Lost in Laussane: An Unexpected Swisst

            The next stop I made was not on my travel itinerary. It was a fluke, a mishap, and in the end, a beautiful accident. It is now my absolute favorite story to tell. To begin, let’s backtrack to Edinburgh, where I made the fatal mistake of not double-checking.

            One afternoon in the Caledonian Backpackers Hostel, I was planning my travel from Paris to Freiburg, Germany, where I would be meeting my friend Shelby. Helping me with the details of my trip was Tomas, a French friend I’d made and went to the bar with, as well as the Chinese buffet. Very sure of his ability to assist me, Tomas logged onto a French website he’d often used for rail travel, and looked up train times. I told him, “Paris to Freiburg,” (pr. ‘fry-burg’) So he found a train leaving at half past six o’clock from Paris to “Fribourg,” (pr. ‘free-burg’) which I assumed to be the French spelling for Freiburg. WRONG! As I soon found out, Fribourg, Switzerland is its own city. Though I never made it to Fribourg, I’ll never again confuse it with Freiburg.

            Now remember from my last post that I walked under a ladder on the way to the subway. I thought no harm could come of it. WRONG! Bad luck was afoot. Little did I know, I’d already fulfilled it by booking a train to Fribourg.

            So I got on that train in Paris with a pack on my back and a chip on my shoulder. I was going to meet Shelby that night at the train station in Freiburg! How exciting! On my way there, it was cool to travel through Geneva, and I was feeling good about things.

A few stops after Geneva, I had to get out to transfer at a town called Lausanne. The first thing I did when I got out into the train station was to look at the railway map posted on the wall, showing parts of France, Germany, and Italy and all of Switzerland. Then I saw it. In the Northwest of Switzerland, close to Lausanne, was a dot labeled with the eight most unfortunate letters I’d ever seen: “F-r-i-b-o-u-r-g.” DAMN YOU, TOMAS!!!

I ran frantically around the train station looking for anyone who could help me. I needed a ticket to Freiburg, Germany, but it was after eight o’clock and all the stores and ticket booths were closed. Apparently Lausanne was not a big enough town to warrant nighttime operations at the train station. After an hour of asking random people the two part question, “Do you speak English?” and “¿Hablas Español?” I finally found a man, sitting behind the gate of a closed news stand, who answered “yes” to the first part. He was kind enough to explain that the train station was effectively closed and I couldn’t get a ticket until tomorrow.

Crap.

I immediately jumped to plan B – stay the night – and went outside, where I found a hotel across the street, went inside it, and asked the receptionist if I could get a room. He was kind enough to inform me that I probably didn’t want to stay there, since a room for the night was 165 Swiss Franks (about 183 US dollars). I asked if I could use the internet. Since I wasn’t a hotel customer, the receptionist wouldn’t let me sit in the lounge to use the internet, but he took enough pity to lend me the Wi-Fi password and told me I could go outside to use it.

So I went and sat with my back against the outside of the hotel, where I shot a cry of help to my mother (because it seemed like the right thing to do) and a message to Shelby that I wouldn’t be making it to Freiburg that night. A group of drunk Swiss idiots who yelled at me as they stammered by did not help my anxiety.

When I went back inside, the man at the counter gave me a map and circled the location of the nearest hostel, about a quarter-mile away. So I thanked him and walked to the hostel.

When I got there, I told the next receptionist my story, but he told me they were booked solid. However, he was kind enough to call the only other hostel in town to ask if they had any room. They did, and they told him they’d stay up until three o’clock AM to wait for me. At that point it was around eleven-thirty, so I had plenty of time. Like the first receptionist, this guy circled on my map where my destination was, but this time it was no mere stroll down the block. The other hostel was about three miles west.

So I started right away. I went downhill toward the lake and began to follow a highway that

The tunnel where I almost called it quits

ran along the shoreline. Most of the hike was along this highway, which eventually lead to a separate section of town. Along the way, I went through an underpass that was fully outfitted with graffiti. I considered giving up and making a bed for myself inside the tunnel, where I could wait out the night.

But I trekked on. Meanwhile, I was keeping my map in my back pocket, checking it periodically to track my progress. Then about two-thirds of the way down the highway, I reached for my map and it wasn’t there. I panicked and began backtracking to find the map. I did this for about ten minutes before I found a bus stop with a map of the town on it. So I memorized the route I needed to take and continued on my way, without ever finding my pocket map. Not five minutes later – I shit you not – a black cat crossed the street. You’ve got to be f#$!ing kidding me, I thought. I guess my bad luck had surpassed its quota from walking under that ladder in Paris.

