JustJess
Do you know the feeling when at the New Year’s eve you are full of hopes and resolutions? When you feel like next year is gonna start up great and you will have enough energy to change your life towards what you always wanted? And then you have to wake up and face reality? That’s exactly how my year 2021 had started. Like a painful smack in the face.
Actually to be completely honest I probably wouldn’t feel it at the time, even if someone would come up and slap me directly across my cheek. I was so sleepy all the time that I would probably sleep through the beting. And the cause of it?
The weather.
Foggy, ugly, cold and in general… eeww.
I had no idea Switzerland could get this ugly. But the altitude of Vevey is only 383 m which practically determines it be hidden away from the sun during high winter. The whole first part of January the clouds were so low on the horizon that the day felt like night and the mountain peaks that I was used to seeing disappeared. It was also so cold that I had to be cocooned in the blanket even in my own apartment. The person who designed this building should be sued – it doesn’t keep the heat at all.
Nothing of the mentioned helped me to gain energy for my resolutions. The very opposite. I was only able to sit on my ass and watch Netflix. Needless to say that I hated myself for that and Jo probably hated me too. The poor girl had to go through the marathon of J-dramas with me and many times went to sleep long before me – I was unable to stop. I fell into some kind of depression and was incapable of doing anything.
Like watching tv series wasn’t bad enough I started falling under the influence of deserts with high sugar. It started with me eating Meringue with Double cream – the dessert that my host family introduced to me in a restaurant a month prior. But I started consuming it in large amounts which added to my tiredness and laziness. And as it still wasn’t enough, the shops started selling seasonal Merveilles. The French dessert that I used to bake with my great-grandmother when I was a child. They are super tasty, but also super fatty. And the problem with them is that once you start a package… you have to finish it because it’s addictive.
I guess the only thing that saved me from a big ass was my daily work out. That was a routine I started in the second part of October 2020 and I was still able to follow through it even in this state. It became a habit. But I gained weight nonetheless – with the amount of sugar I was consuming it was impossible not to.
Jo and I were constantly discussing where to go before every weekend. The weather was too cold to explore our surroundings. All the museums and galleries were covid-closed and we were too poor to borrow any equipment and go skiing. Plus, Jo can’t ski. We were literally sitting on the map and weather forecast every Friday evening, checking out where we should go. The resolution was mostly in the style off:
Too far = too expensive for us
Good proximity = bad weather
In the end we restricted ourselves to short walks in the neighbourhood and spent evenings cooking and eating fatty food. But I would lie If I said it was all just bad. Being around Jo means not only to eat a lot, but also to laugh a lot.
One of a few things I was able to concentrate on in this crazy depressing time was my French. I created a habit of daily studies – I wrote down a few verbs with conjugation every day and did the same with vocabulary of different topics. It was a good drill and it filled in the pauses I had when I was waiting for my host children somewhere. My weekly private course with my French (but Japan oriented) teacher also happily continued. I was visiting her place every Wednesday and she helped me to plough through the insidiousness of the French language.
But the greatest thing about studying a language in its natural environment is the immediate chance to hear everything you’ve learned used in real life. For example, when we started practising one of the past tenses and I immediately started recognizing it when the kids were speaking amongst themselves. I was still far away from understanding the whole conversation, but the structure of that grammatical phenomenon was everywhere and I was able to try it out. Suddenly I was even capable of asking them what they were doing during the weekend and I could answer when they asked me. What an amazing feeling! With every lesson I take and new grammar or words I learn, I am able to uncover more about the kids I work with. It feels completely different from when I’ve learned English at school. At school it felt steril and here it is natural. To tell the truth, it doesn’t really feel like I am learning, more like I am adapting to be able to communicate.
As January went forward, the sky started cleaning for a bit and from time to time, I even spotted rays of sunlight. On one Sunday like that, when the temperature hit -8 degrees celsius, there was almost no cloud in the sky. If it weren’t for the temperature that was turning even my bones to icicles, I would almost say there was spring in the air.
On that Sunday, I was finally through with sitting home on my ass and I needed to get out. Even if it meant blood would freeze in my veins, I had to get away from my apartment. So I hopped on a bus and headed to Blonay, a small town situated above Vevey. Just to take a little walk and take a look at the castle.
