Today's wake up was a bit of a mess. See, when I fell asleep last night, my phone was low on battery and beeping every few minutes to indicate it was so. However, I couldn't plug it in because I left the charger in the car overnight with the majority of my things. I only brought in my backpack with enough clothing and toiletries for overnight. So I knew I couldn't charge it overnight, nor did I want to leave it on overnight to potentially lose all power and/or beep every few minutes, keeping me up, and probably annoying the other girl who was in the female dorm (so much for being alone!). I decided to turn it off before I went to bed, thinking that I would wake up at some point in the morning when light started peeking in the room, and I could turn on the phone and see what time it was. If it was close enough to 8am, I could just keep the phone on, setting the alarm for an appropriate time to wake up for breakfast. Well, this all obviously didn't happen the way I planned. I woke up at sometime in the middle of the night, figured I should check the phone to see what time it was, and funny enough, the phone turned on but was reset at midnight for January 1st, 2007. So I searched through the date and time settings to fiddle with it and try to sort it out. It's a cell phone, so, it always displays the time and date according to a satellite (or something like that, so they say). Well the phone didn't want to correct itself, so I attempted to find the right time zone and daylight saving time selection. It was about 6am, or so I thought. I set the alarm for 8:15am, so I could snooze once, and go down to breakfast in the hostel lobby at 8:30. The alarm went off as planned, I snoozed as planned, and got ready for breakfast as planned. I got downstairs, with my computer, so I could upload some pictures to Facebook and check my email if need be. Also, if Adam wasn't down there yet, or had already come, I figured the computer could keep me temporarily busy until I saw him. At around 8:40, I emailed him saying "Hey I'm at breakfast" incase he was in his room and able to check email on his iPhone. It finally got to just around 9am, and I called him because I didn't want him to truly sleep through breakfast, and we had to be out of the hostel by 10am anyways. He didn't pick up, but texted me back saying "breakfast." I assumed that meant he was coming. He walked into the lobby, looking like he had just woken up, which he confirmed, and I said, "you slept later than you thought" and he said - what do you mean it's only 8:00. I said really, my phone says it's 9; I didn't want you sleeping through breakfast. Well it seems as though my phone reset itself to Israel time (GMT+2) instead of Europe time (GMT+1). So then I realized - I was at breakfast at 7:30, not 8:30. I was done with my breakfast by 8am, not 9am. And, I woke Adam up before he really wanted to be up.
What a great way to start the day, huh?
Adam and I went back to our respective rooms to get our bags and load up the car once again, and we were on the road by about 9:30am. Destination for today: Strasbourg, France. This meant we got to drive through Switzerland. One more country to put on the list! Leaving from Como, it was only a few minutes until we hit Switzerland. The scenery on our drive was absolutely majestic. Snow capped mountains, lakes, valleys, trees, small towns, more mountains, more lakes; it just kept going. We decided to stop along the way for some lunch, and it was a good opportunity for us to practice German. My last name is German, so naturally, I know how to speak the language. Right. Actually, because of some of the Yiddush I know, I was able to figure out some things on the restaurant menu more easily than Adam. Fleisch - is meat. I stayed away from those items. Some things on the menu looked so similar to English that it was just easy to figure it out. Tomantensuppe is tomato soup! And other things on the menu we just had no idea we had to ask. Zweibeln is onions. I steered clear of the dish with zweibeln so I wouldn't contaminate the car with my stinky breath. A quick stop into the gift shop and pay our lunch bill, and we were back on the road again. Not much more to Switzerland before crossing the Rhein River and getting back into France. Racial profiling is certainly at its best at the border, because we saw at least 10 cars go straight through customs when we were stopped, asked for our passports, asked about our trip, how long we were in Europe for, even asked us if we had anything to declar including 10,000 Euros or the equivalent in US Dollars (we told them we wished!). Fortunately, we didn't get searched - not because we have something to hide but just because it would be a huge waste of time - for us and for them. A few minutes later and another river crossing behind us, we were officially back in France. And so was our car radio. American songs, yes, but French radio. Right on the border, pretty impressive.
We arrived in Strasbourg, and had no problem finding Andy's apartment with the directions on the GPS. We parked across the street since there was no parking in front of the building, and went for a little walk to kill time until we could meet up with Andy and get into the building. After a few minutes went by, a parking spot opened up right in front of the building, so I told Adam to run to the car and drive it over, and I'd stand guard! Fortunately, no one came for the spot while Adam was moving the car, so I didn't have to fight off any French people for a parking spot. We called Andy who was inside, he had us come up and welcomed us to his fabulous apartment!
I was pretty desperate for a nap, seeing as the night and early morning situation didn't work out too well for me. I ended up sleeping for almost 2 hours! So much for thinking it would be less than an hour. Andy and his girlfriend Marina order from a restaurant in the next building that has both Indian and Italian food. The Indian food sounded pretty appealing to me, because we have eaten so much pasta and bread and pizza lately. So I ordered a vegetarian dish, and Andy and Adam both ordered some chicken. Marina wasn't very hungry so she had some light snacks from the fridge. We all sat down together at their table and it was like having a family meal together; it was so comfortable and homey. We decided to stay in for the night and go out tomorrow and try all the Belgian beers at a nearby bar. So after a 45 minute phone call to mom (Andy has free calls to North America!), I am finally now heading to bed.
Goodnight - Bon Nuit!
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