Part 4: Sleepover in Charmey

October 2:
One of my friends from school Lisa invited me to spend the night at her house and go to youth group and church with her. She lives in Charmey, which is this really cute little ski town about 20min away from Sorens. Well, I was going to meet her Saturday afternoon in Bulle and then her mom was going to take us to her house. So I'm riding in the car with Francine, Simon, and Sophie on our way to Bulle, and all of a sudden here come all these cows with fancy headdress things made out of flowers and people in traditional costumes coming down the middle of the road, and I'm thinking "what on earth is going on?" Well, apparently every fall there is what's called the "Des Alps" where traditionally all the cows come down from the alps to the lower pastures for winter, and to mark the occasion they make a big parade out of it. It was pretty neat to see these cows, I must say. :) Here are some pics I took from the car:

Traditional dress from Gruyere Region

Crazy Cow Headdress

Well anyway after all that cow crazyness was over, Francine went to re-start the car, and nothing happened. Yup, so Sophie, Simon, me, and some random stranger who stopped to help, pushed the car to this gas station that was right there. And I'm thinking uh-ooo this is not good, I have to meet Lisa in about 15 min, and the car's not going to take me there, and I don't have a cell phone number for her; so I just started walking, hoping they would still be at the train station by the time I got there (which would probably be in about 30 min.).  But, miracle of miracles, they happened to drive by the road I was walking and were able to just pick me up there, so yeah pretty amazing. :) Then we went to her house, which has a magnificent view of the mountains, and the weather was absolutely perfect, so we took a little hike around, and yeah I'll just let the pictures do the talking....

View from Lisa's front yard

Parasailor

Lisa and I

Trail we were hiking 

Window box in village of Charmey

Village of Charmey

After we walked around, we went to youth group at her church. We watched a movie and had a little Bible study, and everyone was really nice, it was lots of fun. Made me miss my youth group back at Trinity, and all the crazy fun times we had. And then the next day we went to church, which I partially understood, and then back to school the next day.