Montreux

As we took the train to Montreux, I continued thinking about the past 72 hours. The sitting in El Paso for 27 hours, the plane to georgia, then Paris, the geneva. I thought about the UN and the complete change of how people acted here. I thought about the snow-covered mountains that now surround me. I thought about what was to come next. I thought about how good sleep sounded.

(not sure why but the resolution looks like crap until you click on it to full size it, SO CLICK ON IT!)

It was already night time when we arrived in Montreux, but having slept half and hour, I was wide awake. The first stop was the apartment where I could drop off my stuff. Almost every block I would recognize something new. I haven't been to Switzerland in over ten years yet I felt that I had already lived my entire life there. I recognized the tree at the park I used to play in, the school that I'd walk by and wonder who those kids were, the escalators in the market, path full of stairs on the way to the lake, and of course the hundreds of animal shrubs lining the lake. After a quick reminder of where things were in the city, we bought some food, some wine, and some cheese, went home, and ate the first real meal I'd had in about a week.
The first two days weren't too eventful; I walked the town relearning all of it's secrets and enjoyed the wonderful flavors of the food, wine and coffee here. On Thursday, we visited the Château de Chillon, a nearby castle on the lake:




Christmas Eve, was spent figuring out Christmas day. We bought food for three days because nothing would be open and went to the midnight mass and a local cathedral (god I missed that smell). Following the ceremony, we walked home as it began to snow and drank a bottle of champagne (from Champagne) and ate Panattoni going to sleep around two in the morning, impatient for the following day to begin.