A new day, and another epic excursion, this time to Lake Constance in Switzerland.
First stop: der Rheinfall, which is an amazing waterfall that is 150m wide and 23 high. It’s completely mind-blowing, and Aubrey and I admired it while walking at a snail’s pace- passing Dam and Isi while continually turning to each other and proclaiming : “Ahh, wie schön!!!” (“ahh, how beautiful!!!”)
We must’ve turned and said it to each other at least fifty thousand times, with the same inflection, the same drawn-out mid-section and the same heartfelt wonder. Inevitably, we reached a point where this word just wasn’t going to suffice anymore- it had been overused to the point of unfashionable, and the Rheinfalls deserved better than repetition of the same goddamn adjective: “Aubrey, there’s gotta be another word we can use, this just won’t do”. I huffed impatiently at our linguistic limitations.
Aubrey furnished her IPhone which has her PONS dictionary app on it, which, for you folks playing at home, cost a mean $22 (“but it’s really worth it, it’s got all my verb conjugations on it”, Aubrey has previously enthused), and we tried to look up the German equivalent of “amazing” and “awesome”. The dictionary took its sweet time in the depths of the crashing Rheinfalls, and we waited with bated breath. Finally, PONS spat out its authoritative German equivalent of “awesome and amazing”: “schön”.
We cackled like goons, abandoned the futile synonym search and continued to climb the never-ending steps and drink in the outstanding panoramic views.
Once back on the bus, Nasri entertained us with some a cappella singing with Abdul, and then found himself in a quandary. It was hot, the temperature was climbing, and he had a tempting, complete outfit change in his backpack. To disrobe on the completely packed bus and switch from jeans and joggers to shorts and sandals, or not to disrobe: that was the question. He motioned me to listen in: “Do you think it would be weird if I changed on the bus?”, he queried. I considered his question, and sat back.
People can find this kind of open disrobing a little societally incorrect and confronting, I geddit. But seriously, boxers and guys’ underpants are generally closer to going-out clothes than undergarments- hell, they’re practically shorts, which means that they’re practically half an outfit, which means: “Yeah, it’s fine”, I concluded. He winked with typical larrakin Nasri timing, produced his shorts, meticulously folded his jeans, heaved on his shorts, chucked off his shoes and socks, meticulously stacked them together, and then to complete the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it switch, snapped on his sandals. Like Superman, it was super humanly fast, and the rest of the bus didn’t miss a beat.
When we got to Lake Constance, somehow Claudia and I got separated from the rest of the group. As we dived into a fabulous discussion about all the things I love (meditation, spirituality and energy), we suddenly stopped– lost. “Where are we?” I dared to ask. Claudia looked left, right, up and down, while I just searched obtusely for a familiar, unfamiliar monument in my usual directionally useless way. We eventually got our ducks lined up in a row and had the bright idea of consulting the town map: “Let’s head towards Lake Constance” we concurred, and put our heads together to make the joint decision to head “that way!!”.
Ten minutes later, we stared up particularly obtusely, and were confronted with dense suburbia. There wasn’t no lake coming up any time soon, that’s for sure: “Where is the lake?” we asked a sweet looking old couple. The man swung his arm emphatically in the direction from which we’d come, and we banged heads and lamented. It turns out that not only are Claudia and I spiritually aligned, but we’re almost as directionally challenged as each other (I’m worse). After wandering back past the houses, past the church and over the bridge, we finally came upon the lake. And here, my cleverest Claudia discovered the most awesome restaurant with the best vegetarian quesadillas. As my motto goes: “where you stumble lies your treasure”, and we celebrated and feasted ecstatically to aquamarine views for as far as the eye could see.
“Mein Gott, was ist die Zeit?” (“Like, omg, what’s the time??”) Claudia looked at her watch, and we both started sh*tting bricks: FIFTEEN minutes to get back to the bus which was due to leave at 3 pm, and we weren’t entirely sure from whence we’d come. God speed, us– is all I could think.
We power-walked back to the bridge (me, almost leading us in the complete wrong direction) and both recalled that we had started our walk under some banner– and some intersection. We got there and gaped like lost seals swept up on a cement shore: it was a FIVE WAY intersection- which way to turn??
We looked left, right, up and down, and just as we were about to fret (it was 3:02 pm, we were tardy), God sei Dank, the big group of American students came whistling past like a big line of Street Savvy, Directionally Dedicated Angels (hereafter, the SSDD Angels). Claudia and I grinned at each other, ridiculously relieved– we didn’t need to say what we were both thinking in our heads: the SSDD Angels unequivocally saved our numnuts.
Our final stop was Uberlingen, and by this point, we were all pretty wrecked. But, in saving the best for last, this beautiful town was my favourite. Having dressed entirely inappropriately for the weather (jeans and boots because, um hello, isn’t 24 degrees near a lake meant to be fresh and windy?? not roasting and Beach Betty Babetown), I was itching to dip my feet in the lake. Flavie, Aubrey, Lydia, Claudia and I moved to sit by the rocks, undressed our feet, hauled up our pants and luxuriated in the clear, cold water. It was absolutely the best way to end the day, and we trooped back onto the bus, sun-drenched, light and happy, snoring dreams and summertime sunshine all the way home.
Word of the day: Ausgezeichnet, meaning “excellent”- because it was the only other word which Aubrey’s dictionary could find which came close to “schön”– and today really was, better than schön.