"It was a dark, cold Swiss night. On a warm, brightly lit commuter bus, four foreigners chat as old friends, oblivious to the fact that the bus nears the end of the line. The bus stops like normal, but all of a sudden, the engine turns off. Startled, the four girls look at each other questioningly. As they start to gather their things to leave, a stranger waiting for them to move out of his path casually mentions in English, "You know this is the end of the line, right?" Feigning an informed attitude, the girls nod and proceed to exit the bus. Outside the doors, they face a dark sidewalk lined by a chain fence that disappears into the distance. Every hundred yards streetlights try to illuminate the darkness but their feeble attempts are swallowed almost immediately by the intense blackhole of nighttime. The thought that it's Halloween offers no comfort.
The bewildered girls glance around, trying desperately to spot something that resembles another bus stop for their connecting bus. The stranger from the bus appears at their elbow once more and asks if they need help. Since there's no one else around and he speaks English, they decide to take a chance. They state that they're looking for the stop for the 54 bus. He guides them to the nearby information board for the stop. Here they realize a deadly mistake--the 54 ran its last route nearly an hour and a half before. In an attempt to help, the stranger goes to the bus' still-open doors and asks about the 54. He confirms that no, it's not coming again tonight, then returns to ask the girls where they're headed. They take another chance and mention that they were headed to a campground and ask if he knows how far away it is. Luckily, he does know of the campground. Unluckily, he states that he thinks it's a 30-minute walk. Once again the girls look down the long, dark road and ponder their fate. The stranger says that he's headed in the same direction for the first part and why don't they start walking in order to get warmer? As they start off, each girl begins to wonder just how safe the Swiss countryside is.
At this point, the stranger asks if they would like a ride down to the campground rather than walking. Immediately thinking of what their parents have always told them about not getting in cars with strangers, the girls hemhaw and don't really respond. The stranger then says that he has to call home and see if his dad has even arrived home yet and if the car is even available to use. At the mention of a father, the girls begin to feel a bit more comfortable with the idea. They stop at the corner while the stranger pulls out his cell and calls. This produces the pleasant surprise that this stranger is trilingual and also speaks Spanish, for he speaks Spanish with his father. Even though they still don't know much about the stranger, for some reason Spanish makes them a million times more comfortable for it is a language they somewhat understand, as opposed to the german and french they had been hearing all day long. The stranger ends his call and informs the girls that yes, his papi is home, and yes they can use the car, and would they like to walk to his house? Taking a huge risk but leaning on the hope that if there's a papi the situation is safe, they agree. At this point, several prospective headlines run through one girl's head: "Four American Girls Disappear in Geneva" "Vacation Turns Nightmarish for Americans" "Swiss Kidnapping Ring Strikes Again."
After a five-minute walk, they arrive at the house and are warmly welcomed in by the father. Introductions are made, backpacks are taken off, and refreshments are offered. During the course of the friendly conversation in the homey atmosphere, they learn that Nelson, the father, works for the UN. Juan, his son the stranger, has just graduated from an university in Ottowa, Canada and is bumming around at home in Geneva.
Isn't that a great story? But wait there's more. We stayed at Juan's house for a good hour and a half just talking. Then we decided that we really should drive down to the campground and see if it's office was open. When Erin had been researching it online, it said it was open year-round but it didn't have office hours. Since it was almost 10pm and apparently everything in Switzerland closes at 10pm, as opposed to Spain where everything OPENS at 9pm, Nelson offered his "garden" to us incase the office wasn't open. Which it wasn't. So we drove back with Juan and set up camp in his backyard. We slept fairly well that night and then in the morning, had tea with him again (his dad had already left for work). Then we all walked down to the campground (it was 30 min from there) and he helped us talk with the office manager and pay for our campsite for two nights. It was a good thing he was there or else we would have paid almost double because of a misunderstanding. Not only did he help us with that, but he also walked around Geneva with us for two days and was our own personal tour guide and put up with some pretty snippy attitudes at times (let's just say it wasn't the greatest time of the month for four girls to be traveling together).
Basically God was watching out for us and put Juan in our path at just the right time. I have no idea what we would have done if he hadn't been on that bus. As Caroline said, after the trip, "Then God said, 'Let there be Juan.'"
Yay for nice Columbians!!!
More to come on the Switzerland trip later.
Regardless, last night was the first night and they decided to start with the best sport possible: volleyball. Woot woot! Needless to say, I was excited. It started at 8pm with a worship talk and then all the teams started warming up. After we found out that our team wasn't playing right away, we moved off to the side. However, one of the girls helping run the tournament came and asked Kimmy and I if we wanted to play with one of the highschool teams. They had only one girl and needed more. We agreed, thinking it would be a good warm-up for our actual game. For me, it turned out to be all the volleyball I would play for the entire night.
The first game of the match went relatively well. Only I played, Kimmy was going to switch with me for the second game of the match. Neither team was that great; it was like a junior high game. Our team lost, but it was no sweat off my back cause it wasn't really my team. Horrible of me, I know. Anyway, so we switched sides and then they decided that they wanted three girls on the court so Kimmy jumped in. But then one of the boys was upset cause there was no room for him and he would have to sub in. So the one girl that was SUPPOSED to be on the team left the court. Which made me feel bad but I didn't know the right words to tell her to come play for me. I guess if I had tried a little harder I could have gotten the point across and then life would have been better for all involved.
