I have a headache today. I am sure it is because I did not sleep well, after hearing about the stroke my mother had. I do not know where the apostrophe is on the Swiss keyboard. The y and z are transposed. The @ sign is on the G and needs the alt key to come up. Odd. Or unique.

So I went to both Migros around the house. I bought toilet paper, because I thought we were out. There was some, but I’ll be here another week, so…

I also bought yogurt and bread for the Smiths. I don’t think I got the right one of either kind, but hopefully they will be okay with it.

While at the down Migros (down the hill), I found “Happy Birthday” candles. Since SS wanted those from the States, or at least the letters from the States, I bought every one they had.

That made me want to go to the Migros up the hill. So after I delivered the groceries, I asked where I should go. KS told me and I headed up there. I bought another five or six there. I also bought rolls, soda, apple juice, and cheese. The rolls are small, so I had two with cheese for breakfast/lunch. I’ll probably have those for breakfast every day.

Tonight I have a party for the conference, so I’ll go to that. In the meantime, I’m going to go to the Migros Metroplex (a mall?) and shop around. Maybe I can find what SS really wanted.

I also went to the bank and changed money. It’s right next to the up Migros, so that was easy. They gave me a better exchange rate than the place in the airport.

Last night I woke up after an hour. Then I couldn’t go to sleep for three. When I woke up I started panicking about the Smiths going to Geneva for church. DK doesn’t like me, but I’m hoping he won’t say anything. He was really rude to me in Abilene, some years later. Maybe he’s grown up since them. Wendell Broom swept in and said they were glad to have me, bless him.

I screwed up when I was here. I was isolated and unaware. So I skipped school. Got found out. Got a lecture. (That was NOT fun.) Then, after about six months, I started skipping school again. I decided I shouldn’t do it, went in to talk to them about going back to school. They said I needed to pay all the months I didn’t attend (two or three) and I freaked out. I ran to Montserrat’s house and cried, called my folks, and said I wanted to go home. So they let me.

I was so young, stupid, and immature. It would have been much easier and cheaper to pay the school and start over again here. But I didn’t want to deal with the humiliation.

What was really bad was they charged my boss for the months I wasn’t there. (I didn’t know they would do that and I didn’t leave him the money.) He wrote and asked me for the money. I sent him what I had immediately and then took about two weeks to send the rest.

It was a hard time and I was so alone and tired and scared and stupid. I admit it. I was stupid. I also told two lies. They were major lies, but only two.

After that I hated myself. Why had I done it?

So that’s why I didn’t like Switzerland. Yes, my boss was hard on me and I didn’t speak the languages well and they didn’t make the kind of allowances I would have preferred… BUT the problem was mostly me.

I like to think I’ve grown up since then. I hope so anyway.

But I just woke up in the middle of the night and panicked about the Smiths finding out what a jerk I was. I calmed myself down by asking what was the worst. They’d unfriend me from fb; they’d throw me out of the house and I’d have to stay in a hotel (at that point I might go to Paris after all); they’d know I was an idiot… And I realized that they might not like me as much after hearing it, but they probably wouldn’t throw me out and they certainly wouldn’t gossip about me. So, the worst was perfectly livable.

Do you think God is having me deal with old issues so I can be a better person? I have to say that though it’s not easy, it’s been good for me. (Of course it’s not Sunday yet!) But I went through NC last year and now that time is much less painful. Now I’m lancing the Geneva boil. The only one I have left is the teaching high school thing. Those last two are the times when I disappointed myself. I tried to be a good teacher, but I wasn’t. It makes me worry about what I do now.

I am having a great time in Lausanne. Here is 7 hours later than Houston, so I stayed up until 7 pm so that I could avoid the jet lag issues. It seems to have worked fairly well.

My sister bought our tickets first class. I love flying first class. I tell you what, if you can afford it (which I probably can’t), it’s worth it. I honestly had the best steak I’ve ever eaten, in terms of tenderness, on the flight out here. They served dinner at 7 or so, our time. Then they served breakfast at 6 am, Swiss time. So really about midnight. But it worked to help you reset your clock.

I arrived at 7:15 a.m. in Geneva yesterday. I got to the train station by walking. It’s attached to the train station.

Going to the bathroom in the train station part (as opposed to the airport part) was a bad plan. $1. Of course, when I got to Lausanne, the bathroom was $2 in the train station.

I waited at the gar for two hours. I had misrepresented the time I would arrive (I thought I was getting in two hours later.), so Stephanie and Brady weren’t available to pick me up. But I had a quiche lorraine and a hot chocolate for lunch, which was great. I enjoyed all the people watching. I also watched Swiss news. They are much more likely to have the whole world on. I saw a section on a riot in Jamaica and a flood in Brazil. Two US sections were on; one about the president and one about the soldiers in Afghanistan.

The Smiths were gracious enough to let me stay with them. Bless their hearts!

I’ve enjoyed getting to know them at all and/or better. Tonight Kathleen and I are going to dinner. I am looking forward to that.

Yesterday I mostly stayed at the Smiths. I did walk around for about forty-five minutes, but that was all. There was a birthday party for the English-speaking students that the girls from Oklahoma Christian were tutoring. I attended that. It was fun.

Then I went to bed.

I told Stephanie I’d be up on my own this morning, but I didn’t actually get up till 9. By then she had other things to do. At 1 she took me to walk around Lausanne. She showed me the cathedral and the city hall (where the party is tomorrow night). That was good. I can find it by myself.

I’ll probably get up tomorrow early (or earlier) and walk down to Migros to go shopping. I need to find some stuff for my family. I’ll probably buy the boys tee shirts. If I see something unusual in shirts, I might get Ron something. They are $$$ though. Here the prices for smaller things are about $2 more.

I bought a 100 ml soda for $3.50 at the gar. Then today while I was walking around the soda was $5. Ouch.

I’ve learned a lot about the school system. Since all the Smith kids went to school here and Kathleen is in the university here (well, actually the polytechnic), we talked about that a lot. I love hearing about that sort of thing.

I have had a blast so far.

The only thing I am sorry about is that I am not outgoing and willing to head to Paris on my own to visit while I am here. I’d like to go to the Louvre.