Arriving in Geneva, the train station is connected to the airport (though a very long and twisty building. With my hiking pack inside a duffle, a backpack, and a trolley, I lumbered onto the train to Lausanne where I was struck with the lovely scenery already. My mum, being as planning-crazy (sorry mum) as she is, I was warned it was all uphill from the station to my temporary place (through friends of friends I had a futon I could sleep on in someone's living room). I was like pfft I'm fit enough, hills and luggage, no problem. So ya...I was a little sweaty by the time a got there but I still did it (get the impression I'm stubborn?). Daniele and Valérie were excellent housemates for the 2 weeks I was there.
I arrived on the Saturday of a long weekend, so any paperwork had to wait until Tuesday. With things normally closed on Sunday anyway, and now on Monday too, I had to be quick to find food. On Sunday, a dancing in the park event was created by Lindy Hop Lausanne, so I quickly got to meet fellow dancers. This included Cedric (another Toronto dancer who moved in a week before), Nadja, Alic, Gianluca, Coco, and more. Having 3 people attending EPFL with previous dance experience, there was quickly discussions of starting a university club. I also got an invite from Nadja (who is super welcoming and funny by the way) to dance in Bern the following weekend at their monthly lindy hop party, so I figured why not! I ended up meeting the " dancing couple from Vancouver" I heard about, Mathieu and Florence (I was slow to put things together when we met, but they're amazingly expressive lindy hoppers). I drove up to Bern with them and had a wonderful evening where I met a bunch of Bern dancers too, a handle of which did balboa too!
Paperwork in Switzerland is fun! Hahahhahaha. Seriously it sucks. Since I have my Polish passport though, it simplified everything and I had no work before I left Canada. Getting "starter" bank accounts and mobile accounts because everything depended on the residency permit. For that permit, you need to fill out a bunch of info, passport pics, passport, contract from EPFL, a phone number, and a letter from your landlord, a day after you submit this, you can get a notice that it's coming, and then some magic time between 1 week and 4 months, they'll have it ready. Also, most landlords don't allow non-permit people to have an apartment. Yeah, so it almost ends up being cyclical. Everything had to be addressed to Valerie since I was only there shortly. Oh! And we had to fish the mail out with a fork because they lost mailbox key privilege.
I was on campus a few times before I officially started because I, lead by Gianluca, met with the dance organization to see what kinda work we're looking at to create a swing dancing club. We also helped out at Sat Rocks V, an annual music/dance thing held by the Satellite bar of EPFL. It involved a wheel of fortune style wheel with difference dances and we would dance to that music and get people involved. On campus I also bought a bike, which was a total deal at 150 fr. (swiss francs) for a Shimano 105 derailleur, Shimano wheeled, carbon forked hybrid bike complete with lights, lock, and fenders. I would quickly learn that the 150 m vertical ascent from EPFL to home was not bad like everyone says, you just plan accordingly. The first weekend with my bike, I took a nice long trip out to Vevey past the UNESCO heritage site of the terraced vineyards by the lake. I was also scoping out the Lausanne Marathon route, seeing if it was feasible :P which it was.
The next little while was spent navigating the also-like Waterloo twisty, name-changing roads with GPS in hand (though locating the lake and direction was easy) and discovering my new city.
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