Cleo taking over the page to describe my holidays ahahaha.
My adventure starts in Lausanne, leaving my cat with a new toy and a stern reminder to behave for his sitter / aunt. I negotiate the bus, metro and the permanent building site called Lausanne station with a big suitcase in hand, and a kit bag and handbag over my shoulder. My train is only 3 minutes late despite a whole section of train tracks blocked off. I settle in with my headphones and alternate between tiktok, sudoku with my own music and obsessively checking all my online travel documents. I get to Zurich, get confused by such a big station and manage to finish 20m from where I started while having gone the long way around. All’s well that ends well, because I manage to get my tram and impress a guy by weilding my suitcase like it weighed 5 kilos.
Once off the tram, I pull up Google Maps and dutifully follow the instructions down a tiny, apparently two way road and then down a set of stairs. For some reason Maps is lagging so I wait on the sidewalk, looking around while I wait for it to sort itself out. I spot the hostel sign at the same time some guy in a car spots me. I know I’m not exactly inconspicuous with a bright orange suitcase, but I was not expecting a sidewalk conversation either. The guy tries to start a conversation in German, but quickly switches to French when he sees my look of total incomprehension. He’s curious as to why I’m in Zurich and for how long. I explain it’s just for the night because I have an early flight out of Zurich Airport. It turns out he only works in Zurich but lives in Bienne. I don’t know why he thinks I care, because I really don’t, but he seems determined to have a conversation with me. He eventually gets the hint and I finally arrive at the hostel.
At the hostel I’m greeted by an elderly woman who barely reaches my shoulder, she explains the set up in one word explanations and walks very quickly. I meet one of my dorm mates, a Parisienne who’s in Zurich doing a course for her new job. We quickly bond over our shared language, Vans and pierced nose. We grab some diy dinner from the local supermarket and then go out to the gardens to smoke. A cigarette for me, and a joint for her. Outside are two guys already smoking, talking in American accented English. My new friend and I continue talking in French and much to our surprise the two speak French as well, one of them is even from Yverdon. I give my sympathies as someone who was there nearly every week for four years. We talk about travel, clubbing, music and drugs. The drugs part mainly because I haven’t puffed and only passed the joint which leads into the discussion of which drugs we have or want to try and those that we wouldn’t touch ever. We also talk about food which makes us hungry, so my friend and I head to the kitchen where we find an Italian guy preparing a whole tray of tofu. He tries to convince me that my joke plan of going out clubbing until my 4:30am taxi is a good idea. I explain that I’m far too tired from a 7 day work week and also I’m not prepared to pay Zurich prices for a club.
The next morning I wake exactly 10 minutes before my alarm, which means I can wake my roommates with my mainly discreet stripping of the bed, and my three goings from the room. I manage to get the pavement at the exact same time as my taxi driver. We manage to communicate with my broken German and him talking slowly, and at the same cadence as if I was a child. He makes such a show putting my suitcase in the boot that I start to panic about weight allowances. He checks who I’m flying with so he can drop me off at the correct terminal and then starts chatting with me. We talked about the stupidity of the 30km/h zones outside of pedestrian priority zones, and about our jobs and how difficult it can be to take holiday in our industries. He tells me he’s going to recommend my bar to anyone he knows going to Lausanne and to be fair if I know anyone who’s likely to use a taxi in Zurich, I’ll definitely hand over his number. We stop at the door right in front of my baggage drop. He makes sure I’ll be okay with all my heavy (17kg) bags and I’m feeling pretty good about my language skills at dark thirty in the morning. I decide to try and use the machines that print your ticket for you because there’s less people and then I can go to priority bag drop. For whatever reason my machine does not work so I get help not only printing my tags but also putting them on, nice. Bag now in the hands of Swiss, I go to security which was quick and easy. I’m past security, a bathroom break and in the middle of a phone call that does not match the vibe of the holiday, that it finally clocks that I haven’t, at any point, had to show my passport. At Geneva, I would have shown my passport already twice if I’m going off my experience when going to Spain. I don’t even have to show it to get on the plane, obviously Zurich doesn’t care who’s going out.
Once I’ve landed in Hamburg, I join 4 elderly couples and one elderly, grumpy, lady to catch the transfer bus to Kiel. I’ve barely sat down on the bus and I’m already passed out sleeping. A bus trip of I don’t know how long, gone in the blink of an eye. I go through the long and boring process of check in and realize two things. I should have brought a thicker jersey and all these people have a piece of paper with a barcode that I don’t have. I get my funky little card and at the foot of the ship I explain my situation and have to get checked in manually, whoops! It only took two minutes so it was okay. I was finally on the boat.