Anyway, so we're a couple points into the second game, and I'm up playing front left. A ball comes my way from the back and I jump up to hit it. And it would have been a decent hit too, except that one of the boys who was playing middle decided that he needed to go for the ball too. This meant only one thing, that we collided in the air, with his elbow or hand or head or shoulder or SOMETHING connecting forcefully with the right side of my glasses (why was I wearing glasses to play volleyball? because I had worn them before to play and nothing bad had happened. lesson learned: change to contacts when you actually do think about it before going up to the gym for volleyball). My instincts kicked in and my glasses were off my face and in my right hand before I even realized that my right eye was hurting. When I did feel the pain, a split second later, I put my other hand up to my face like anyone else would. That was the point where I started to freak because even without my glasses on, I could see blood dripping from my face down to my hand. And where the eye is concerned, blood is NOT a good thing. I immediately began thinking of things like cut corneas and blindness and it wasn't too happy.
So of course I left the court and at first was just standing there wondering who I should talk to, where I should go, what I should do. One of the other players from the other team that I'd played volleyball before on weeknights took me to the bathroom and told me to wash my face and the injury with water. Which I did until I was told to go to the athletic department. Luckily, a couple different nurses were in the gym that night and so they took care of me, giving me gauze and wiping my face with iodine and telling me that I had just won a free trip to the ER.
Oh, I haven't said yet, I was extremely lucky, and my glasses only cut the skin above and below my eye. My eye and eyelid were perfectly fine. But since the cut below was just big enough, one of the nurses told me that it would be best to go to the ER and get stitches since it would heal faster. I'm also assuming that I'll have a smaller scar.
Maite, one of the assistant deans, and Rita, theo major I think, drove me down to the dorm where I grabbed my passport and my camera. Then it was off to the hospital.
Although I was a little worried about Spanish medicine and getting stitches (considering I've got a pretty ugly scar on my back from a botched stitching job), the experience on a whole was fairly decent and actually the quickest ER service I've ever had. We didn't even wait for more than 2 or 3 minutes. The two doctors conferred and decided that I didn't need actual stitches, mainly because it was fairly small and it was in a difficult position to stitch anyways. Which made me extremely happy because the thought of a numbing shot in my face did NOT excite me.
The doctor cleaned and disinfected both cuts and then put these sticky strip thingies on the bottom cut to hold it together. Throughout the whole process, he was asking questions or making comments in Spanish. For the most part, I kept on having to look in confusion at Maite and Rita. Maite, who doesn't speak English, would repeat it in slower or simpler Spanish and I would either understand or not. If not, I would then look at Rita for English, since she speaks pretty decent English. As he was putting on the strips, he kept asking "te molesta?" which for those of you who don't speak Spanish, means "is it bothering you?" And I kept replying no and that it was all good. Which it was. Thankfully the cut really didn't hurt at all. What DID hurt and what made me reply "si" to the "te molesta?" question was when they put a square of stuff over the strips to help keep them in place. I think it's a square of the stuff they use to make casts. It looks like gauze but it's stiff and stuck to my face without tape or anything on top. That stuff was the only thing in the whole night that actually made me cry. And of course the doctor told me to stop crying because the wetness wasn't good for the bandage. Then he gave me a ghetto cold pack to hold to my eye. This cold pack consisted of two ice cubes in a tied surgical glove wrapped in gauze. Yeah.
After he was done doctoring me up and the other doctor had come and told him "good work," it was on to the instructions part. Instructions like "don't get it wet" and "try not to stretch that part of your face" and "come back tuesday so we can check it and make sure the cut isn't pulling apart." This is the most ironic part of the whole deal. Tuesday, we (ESDES) are leaving for a cultural tour to Barcelona until Friday. And we're leaving at 7:45am. Which means that I obviously can't go back for a checkup. Upon hearing this news, the doctor then told Maite that I need to go to a hospital in Barcelona. What fun! Especially since the professor that's directing this tour is Luis Amoros, who, of course, is one of the few professors who doesn't speak English. Which should make for a fun time all-around if they need any specific information from me or need to tell me any specific instructions. Hopefully nothing gets lost in translation.
And that's all folks! Please pray that I heal quickly and neatly and the scar's not too bad. Here's a day after pic:
And many, MANY more people were still in line bringing their flowers. Even though Spain is a Catholic country and most people when asked will respond that, yes, they are Catholic, many of them aren't practicing Catholics. Until it comes to festivals like this. Then they're all about dressing up and bringing the right flowers and getting the best blessing.
If you brought gladiolas, the white flowers, and the helpers placed them at the top, supposedly you received a higher blessing than if you brought carnations for the lower part of the structure. Oh, and if you're curious, all of the flowers are supposed to form the skirt of the Virgin Mary who's up at the top. I got the impression that you couldn't be in the procession to give flowers unless you were all dressed up in the classic peasant attire of whatever century they were representing (sorry for the lack of detail). I love their costumes and someday I'm going to make myself stockings like these:
and many many cute little kids in costumes. 
Probably the oddest thing I saw was a group of bagpipers. Aren't bagpipes from Scotland? 
They also had a stage set up in front of the offering structure (I'm still not sure what to call it. Monument? Altar? Structure? Virgin's skirt? What would you call it?) where different dancing groups or choirs performed. Also, every once in awhile, the Spanish air force would fly overhead and make lots of fun noise. 
The many problem that I had with the billions of people and crowds, etc was that more Spaniards need to learn what deoderant is. Nasty nasty smelling.
