Travel days and Swiss facts

So the next two days are not very exciting. We are travelling out of Spain, through France and into Switzerland. After heading to the station in Madrid we had a three hour train ride to Barcelona before a two hour layover and then a six hour train to Paris. The highlight of this trip was having a German Shepherd named Maverick at our feet for the trip to Paris. Amazing! Arriving late into Paris we quickly found our hostel near Gare de Lyon station and went to sleep. Six hours later we were back at Gare de Lyon to sort a ticket to Sion in Switzerland. And for those wary travellers who fancy something familiar, there is a Pret in the station. An English chain selling

sandwiches to the French? Go figure! After an uneventful train ride to Lausanne, we changed trains to Sion and had a beautiful ride around Lake Geneva and up the valley to Sion.

Now why Sion you may ask? Not the most popular of Swiss destinations, however we are going to stay the weekend with an exchange student, Vero, who stayed with Jo and her family 18 years ago! We were met at the train station by Anne-Marie, Vero’s mum, who does not speak English. After some broken French/English welcomes, we had a 20-minute drive straight up the mountain to the Chalet near the village of Vernamiege. Ca va? Ca va tres bien!

After meeting up with Vero and her two sons, Martin (nearly 3) and Lukas (8 months old), we settled in for an evening of local wine, meats, and cheese (which were quickly replenished at every opportunity). We were both trying to remember/learn French as quickly as possible! Luckily Vero speaks amazing English and her dad, Norbert, speaks enough English to get along, there were definitely a few laughs amongst all the brilliant Swiss hospitality. The views are incredible! This is looking to be a great weekend!

As this post is a bit limited, we thought we would include some Swiss facts we found on some website that may or not be factually correct. The website has 35, but these are some of our favourites:

• It is law in Switzerland that every citizen has access to a nuclear fallout shelter. This means that there are enough nuclear bunkers to house the entire population of Switzerland, about 8 million people!
• Every male over the age of 18 needs to complete military service. This includes a two week refresher course every year until the age of around 45. This service is fully paid leave from employment paid by the government. The military also has weapons stashed all over the country in houses that look like the traditional chalets.
• In case of foreign invasion, Switzerland has wired every access point into the country to explode. If this was the case, they could simultaneously blow every access point, some 3,000 sites!
• The Swiss eat the most chocolate per capita of anyone in the world. On average they eat around 11kgs per person per annum.
• The Swiss boast an impressive list of inventions including velcro, cellophane, the Swiss Army Knife, muesli, milk chocolate, absinthe and LSD. They are also leading the world in research into using LSD to treat mental illness and pain.