It all began with my apartment inspection. I am warning all my friends still in Duesseldorf….get a cleaner! Having spent most of the weekend on my hands and knees scrubbing my apartment to get it ready for inspection, my body now aches and I have bruises, cuts and strange skin conditions all over me. Next time I am going to be smarter and just forgo half my bond and give money to someone who will do it. Thanks goes to Chris, Tanja, Isa and Fleur who did their bit to help me get my apartment ready. Did I pass the inspection? Flying colours mate! It was “Sehr schoens” all around. Incredibly surprisingly really considering there is a dodgy burn mark on one of my kitchen walls. Apparently bamboo steamers and electric hot plates don’t go together…
After my award-winning inspection, Tanja and Chris drove me to the hauptbahnhof to catch the train to Lausanne. Thank goodness they were there to help because if you know me well, you know I don’t pack light. Not only did I have my life in one crummy trolley bag with a broken handle (Matt wouldn’t let me buy
the super Samsonite or ravishing Rimowa luggage), I had a mountain bike packed into some tarpaulin, a small but bulging backpack and my handbag. I estimate that the whole lot weighed over 60kg (see photo). This was ok when I had friends, but once I got on the train it was on my own. Amazingly enough, I managed the trip which included a stopover in Basel, in which I had to rebuild my bike and to park it in the train station.
Rebuilding a bike is hard work for someone who has only learned the mechanics of a bike the night before when they had to take it all apart. It makes it even more nerve racking when you have an audience of beer drinkers watching your every move. Here I was in Basel train station, losing bolts and washers as I try desperately to put my bike back together. In the end, I was covered with grease and dirt but I managed to make it look right. So when the bike parking manager helped me wheel it into the parking lot (why was he sitting behind the desk when I had to put the bike together???) and the back wheel didn’t spin, did I laugh or what! Lucky for me, the beer drinkers were all too drunk to notice. That, or they were being polite as they were Swiss.
So as I’m finally rolling into Lausanne, all I was hoping for was to get into Matt’s car and drive home. Ha! Matt “I don’t want to lose my carpark” Plummer decided that it was best to leave the car where it was and walk down to pick me up. His punishment? To manage the crummy 40+kg trolley bag on public transport. Now he has red raw hands too.
Posted by tokyotrouble 