I first noticed the castle of Blonay in September 2020, when I took my first trip to Les Pléiades, which is a mountain directly above Blonay. Because of overgrown trees it wasn’t really visible down from Vevey, so I was quite surprised to find it there. Then I kinda forgot about it for some time. But during winter months, when there is nothing green in the treetops, the castle became visible even from my work and it’s been nagging me almost every day saying: ‘Come closer, come and take a look at me.’ So naturally, when I finally found the energy to get out, this was the first location I headed to.
I must say that I assumed it would be closed. But I didn’t expect it to be private! Imagine my surprise when I climbed up a beautiful romantic alley of trees, to find myself on a acces way to the castle with a giant sign saying: ‘Privé acces interdit’. If the castle had any spirit that was calling me to come closer before, it must have been laughing its ass off at that moment. But yes, I could have checked online. I guess this is something very typical of a Czech person to come to the castle and expect it would be open to strolls through the courtyard. The fact is, that because of the waves of expropriation during the 20th century, the Czech Republic has many castles in its ownership and us Czechs are used to admiring them. Even many of those who were returned to the hands of the descendants of the original owners in the past 30 years are still open to the public. So for me, to see a sign ‘Private’ on a castle is something very unusual.
Later on, I read online that the castle of Blonay has been in the hands of the same family since its construction (with the exception of a 50 years period in the 18th century). And because the history of this castle goes as far as the 12th century, that’s a really, really long time.
I had no other choice but to circle around the castle, admire its forms and move on with my walk. How the country yard and the interiors of the castle look like I had to find later on the web page about Swiss castles. I hope that if the Blonay family allows any excursions in the future, I will be there to see it.
My steps slowly lead me away from the castle, but I couldn’t help but glance back sometimes and look up. Les Pléiades, probably the most mentioned mountain in my diary until now, was looking at me from above Blonay and its peak was still covered in snow. I had to groan in desperation. Since the beginning of winter we only had snow down by the lake once. And it’s been almost a month since we were building a snowman on the top of Les Pléiades with Jo.
Aggrrr… I want a fresh layer of powder snow and lay down to make snow angels in it. Is that too much to ask from Switzerland?
Right next to Blonay sits a town called St. Legier. I drive through it frequently and sometimes the views from up there are impressive. Not that day, though. The longer I was out on my walk, the more clouds were showing up in the sky, spoiling any potential mountain views. However, St. Legier woke up my interest in a different matter. When you walk by the mainroad, you come across an old house with strange paintings showing what can only be called ‘scenes of country life’. And it is not only one house.
Naturally, I thought that these paintings will have some part in the history of the town, but I was surprised to find out that there is literally nothing about it on the official page of the municipality. I was searching through the internet for quite a while before I found out what these paintings were about and who had made them.
The painter named Alfred Béguin, who studied art in Paris and frequently travelled through Europe got married to St-Légier. He was a free spirit who didn’t really care about his career and was giving away most of his paintings and drawings for free. In his free time he also painted frescoes and it seems that he was quite a joker, because he enjoyed doing it during the night. Accompanied by a friend with a lantern. The town’s people were always surprised in the morning to find their houses sketched on and they were not always happy about it. Later on when Alfred was threatened by lawsuits, he paid for the removal of the frescoes. Which is why only a fraction of them are preserved until these days.
This is the story about Alfred Béguin I found online. However, how much of it is based on facts I can not tell. Even when St-Légier named a school aula after him, the town doesn’t seem really interested in sharing his story online, which is a pity. Especially when those frescoes are quite an interesting attraction. Even if for a 10 minutes stop on your way through the region.
Frozen to the bones, I headed forward to visit my friend Jo, whose host family house was nearby. It was the first time I visited the interiors of the place where she lived and worked. She prepared a toast for me and we watched a movie in her room, trying to avoid the host family. But unavoidably, there were a few awkward moments. It’s just hard when you live in a house that is not yours and share it with strangers. Jesus, I am so happy to have my own apartment. Even when my family is great I am not sure if I’d still be an Au-pair, if I were to live with them. I probably wouldn’t be able to survive the loss of privacy.
I am surprised that this article turned out this long. Because during January, there was literally nothing to do, nowhere to go and not much worth mentioning. I guess I am capable of rambling about just anything these days. But one thing, I have to say, before the end: Heaven must have heard my pleas. Because one day, it snowed so much that even the lake promenade was covered with 3 centimetres of fresh powder. It wasn’t enough to make snow angels or snowmans. But it was enough to take in the atmosphere and remind myself that I was living in Switzerland – the Alpine country.
