Retracing my footsteps.

Fifteen years ago I spent a year working as an au pair in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was an incredibly beautiful part of the world but not all my memories from that time are happy ones. The family I worked for were difficult to live with and didn't pay me very much so I was too broke to do half the exploring I would have liked. I have one particularly memorable experience where I went sleighing in jeans and runners as I didn't have the money to even rent proper snow gear. I would not recommend it. Also au pairing does not provide you with very many opportunities to meet other people your age so parts of my time there were quite lonely. I ate a lot of fresh bread and swiss chocolate and tried raclette and fondue. I saw a lot of snow and pretty little towns and mountains. I went to my first outdoor baths(heated pool outdoors in an incredible setting), lavey les bains, and I learned a lot of french but mostly needed the help of kamikaze ( a potent cocktail drunk as shots) to have the courage to actually use it. While for various reasons, my trip to Switzerland ended on a slightly sour note, I have always hankered to go back. To see the city with fresh eyes and piece together some of the better memories I have from that time. To actually be a tourist but now with a smart phone so I can actually make some attempt at capturing how beautiful this place was and maybe to revisit Captain cooks where we danced on tables and au lapin vert where we drank kamikaze and danced to dodgy europop if both these places are still open anymore. So while I daydreamed about retracing my foot steps, I put it off indefinitely. 

I told myself that Switzerland is expensive, the flights and accommodation and the whole thing and I never actually sat down and priced it. The idea that it might be too expensive was enough to deter me. In the last few years I have gotten rather good at making excuses for not doing things. Things are changing though, I have turned over a new leaf since I moved to Kilkenny and I am continually pushing my boundaries. With all of this in mind I have finally renewed my passport and been on a mission to get myself on a proper holiday. I had already booked a few days in Edinburgh to visit a friend from college and I had been planning try and get myself to Spain and walk some of the Camino. I priced it and turns out it was going to be crazy expensive so I scrapped that idea and tried to workout what to do instead. Fitness holidays seem to be aimed at people with more money than sense and sadly I did not have cash to burn. So at a loss and wanting to book something before I spent extra cash on something stupid, I decided to price flights to Geneva and before I knew it I'd booked a holiday.

To say I am excited is an understatement, this has been something I have wanted to do for at least ten years. Naturally I had to wait a bit of time for nostalgia to kick in. Now this will be a much more grown up Laura adventuring her way around Switzerland. I wont be having any bread or chocolate. I may however smuggle in so many nobo buttons that I get stopped by customs on my way in. I wont be drinking Kamikaze but I also wont be feeling lonely or lost. I'm excited to see how the city has changed and how much I actually remember and to mortify myself with my very rusty French. This will be the summer of possibilities, I can already feel it.