Day #14 - The in-between day

We got up early this morning with a mission - do some sightseeing in the morning while we could, and then spend the rest of the day getting ourselves to Mulhouse, France, for our overnight train to Nice!

So, we got up and walked downhill again to the lakefront, stopping on the way at a boulangerie for some brioches and yogurt for breakfast. The promenade was really quiet and pretty in the morning - and the haze is so thick here that you can barely tell the sky apart from the water.

We walked along the shore until we got to Lausanne's main attraction: the Olympic Museum. Lausanne is the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee, hence they are the world's "Olympic capital". The museum was probably one of the better ones I'd been to in my life. :) Probably because it was about something I was interested in and had experienced myself - the Olympics - instead of something I hadn't like ancient history or art. The museum had Greek artifacts from the original Olympics, showcases and stories from each of the Olympic Games, the collection of all the torches that had been carried, and tons and TONS of videos, that all made me cry! They were just really emotional. :) Every hour, they also showed 3D videos, and so we watched a half-hour one of the opening ceremonies of the Salt Lake 2002 Olympics - which also made me cry. :) Upstairs, they had memorabilia from sports and athletes, like the Dream Team's signed basketball, or Carl Lewis's running shoes. At the end, we got to pick out 3 videos to watch from an archive of like 450 memorable Olympic moments. Katie and I chose the 1992 "Dream Team" basketball finals, the 1996 gymnastics finals (with Kerri Strug), and the 1980 USA vs. USSR hockey finals. The last one also made me cry - very emotional morning. :)

After our wonderful start to the day, we speed-walked 30 minutes uphill to get back to our hostel, check out, and go to the train station. We had to get to Mulhouse, France, which we thought would take 3 transfers, but it ended up only taking 2. We went to Basel first, and then just transferred from there. We ended up getting to Mulhouse at 6 and our night train left at 10. Yes, it was ridicoulously early, but after the hassle of even getting the ticket, we were both too nervous about missing it we wanted to make sure that didn't happen. :)

To pass the time, we found a pretty park by the station, and just napped there for awhile. Then, we wandered the town some more and found a Subway for supper! It took us awhile to figure out what the subs were though - Poulet = chicken, Thon = Tuna, Jambon = Ham. We sat upstairs for a long time, and got all crazy singing along to the radio, which played awesome songs like "Grace Kelly". Now that song will be stuck in my head the rest of the trip. :)

Made the night train just fine...it was an interesting night. We were in a 6-bed couchette, which are just 6 bunks in a compartment, and you sleep in your street clothes. Neither of us slept that well, it was weird sleeping on a moving train. But, morning eventually came, and we woke up in the tropical paradise of Nice. More of that in a moment...