A Lovely View

Well, let me amend my opinion of Lausanne. (And let me also say this: never write a blog entry about a place until you’ve walked both directions from your hotel.) We walked to the right this morning: not so impressive. But walk to the left: Wow! It’s a beautiful miles-long promenade along the water with sailboats and mallards skimming across the lake, weeping willows overhanging the seawalls, the scent of rose gardens in the air, and waves and waves of flowers along the path. They do things with begonias here that seem unimaginable with the Alabama variety. Crazy-awesome begonias in great swathes of red and pink.

 The crows here are bigger than house cats. I saw one sitting in the grass and thought it was an armadillo.

 I wandered for a while today and did not get lost. They city was pretty desolate on a Sunday afternoon—most shops were closed. I did have some trouble finding a castle in downtown, even knowing I had to be within a few blocks of it. Granted, it was a small castle. Had a nice café crème in a sidewalk café, where German soccer fans were yelling “Jolly good!” every time Germany scored on England. Then we had dinner in a great spot, Café Veille-Ouchy. Started with escargot and moved on to rosti, which is a Swiss dish like very fancy hashbrowns. Don’t think Waffle House. Tasty and very filling. One variety with ham and gruyere were called, translated, Virile Hashbrowns, which is how I like my hashbrowns. Then we finished with the best part—meringues with gruyere crème and berries. (This further cancels any comparisons to Waffle House—they hate it when you ask for gruyere.)

 I am consuming impressive amounts of yoghurt.

 Two days until we drive to France.