time. But here I was in the youth hostel sleeping in a dorm room and paying a fraction of the price compared to a hotel. Brilliant. Talking with the other travelers come to find they have these type of things all over the world. Hell, I thought, I could keep on traveling forever if that's the case; I hardly have to worry about spending too much money!
I walked around Zurich for a few days and even climbed to the top of the Munster cathedral. In the evenings I went out with some people from the hostel for a few beers, or more. I was there for the beginning of August when it was Independence Day in Switzerland so there were a few festivals going on and more people in the bars than would be usual. So I had a grand time.
I was quite sad to leave on August 2nd back to Bulle and I actually left Eric's place just a week after I got back because I figured I was fit enough to travel on my own now. Eric actually taught me quite a bit about traveling in our small conversations we had each evening at the dinner table and I was quite sad to leave there as well. Eric dropped me off at the train station, looked at me in the eyes and shook my hand and told me to look after myself. He figured I was still pretty incompetent and would get myself into trouble somewhere along the way. And I was incompetent, but I knew how to keep myself out of trouble. Well, big trouble anyways. That was the last time I've seen or even talked to Eric, regretfully.
I ordered a train ticket to London. The guy behind the counter just stared at me. I asked again and he just laughed. It was possible he said but I would have to jump about seven different trains. I would pass through Geneva, Paris, and take the Chunnel to London. I don't remember how much it cost but I remember it being an absurd amount. I remember talking to some other girl there while waiting for my train and she asked why the hell I didn't just fly. But to be perfectly honest I didn't know Europe had so many low cost airlines. Taking a flight would have been a quarter of the price and a shit-ton faster.
Not a whole lot happened along the way to London. I remember it being a very long trip but I had all my books to keep me company. Jumping trains and finding the Chunnel in Paris was a bit of a bitch. Everybody I asked directions from was snobby and arrogant and would sometimes point me in the opposite way of where I needed to go. I heard people in Paris were like this but didn't expect it to be this bad. But I did have to give them credit; they were as rude to me as they were to each other. While I'm at it, here's another stereotype that's true. Most of the men dress like homosexuals and most women wear massive sunglasses and walk with their nose in the air.
I had finally made it to the Chunnel entrance. I had to show my passport and check-in my luggage and pass through security, just like at the airport. If I thought the other trains went a million miles per hour then this train surely went a trillion. I'm not even kidding. I couldn't even look a mile into the distance outside the window because even that terrain was going too fast for my eyes to grasp onto. It was truly amazing, it was.
BACK
PRINT