Just Like Old Times

Yesterday we spent about 10 hours with the Levins. My day began with a chocolate croissant, a plain croissant and some water. I got on the computer, being the computer-addict I am. Listened to Itunes. Studied French. Blogged maybe. And then it got interesting at around 2. We had a plan to hike the Saleve with the Levins and had to take a bus (several of them) to the bottom of the mountain. My mom told us the bus was leaving at like 2:41. We left the apartment at around 2:30. I said to my mom, "We have to run!" And that is just what I did. But running with hiking boots at least a size too large on a hot day is not...convenient. Or pleasant. So eventually I stopped. But then I just switched to my passing-time pace. My mom nor Zach were running. When we met up at a crosswalk close to the bus stop, I looked at my watch and we had like 7 minutes. I said to my mom, "We're not going to make it, we have like 5 minutes." See, I'm the type of person that says I'll be late to class even if we have like 3 more minutes and I'm practically running. I'll say we have 5 minutes when we really have 15. I'm just pessimistic like that. Anyway. We missed our bus. It actually was a wild plan, because our real bus was near the border, which was like a 20 minute walk. So we called my dad, who was biking to the mountain. We were only about 30 minutes late though. We walked to the other bus stop and waited. Waited for like 10 minutes. When the bus finally came, it was as full as the Michigan Stadium during the OSU/UM game. That was an exaggeration. But it was capital-F-you-double-ell. Naturally we had to stand up. But I was used to that. But it's still annoying with all that many germs and little kids staring at you. I tell you, there is perhaps not many other things more annoying than little kids watching you closely as if you were wearing a big sign that said some important information they really needed to know. I vow to never stare at people because that is just...so dang irksome. Anyway. So we rode a bus to the Geneva Cornavin (train/tram/bus station). Then my mom had some trouble finding the right bus, but this lady helped her. She sounded like she was American, but said she was actually French. I was surprised. My mom and her talked a little before she had to get on her bus. So then we waited a few more minutes for our bus. It was full-ish. We were going to ride it to the last stop, and then guess what happened. On one of the stops, the Levins came on! So it was a good thing we missed that bus. That was awesome. So I talked to Erez and Oren and we took some pictures. It was cool. Then eventually we got off, with the Saleve so close I felt like I could touch it. So close you could see almost all of the details of the cliffs and stuff. But we still had to walk. We met up with my dad before we got to the mountain and kept walking. But then. Ow. ... Ow. ... Ow. It felt like there was a stinging bee...or just a stingy thing in my left sock. Ow. Every few seconds, I felt the sharp sting and muttered an "Ow." My mom thought it was a stinging nettle. When we took the boot and sock off, there wasn't anything there really. But we shook out my sock and put some lotion on my foot. It seemed to help. No more sting. Yay. Then we sort of split into two groups. One group was the slow-ish/talk-ish group with Aviva (Erez and Oren's mom) and my mom. They were already far behind when we started climbing. I was the one girl in a group with 5 guys. Great. But I was confident. This was my chance to prove my...my..non-sissy-ness. I had already done one hard hike this year, I wasn't going to give up. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Constantly. And quickly. Dan had set a pace similar to my passing-time pace, but I didn't want to waste my energy so I mostly stayed towards the back. It was really hard at first. Climbing on a steep rocky trail, zig-zagging up the forest. My legs ached after a few minutes and I was always breathing heavily. Man...this...was...hard...But I kept going with my strategy, just putting one foot in front of the other. I didn't stop. I kept walking up. I kept thinking, "Do it for Chester, just do it" It was painful. It was exhausting. Oren had kinda lagged off behind, but Dan waited for him. Erez and Zach had went ahead, but my dad and I met up with them on a bench. We had to climb up some stairs, which was pretty much the worst part. The second set of stairs were like huge teeth belonging to someone who hadn't had enough dentist appointments. They were also almost too much trouble than they were worth. But I made it up. I had a few water breaks, took some pictures, which I will of course add later. Dan and Oren were behind us a little bit, and we kept going. Then at some point I was just with Erez and Zach because my dad and Dan and Oren were talking. It was quiet. I was thinking about waiting for them, but then decided it'd be better to just keep going. Eventually my dad came up behind us and we kept hiking up. Almost there. My dad started talking to Erez. Erez said he first climbed the Saleve when he was like 9 and that was when he did it in an hour and 10 minutes. He also had ran up part of it. Dang. He also told us about his shirt. It was green and said "How you 'gunna compost that?" It was from his camp he went to. Everyone was really close to each other and you just talk about deep things and all that. It actually sounded like a really cool camp. Anyway, we finally reached the top. It was so so great. It took us about an hour and 20 minutes, according to my watch. I could see the cable