Off into the land of Bliss

Chocolate.
Chocolate.
Chocolate.
Cheese, Grommit, Cheeeeeessseeeee...

I guess you could say is what convinced me to wake up at 6 am on Thurday to catch a three-hour train ride. We were headed to the Gruyères cheese factory, "Masion du Gruyère", and the "Broc Fabrique". When we arrived at about 11:30, the cheese factory was reaching the end of the cheese-making process so the ticket seller told us to head to Gruyères castle till around 1:30....great...

Kinda-sorta-maybe stalking some other teenage Americans whom we overheard were heading to the castle too, we slowly and tiredly made our way to the castle. It was all uphill sadly, and by the time we reached the entrance of the casle my calfes were burning.

It was pretty amazing, the original structure was there along with the orginal battlements (I hope I`m naming them right...) that I somewhat willingly climbed to pose for Alej at her request.

We wandered all the way to the caslte itself only to discover that you had to pay to enter the historic building. Crestfallen, we wandered around looking for somewhere to sit and kill time being bored, in my case.

We came across too cats who clearly lived there, and of course, I couldn't resist and had to pet them. One lady, American by her accent, came across the small crowd of picture-takers and curious tourists who had their undivided attention on the cats and loudly exclaimed to her husband, "Look! Look!!! Its a CAT!!! THEY ACTUALLY HAVE CATS IN THIS COUNTRY!!!! QUICK! TAKE A PICTURE!!!"

 kittykittykittykittykittykittykittykittykittykittykittykittykittymustpetthekittyandlovethekittypurrrrrrrrrr

We got free cheese, I was so happy. But also a bit annoyed. it turnes out that if we had actually gone into the castle, the ticket would have also gotten us into the cheese factory. So we'd just missed the wonderful opportunity of enterying a magnificent castle because of the misinformation. I blame my luck.

During this entire time, we were trying to meet up with our dear mother after she'd missed her train because she'd accidentally slept in. Trying to firgure out where to meet up got confusing because our communication skills are positively horrid and by the time we'd gone back to the chesse factory, seen everything, and walked back to the train staion, we had no idea where our mother was. She has told us she'd call once she had the train scheduals figured out she'd call, but in the past couple of hours we hadn't recieved anything. We ended up catching a train back to Bulle and I texted Mom to let her know we'd meet her there. She later texted back as we waited and said that she was currently on a train to Gruyères....how convinient. I called her and worked out the kinks, telling her to catch the next train to Bulle. So we waited.

Finally Mum arrived, and just in time to catch the train to Broc for the chocolate factory. JUST in time. 
We went through the chocolate factory, filled with the smell of cocoa that would make every chocolate-lovers drool. The tour lead us through a long and creative telling of the history of chocolate with a lot of interactive and kid-friendly mini-shows that told of the past. It just made me even more impacient. One room seemed to come after another and I thought that we'd never arrive to the "tasting room" which we were all told of at the beginning of the tour. I was ready to chew through a wall just as we arrived to the mysical and marvalous room of chocolate. I was happy, and in heaven full of my favorite candy.

Satisfied, we headed back to Bulle in search of dinner (mom said chocolate didnt count. darn.) Wandering around downtown, we came across many restraunts, but none of them were serving dinner till 6:30. After having looked at the bus and train scheduals, we knew there was no time to was for them to serve. Instead, we headed to the nearest Coop (grocery store) and brought our dinner and some snacks for the next few days there. We ate at the train station since our gates were right next to each other and our trains left at the same exact time, and enjoyed our last while together for a while.

Seaperating ways, Alej and I made it back to the train station in Stans in less time than it took us to reach Bulle, and sat waiting for the bus that would take us home. While waiting, I stared at the vending machine at the station with curiosity, something caught my eye and I moved in closer to investigate. Well, now I know that Switzerland sells Swiss Cannabis Ice Tea, condoms, and pregnancy tests in vending machines....

*ahem* ANYWAY...... it was fun and interesting in general....good day, good day.

-Jessica and Alejandra Villa