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The first day of the Year 2000. Very cool I think. A thousand years from now, providing people are still using the same calendar, they will wonder what it was like when the world went from the 1000s into the 2000s just as they are preparing themselves to enter the 3000s. And there I was living it. I shall say it again: very cool. Amy and I spent this very cool day racing around central-western Europe like beheaded chickens. As always, we were a few minutes behind schedule with everything and got a few too many extra moments of sleep and had to race to the Paris-Lyon train station in order to catch our Switzerland bound high-speed train just moments before it pulled out of port. (As I reflect on my past travels, I'm thinking this is more the rule than the exception.) But we did make it to the train just in time and were very pleased to see that no-one seemed to be travelling anywhere on the first day of the Year 2000. I suppose everyone was still recuperating from the evening before? Of course I didn't mind and would actually prefer having an entire high-speed train to myself. Sure, there were people on the train (though not many in first class where Amy and I were sitting!) but compared to the zoo-like madness on the trains getting into Paris, this ride out of Paris was like sheer Paradise. We rode the train for several hours eastward towards Switzerland, and from what I remember, I was highly annoyed by the mid-twentysomething guy working in the food car with a bad attitude. Sure, I wouldn't want to work mid-morning on January 1st, 2000 either (in fact I was on a glorious international vacation thousands of miles from my country of employment&ldots;) but he didn't have to take out his self-loathing of life on us! Strangely, I can't even remember what he did to annoy me, or why I'm even recollecting this tired old story, but for some reason I just wasn't impressed with him and felt that he was impeding my otherwise pleasurable trip on a high-speed French train into southern Switzerland.
We arrived late in the afternoon and our first order of business was getting to our hotel, which was located around the corner and up some hill in some narrow little alleyway. Kind of like where everything is located in Europe. Here is the note Amy had scribbled regarding the day's events:
It was a fun evening actually. I mean, it had the potential for being a total snoozer, but not being one to let the precious moments of an international trip slip me by, we asked a few questions at the English pub (to a girl who was half Swedish, half American and all hottie!) and she and her little behind-the-bar cronies filled us in on all the hot spots in Lausanne for young international whippersnappers like ourselves. After our bar excursion we trotted our little selves into the big bad "industrial" sector of Lausanne (basically, a neighborhood with like two ugly buildings) and paid some shockingly high entrance fee to hang out with enough young and beautiful hipsters to last us the rest of the millennium. It was pretty fun and Amy and I had a good time flailing around to techno-house-whatever music till our legs couldn't take it any more. After our limbs had turned into spaghetti and our clothes into veritable cigarette-smoke sponges, we returned to our mega-ritz hotel room and called it a night. Personally, I thought it was a great way to spend the first day of 2000. Wake up in Paris, travel internationally on a high-speed train then dance all night long with the young people who will be the leading force in the first half of the 21st Century. Sometimes I wonder if anyone felt the same on January 1, 1900? Perhaps not?
Divine millennial intervention seemed to be the order of the day on the 2nd as the gray blanket of clouds that had enshrouded Europe over the previous week (as it enshrouds Europe EVERY WEEK during winter. . .) lifted and the sun shone brilliantly in the heavens. We were especially lucky since the 2nd was our day for outside activities and the weather was cooperating beautifully. Our first tourist stop-off was to be the "Ouchy" (pr. oo-shee, I think&ldots;) waterfront district on the south side of Lausanne on Lake Léman (Lake Lèmon???) [my ability to spell words from non-phonetic languages has crashed since moving to Japan where everything is completely phonetic. . .]. From the lakefront we could see the spanning crescent of the lake with its tiny little breeze blown waves rippling along the shores of France across the water and against the Swiss docks under our feet. We walked around and took a slew of pictures and relaxed on a park bench with the sun in our faces and the its warmth on our skin. From there we boarded a train for the town of Montreux and went on a nice hour-long walk along the lakeside to Château de Chillon (Castle "sha-toe d shee-yohn"). There was a constant meandering of people along the riverside with us and it was good to see everyone out and about enjoying the nice weather, something one doesn't necessarily see in Japan. Amy and I sat on another little park bench, ate a little afternoon snack of bread and cheese and people-watched - one of my personal favorite pastimes. The sky that afternoon was blurred slightly by a refractive layer of high flying cirrus clouds and dissipated jet trails. This led to a really beautiful visual effect in the sky - there was ring of icy rainbow colors encircling the sun with the farthest points along the horizontal diameter of the ring scattering the concentrated light of the sun and bursting forth in what looked like a triple star system hovering above the French Alps. This beautiful optical illusion was further reflected off the surface of Lake Léman and produced and additional three suns! So as we looked out upon the lake and the mountains stretching in front of us we were greeted by the sight of six suns burning before us! Ah&ldots; the beauty of nature&ldots; and with le Château de Chillon resting peacefully along the shores of le lac, it was a view to behold. . .
We didn't go on the guided tour, but rather wandered our way with map in hand and strolled in and out of each room at our own pace. Of course it's very easy to meander through the adventursome and luxurious interior of a castle and be whisked away to a time of men on horseback and women in dress and think that the life of castle inhabitants was filled with mystery and excitement, but then I always have to pull my head out of the clouds, especially when I walk through the dungeons, and remind myself that most Europeans of that era were horrifically poor, frightfully uneducated, and shockingly unhealthy peasants whose miserable lives were dominated by disease, royalty and the church. But I suppose if you've got to be a peasant, you might as well be a peasant at the base of the majestic Swiss Alps. . . Links Megasite / EuroTour2001 Links
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1
January 2000, Saturday
Our
destination: Lausanne, Switzerland.
2
January 2000
The
castle itself was an exceptionally cute little number, built in a
series of spurts commencing around the 12th Century lasting until
1798 when the construction was completed and ownership transferred
hands to the Canton (State) of Vaud. The castle has all the amenities
one has come to expect of a quality residence: a dual façade
with mountain-facing fortress, an internal Hall of Justice, an
armory, a duke's chamber, a chapel where mural paintings from the
Middle Ages can be admired and a dungeon fully furnished with chains
and cuffs to house troublesome townsfolk.