We arrive into the town of Lucerne as night is falling and the twinkle of the village lights can be seen as we are driving up the hillside to our cute little Swiss hostel. Everyone places their backpacks in their rooms (whilst sussing out who has the beset balcony) and the owner is a barrel of laughs as we sit down to have our dinner in the common room.
On our way into Lucerne, we were discussing what possible things could be on tonight's menu...macaroons? lightly crumbed veal strips? chocolate fondue? cheese?... sadly none of these were in our options. Instead we were given the breathtaking entree of stale bread and then a serve of sloppy cold pasta drenched in a weak tomato based sauce. How Swiss! Then when I politely asked if it was possible to get extra cheese, the waiter simply replied "no!" Well, with that I simply washed down the award winning meal with a warm glass of water (served in a old jam jar) and got a peaceful night's sleep.
The next morning was to be an early one. A group of us were dropped in town and we wandered around the village like lost puppies. We all individually pretended to know where we were going in search of a Lion Monument which commemorated the Swiss Guards who died during the french revolution in 1792. Instead we got completely lost and walked in the wrong direction for quite some time because I was too busy talking to help the navigators map read, so the poor little things were clueless without my guidance.
One hundred years passed by, we found the monument, propped my camera (on top of a bin covered in cigarette ash) to score the best self timer photo and then went in search of some macaroons afterwards. As we were walking down a little side street, a truck load of band members came pounding down the street playing eerily music that was quite sweet, but had the most freaky face masks on id ever seen. Turns out it wasn't my private welcoming party to Switzerland, but a massive festival that the townspeople held every year at the end of winter to scare away evil winter gods and bring on the happy warmer weather. Everyone is invited to dress up in any costume they like and listen to the diverse range of different music that all the bands are parading too.
Three hours passed, I'd visited a fondue house for lunch and I was now dressed up in bin bags, glue and confetti.
A few of us discovered earlier that cheap beer was sold in cartons at the local supermarkets and we then got on the bandwagon after copious amounts of alcohol and decided that dressing up like one of locals would be fun too. With all the costume shops in town closed or sold out, we opted for a tight dress made out of deep green bin liner bags that even Lady Gaga would've been jealous of, although my haute couture became highly annoying when discovering you needed the sudden use of port-a-loo.
After successfully battling through 14 bottles of beer and seeing an amazing number of talented bands perform, the sun had set on this pumping village and it was now the final hour where the bands would line up and do one final parade down across the famous river bridge of Lucerne. Me and my mates had prime positioning and then disaster struck. As we all know, when Candy drinks beer, it makes her become best friends with the waiting line in the toilet cue and now her bladder was making a dull roaring noise due to the liquid making its way to the golden gate. I couldn't exactly empty myself into a beer bottle as one of my male friends was happily displaying, so this left me in a moment of shock and paranoia.
I now had to make a drunkenly choice whether to break the parade barrier and run to the nearest pub I could find, push through the crowd behind me and find a bush or stay put and make myself a human fountain. With a category 6 tornado developing in my underwear, my final choice was to bolt like lightening and find a dark corner where no party goers would be standing and let it flow in true bohemian gypsy style. As I was running the streets like a madwoman, I began the process of ripping layers of my bin bag costume off, which left a dramatic trail of debris behind me. I opted to take a staircase down to the deserted, dark riverside and whilst dancing up and down on the spot like a twisted Barbie, i was successfully attempting to pee in peace.
Then as I was relieving myself, a curious little white swan swam up to the riverbank to see what I was up to. After most of my readers experiencing how much the bladder can hold on these drunken occasions, you'll understand when I say that the floodgates had now opened and I couldn't exactly stop for intermission. So now I was battling with
a) not getting wee on my new Nike kicks
b) not being spotted for public urinating by Swiss guards; and
c) not having my claka bitten off by a hungry swan
My business deal was cut short and I ran back to my friends feeling as light as a feather and reaching into my backpack for another beer. After the parade had finished, we spotted an intimate couple displaying doggie style in the parklands which we progressed to blow our whistles to and make loud obscene noises at them (which seemed perfectly mature when your alcohol reading is like a brewery). The male exhibitor enjoyed our cheering and whistles until he saw his female partner looking at us in disgust. He then came after us defending his true love from embarrassment and succeeded in fist punching quite a few of the lads from our friendship group. So the night finished with 1 black eye, a bruised nose, a bitten ear and a clawed chest... but fear not, your Candy was unharmed. Now, who said Lucerne was a boring place?
"Cheers" from Candy xx
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