Day 13 - Jour de congé (Day off)

I slept in ‘til 1 which was a dream (excuse the pun). I spent ages getting ready and watching TV. The weather is shite again today, typical of my day off. I caught the train to Lausanne and wandered around some shops. I did some window shopping and bought some stuff to make clothes with - a hobby that I've been meaning to start for ages…
At 5, I met Rosa in Riponne, she was pretty hungover (unsurprisingly!) and didn't remember much of last night. We did some food shopping for her and met up with Steve, another couch surfer who I was meant to go to the drum & bass night with yesterday. Rosa also knew Steve through the general couch surfing community here in Lausanne. We dropped off the shopping then went to Café de la Grancy for a drink. We chatted a lot, Steve is really friendly. It was pretty funny, because Rosa was hungover, she found it a lot harder to communicate with me than she did last night, so Steve had a lot of translating to do. My favourite line from Rosa was “I'm so fatiguated” (tired) - ha!
Afterwards, I went to meet another couch surfer, Achim. A German guy who now works in Lausanne. I met him and his friends in Bruxelles Café -a Belgian bar in Riponne. The spoken language between us all was English, as everyone was from somewhere different. There were a few Germans, a Dutch guy and even a British couple who have lived in Bangor for the last 10 years! I realised while I was there that I haven't met a single Swiss person yet. Not that I've had a conversation with anyway, weird. We sat for a few hours, just drinking and chatting. It’s so great meeting people from all walks of life: different cultures and backgrounds. We discussed languages a lot, it made me feel really guilty that I only knew English. It seems a general theme with people whose native tongue is English. We have the view that most people will talk our language wherever we go. It’s too easy for us not to learn other languages. When sat at a table with people who could speak at least 2 languages, I felt quite ashamed! We spoke about the difference in languages between countries (e.g in Swedish “vorspiel” means the same kind of concept as “pre-drinks,” however the same word in German means “foreplay”). I didn't carry on with them to the next bar as drinking here isn't cheap! I missed my train too, so had to wait an hour, but there was a fight on the tracks to keep  me entertained. Lausanne is so rough on a Saturday night!