Guys, I am ill. I took the Swiss version of NyQuil last night and literally fell asleep talking to Arturo on FaceTime, hence no blog yesterday. Maybe Thursdays are supposed to be the new blog days? (…is today Thursday??)
If you follow me on Snapchat, you will be painfully aware that there was a wine festival here in Neuchatel this weekend. Sorry for being the white girl at a concert. But it was seriously a good time. From what I have gathered, Fete de vendages is a celebration of the beginning of the harvest of the grapes for winemaking. (That was a super awkward sentence that I don’t have the energy to figure out how to make better) Basically, the entire city is shut down for three days and all the streets are lined with booths that sell food and drinks and trinkets and random stuff and it’s a giant party. Everyone in the city rolls out for this thing. Everyone. And people come from all over Switzerland to party away the weekend as well. It was a blast. Here’s a quick run down of my Fete des vendages experience.
Friday: Dinner at Michaela’s, go to the NUC tent, mingle with committee members and our supporters, discover that NUC’s drink is this toxic green concoction that is cactus flavored vodka with apple juice, a sour ribbon, and (I think) dry ice that makes it smoke, fun. Ride every single ride that the festival has, including the one that drops you down like Tower of Terror. Michaela and I find a drink called ‘Tequila BumBum” which we thought was pretty freaking funny. Dance to French rap music, get Nutella crepes. Michaela and I officially label ourselves “Stan and Sam” bc of where we went to school, thinking we’re clever af, get churros. Find a tent called “Saloon” and really make an impression on the people there with our enthusiastic dancing and someone gave us cotton candy. Made it home at 4:40 am.
Saturday: We had to work two-hour shifts at the NUC tent and I had the 6-8 block. This is hilarious for a few reasons: none of us speak French, none of us have any experience bartending, and we are all hungover. So mostly we refilled the peanuts/chips and restocked the fridge or got beer when one of our teammates told us someone ordered a beer. I did get cornered by a man telling me that America was headed downhill fast bc of Trump for a solid 20 mins during my shift. I also thought a man asked me for 4 pants..he meant pints. We were debating if we actually wanted to stay after Mic was done with her shift for a while but around 10 we decided that this weekend only happens once and we were going for it. So we went back for, you guessed it, “Tequila BumBum.” On Saturday all of our team managed to stay together until the very end of the night, which is a feat in a city packed with drunk people. We made some friends on the rugby team and got some cool hats out of it, danced to Nelly Furtado/the YMCA/and Eve (you would have thought those were our fav songs of all time by how excited we were to hear English), and obviously ate an entire pizza. At some point Mic and I ran out of cash but apparently people appreciate honesty and we still managed to get some drinks and croissants. Made it to Mic’s apartment at 4:00 am, talked until 6 am.
Sunday: Really did not think I was going to make it out this night. I really didn’t. But we all did. Knowing that you’re not going to have a free weekend for the next 7 months is a seriously powerful motivating factor. Sunday was my favorite night. We tried raclette for the first time…essentially just melted cheese and potatoes but SO good. Numa Numa was played (does everyone remember when this was viral?). Ate another Nutella crepe. Z, Mic, and I made sure that we actually saw every tent in the city trying to find a port-a-potty that didn’t make us gag (we were unsuccessful). Eventually found our way back to the tent that we had deemed our favorite, and some of our friends who will remain unnamed were a little farther ahead of us in the night, stamped our faces with the local bar’s logo. Thought I was super cute with that on my face for some reason but it turned out to be horrible to get off before our workout the next day, I seriously thought I was going to rub my cheek raw. Also found a leaf crown thing, thought that was cute too. And then, just as we were heading out at the reasonable hour of 2 am, we met some of the basketball guys! Tre, DJ, and Jeyvi play for Union, the team here in Neuchatel. Tre and DJ are from the US and Jeyvi was born in Switzerland but grew up in America, so it was really really nice to talk to people who were going through the exact same transition as we were. They hate laundry too. We ended up finding this underground club and talking/dancing/becoming best friends for a while and headed home at, lolz, 4:30 am!!
Can’t figure out why I’m not feeling great.
The care package from my mom finally got here! Holy crap, guys. No one send me anything except letters unless you are down to pay an obscene amount of money and deal with a lot of unnecessary stress. She crushed it, though. Sent me a book called, “You are a Badass,” and over 100 packets of EmergenC. I cried a lot when I opened it. I miss my mama. Currently burning the ‘Fresh Lilies and Citrus’ candle she sent me. Thanks mom.
Best part of this week: the rest of our team is back from the European Qualifier! We are so happy to have Tabea, Carole, Martina, and Monika back. Z and Mic no longer have to pass with 2, I get to figure out how our offense is actually going to work, and practices will generally be better with more than 7 people! Plus, they’re cool people, I like em. We are being presented to our sponsors tonight? No idea. I had to send in a funny fact/story about myself and I went with the story about 4 year old Madi getting her mouth stuck on the bathtub faucet for 2 hours while my dad tried to pry my jaw apart. Mom laughed the entire time, I’ve never forgiven her for it.
Random Things:
I have started Downton Abbey and I am INTO it.
I’m addicted to dates. The dried fruit. I’ve gone through 3 packs of them this week. Also I retract my statement about knowing how long to microwaves eggs to make them over-easy, I haven’t been able to do it again since.
Yesterday was Avery’s 16th birthday!!! Everyone tell her she’s smart and funny and cool!!! Aves is my favorite sister. She’s dramatic and cute and works her butt off.
As of today, I have all of my debit/credit cards back and in action after losing my wallet last week. Thank you, dad.
Stay tuned for snaps of the Stanford v UW match, I haven’t watched yet seeing as it was at 4 am my time and I already told you about the Swiss NyQuil.