   Eventually, the highway met with the road that I needed to walk up to reach the section of town I was headed for. A half-mile later, I found this crop of streets and buildings that comprised a small downtown area of five or six blocks. I figured it would be easy to find the hostel, since there was only one and they’re usually well marked. Plus they were supposedly waiting up for me, so the lights should have been on.

I walked through the front yard of a small chapel. It was about one o’clock AM, and everything was still but the wind and me. Streetlights lit the way under a bridge and past restaurants, shops, and apartments, but the hostel did not seem to be there. I walked around the blocks ten times and still didn’t find it.

Around two-thirty, out of the stillness, a cab pulled up to an apartment building and two guys started to get out. I quickly ran over, and fortunately one of them spoke English! So I learned that I had to go back under the bridge in the middle of town and take the first right onto a little side street. As I was making that right, I saw that in my hour-and-a-half search, I’d completely missed a street sign that said “Hostel à” and hadn’t gone down that street because it was completely dark. I checked the time on my digital camera – 2:45 am – I still had fifteen minutes to get there. So I followed the dark road for a block and a half, around a ninety-degree curve, and finally found it.

But the lights were out. I knocked on the door and rang the bell, but nobody answered my call. The little bit of luck I got from that cab pulling up had been for nothing. I almost breathed a sigh of defeat, but I knew that I couldn’t give up. Lucky for me, it was the end of autumn and leaves were abundant on the ground.

I just needed to find a place to set up camp, so I went around the side of the hostel and found that there was already another homeless person lying in the leaves.

So I went back to the chapel that I’d walked by earlier, and this time went around back, where there were dead leaves aplenty. At that moment, I was extremely grateful for the skills I learned in Boy Scouts. I made a pile of leaves against the wall of the chapel, then put on every layer I had in my backpack: extra socks, flannel pants underneath my khakis, two shirts, a sweatshirt, a raincoat, and my winter “Scotland” hat. I tucked my knees inside my sweatshirt and raincoat, folded my hands under my armpits, turtled my head and neck inside my sweatshirt, and sat in the pile of leaves against my backpack, supported by the wall. In the end, I was actually quite warm.

I waited out the rest of the night in a half-sleep until the sky turned a light gray-blue, and a few people began walking along the sidewalks. I stayed where I was for twenty minutes, then walked out into the day around seven o’clock. I found a small café and went inside, suddenly realizing how hungry I’d been. The last thing I'd eaten was that Nutella-banana crepe in Paris.

I asked the waitress my two part “Do you speak…” question, which annoyed her considerably, but she said, “Español,” and I quickly figured out that she could understand my Spanish enough to serve me breakfast. I did the best I could to understand her French and hand gestures. I got an omelet with toast and coffee, and it was maybe the best breakfast I’d ever had. The warmth from being inside with a hot breakfast inside me was enough to make this whole ordeal seem worth it.

When I left the café and started back down the way I’d come the night before, I realized that Lausanne had a stunning view of Lake Geneva with the Alps for a backdrop. The sunshine and the natural beauty of this setting was such an incredible turnaround from the strife I felt the night before.

The Bout

Since I could now see all my surroundings, I decided to walk down the residential streets that were up the hill from the highway I’d walked the night before. I stopped to watch an orange tabby cat scare a grey tabby cat away from its turf. Quite the sight! The houses were all different colors, and they each had a slated roof. In the end, I found Lausanne rather charming.

            I made it back to the train station around ten o’clock and immediately found help in English at the ticket booth. With zero hassle, I got my ticket for Freiburg (not Fribourg!) and waited thirty minutes for the train to arrive at the platform. It would be a four-hour train ride and I would finally get to my destination in Germany.

The Champion

Today, I’m grateful for my unexpected encounter with Switzerland. It turned out to be a trying yet great and supremely memorable experience. It allowed me to prove to myself that I could survive a cold night if I’m prepared, and admittedly, it was fun, especially once I saw how beautiful Lausanne was. If there were any way for my Eurotrip to get derailed, fate picked a wonderful time and place for that to happen.

Lake Geneva, on the train from Lausanne to Freiburg