car that would take us down, and the great view. Ahh. And then sitting down never felt so awesome. That chair was like the best thing to have exist. And then we all got Cokes, and never have my taste buds greeted all that sugar with open arms. It was the best coke I had ever had. I finished it pretty quick too. I was really thirsty. Oren and Dan came up around 5-10 minutes after us. I was so proud of myself. Ahh. Then I went with Oren to the playground. Went down the slides. Took some videos. Pictures. Then we went to the place where para-gliders take off. There were a lot of para-gliders off the Saleve. I think Zach wants to take lessons and do it. I would want to do it too, but it'd be expensive. Yet fun. So then after a bit my mom and Aviva came up. After some more talking and admiring the view, we took the cable car down. Dan wanted to run down though, so he did. The cable car ride took like 10 minutes or less. We got another great view of the mountain. My ears popped. By the time we got down it was like 6 or 7 or something. The day was still not over. Erez wanted to listen to his iPod, and we started a game of Hooligan. Hooligan is where someone is a hooligan (normally Oren) and he (or she) tries to attack or steal something from the king (normally like Erez or Zach) and there are security guards (normally me and Zach) who try to hold back the Hooligan. It's a great game. Violent, but such great fun. We always seem to adapt English accents when talking in this game. I dunno why, it's just something we do. If you were to watch this game, you'd hear Erez scream a lot saying "SECURITY!!!" and Oren laughing, and Zach threatening Oren, and me I guess laughing. It's such a fun game. Anyway. So after a while that got sort of old. Well, tiring anyway. I was tired. We decided we'd go to this pizza place and have dinner together. Dan came down, sweat dripping off his chin. My dad was biking to the restaurant, and we all rode buses. The first one we got on didn't have anyone on it for a while, and we (me, Erez and Oren) started singing snippets of Beatles songs. We were out of key, and Erez and Oren argued a little, but it was really fun. Oren still had some energy, amazingly, and swung around on the handle, much to the annoyance of all of us. Then people got on the bus and we had to stop singing. But Oren kept swinging around. Sigh. So much energy. We got on more buses, and on one ride, I counted like 3 straight Smart cars. I was like, "Smart car!!" seconds later- "Smart car!!!" then, "Another one!!" I got like 12 that day. I'm up to about 50 total. According to Dan and Erez, I'm quite good at spotting Smart cars. Heh. So we got to Meyrin. Pretty much the whole city is going under construction to add tram/train rails so we had to go a different way to the pizza place. We got there at like 9. It was an Italian place. We ate inside because there were too many people outside. It was nice. I was really hungry. Oren showed me this huge Nutella jar, that was about 7-9 inches tall or something. *Drools... it was really fun at the restaurant. We just talked and laughed. Oren made a huge mess on the table cloth by spilling his water, and he broke way too many toothpicks. At the end, he wanted the last one, but Zach was like, "Here, Oren, let's look at the ratios- Me, 2; Erez, 2; Amelia, 1; you, 5. I think that it's only fair that Amelia gets the last one." So that's what happened. It was really funny the way Zach said it. It took some time for the waiter to come around. It was funny when all of the "kids" ordered because we all ordered Salade Vert and pizzas. The salad had this really good mustard-y dressing on it. I cleaned my plate pretty quick. But my stum-ack still wanted more food. It was a good salad. Erez had put a whole bunch of stuff on it like salt and pepper and oil. Zach tried that, but didn't quite like the mustard-y dressing. Then Oren grossed all of us out by using his fingers to wipe up the rest of the dressing. He also spilled even more water. It was so funny I'm even laughing now as I type it. Ahh. Good times. Then finally the guy came back to take our "main course" orders. I got a Pizza Margartita. Which is just a plain cheese pizza. That's what Erez and Zach got too. Oren got a spicy pepperoni-like pizza. I ate happily. We also got Sprites, which came in cool bottles. I put some "spicy" oil on my pizza, which made it really good. I ate all of but like a fourth. It was really really good. Ahh. It was like 11 by the time we finished. Oren and Erez were shooting little pieces of the table cloth at each other, (it was paper) which were followed by much laughter. Erez used his tongue and Oren just threw it. We also liked to cut up the table cloth and make holes in it. It's actually really fun. And then I took some pictures of Erez and Oren holding up the Sprite bottles with their tongues. Ah. Eventually we left the restaurant, after paying for the "aftermath". I took my Sprite bottle home, as a momento of one of the best days ever. The Levins walked home and my dad got the CERN car. But then Dan had left his cell phone in the car, so we drove to their apartment and gave it back. We said goodbye to Dan and Erez, who had come back early to retrieve the phone. They're going on a 2-day trip to somewhere in Switzerland. So then we drove home. It was around 11:30 when we finally opened the door to our apartment. By the time I had plopped down in my bed, my leg muscles were screaming quietly, my head pounding from excursion and dehydration, my armpits drenched, and my mouth sore from grinning.

Just like old times.