Scotland and the land of chocolate and watches

Ello Ello

I am writing on a rainy day in Lausaane Switzerland.

Since my last check in, I have explored Edinburgh with my little travel buddy, and then took off to Switzerland on my own.
Edinburgh was fantastic, we even had a cute Scottish couple offer to give us directions the moment we arrived, but directions meant a personal tour of the city, telling us all the highlights and walking us right to the door of our hotel! That night we had a wonderful birthday dinner at a Scottish restaurant called Wild Fire which was superb, and across the street from a bar that had over 200 single malt scotches. Needless to say, it was a fantastic birthday. The city was great for toodling around in, and also for relaxing.
The castle as always was beautiful, and the beer was cold. We decided to go out with a bang on our final night and joined an organized pub crawl. We went to 5 pubs and 1 club - very fun! The crowd was a bit interesting in that is was a fine collection of eurotrash. One guy who was already dresssed to such an unbelievably pretentious level topped it off by wearing a plaid cashmere scarf out. Ridiculous.

Getting from Edinburgh back to London was a bit of a schmauze, but in the end we ended up with a place to stay, which is all that really mattered. Sunday morning was kind of sad leaving the boy, and as per usual, the travel gods laughed at us and ensured our flights were going out of two separate terminals of the airport.
When I arrived in Geneva, everything was closed. Walked down to the Lake (beautiful) and got an overpriced sandwich (11CHF = 12CAD) and a sunburn. I wandered around old town and also went to see the headquarters of the UN. There were some great fountatins outside the HQ and all sorts of cute kids running through them. Had an early night after the events of the day, and headed to Lausanne in the morning.

Now, Lausanne is spectacular! It is also on Lake Geneva, and has a beautiful waterfront. My french isn´t great, but I haven´t been drinking. I met a nice girl from Shediac NB who´s name was also Geneviéve, and we went for crepes and a beer.
Today was rainy, thus, a museum day. I visited the grand cathedral downtown, and the went to the Collection de l´Art Brut. This is a collection of art that was produced by pychiatric patients, prisoners, convicts, and hermits. The purpose of the collection was to express art that had no cultural influence as the artists were quite removed from society. I don´t think I have ever enjoyed an art exhibition so much! I´ll admit that some of it you would say "what a lunatic" but it was so unique.
Tonight I hope to check out a bar a friend suggested to me called the White Horse, which might actually be the only bar in town with a happy hour - should be fun! Tomorrow will hopefully be a lake cruise or else it will be a shopping day in the rain. Thursday brings Strasbourg and I get to see Mandy and Tim (hopefully) in Brittany on Saturday!
Until next time!
Santé
Gen