Vince's

So after yesterday's shocker of a hitch, which actually turned out quite sweet, today we have made it to Switzerland (21st May).

We got a lift with Nicole to the main autobahn and from here it was a one way route to Switzerland. From our drop off point, it took about 20mins to get picked up and this took us over the border and into cheese world. From there a lady who had bought a pond in Germany (much cheaper she assures us) took us into some town and from here we hitched into Gassaur where our CS host Vince came to collect us. Took maybe 2hrs! What the hell were we doing for 9hrs the day before?!? Have to ask Jo about the drivers who took us as they mainly spoke retarded swiss version of german and very little english so i didn't learn too much.

Day 1 - Vince began our time in Switzerland with a beer at a local aussie pub. Thankfully a local brew and not the piss the Aussie's bottle and sell as beer and which is widley known abroad as Fosters. Then it was off to his place to relax, watch a movie (he has over 800) and drink another beer. House rules stipulate we must not let his pet snakes out of the terririums without him being there but that we can help ourselves to all the beer we want. And there is a heap! And playing with his fully automatic machine gun is all good too, just no ammo without him.

Swiss. Neutral? Huh! Every guy here has a friggin arsenol under his bed! Craaaazy!

I don't think i have eaten a piece of fruit or veg since arriving either unless hops is a veg? Have to admit i am missing them slightly but after here i will go detox big time. But why do today what you can put off until tomorrow yeah?

Day 2 - visited local chocolate and cheese factories, had fondue for dinner and got drunk on champagne. The choc factory had a heap of free samples. Free Swiss samples. Not bad. Not bad at all. Cheese factory was... a cheese factory. But it did sell some cheese that tasted like old old old rotten dirty skody feet. Almost threw. Managed not to... just. and we got the cheese for Vince to make us a real Swiss fondue. Again, not bad at all (o:

Day 3 - went for a bike with Jo around the neighbouring villages. Nothing too exciting happened. Visited a town called egg and then Jo left to say hi to Claudine. I stayed behind, played with Vince's pet pythons and watched more moveis, haha. As for the snakes, Vince put one around my neck to begin with and i thought i would be all cool about it. Didn't scream or anything but i broke a sweat all right. Weird too. Wouldn't have expected it. Cool snakes too. Very beautiful. Ball pythons and corn snakes.

50km... 9hrs

We left with Steffen at around 12 as we weren't expected in Switzerland until around 7pm. That meant we had aaaaaaaaages to get there. I planned on snoozing road side if the sun got real nice. I mean, why rush?

9hrs later and where are we? 50km away! We made Stuttgart! First lift took us the wrong way and then it just kind of never took off after that. We had chocolate and signs declaring that Jesus himself would pick us up but no. Nothing.

When we did finally get a lift, he offered to take us further if we were willing to wait for a bit as he had a meeting he had to attend for no more than an hour in Stuttgart. We figured we'd risk it and we were hungry anyway and so would fill the time grabbing something to eat. His 1 hour tops turned into 2 hours and we were still waiting!

When he did return, realising he had been a bit longer than expected, he offered to let us stay at his place for the night; sweeeet! Exactly what i had been banking on (o:

delicious meal and a few cold beers later and we found ourselves asleep in a room of a house more like a hotel than anything i had stayed in previously. Or more of a Bed and Breakfast i guess, which is what it turned into. Christoph and Nicole were absolute perfect hosts. Superb.

And the host we were supposed to stay with? he was cool to wait another day. And surely we will make it there tomorrow?

Steffen's

climbing
fire

Karlsruhe