The hike is an interesting one as it started way too early for me on a Sunday, meeting at the WHO headquarters at about 9:00. That means I need to wake up 6.30 to prepare myself and catch the 7.30 tram that will allow me to commute for over an hour to the WHO headquarters. The headquarters is an impressive building in itself with modern architecture and fixtures.
In the headquarters I met Jean Pierre, a Parisian working at the WHO as an English/Spanish/French translator. I was surprised in his arrival and gasped in somewhat an intimated manner as he was driving a Mercedes Benz. Upon seeing the car, to be honest I was effectively stifled and do not know what topic would be proper to talk about once on the car. The situation got even worse when he told me that the other person whose suppose to join us backed-out at the last moment. That means I am the only one who will be in the car and there will be no one he could talk to except me and it will be upon me and no other person to set the conversation. Good thing Parisian Jean Pierre speaks English perfectly so it will be lesser ackward on my part. But I was really nervous as I do not know what to talk about and many people have actually told me that Parisians are quite snobbish people that tend to condescend on others whose view of the world is only 'Paris and others.'
Fortunately, he is a nice person that talked about his stay in Norway. And I didn't do any talking. After 30 minutes on the freeway, we arrived in Morges where we waited for others near a castle.
We finally started our hike and went through one interesting street which my Sudanese hike-mate dubbed 'Le Boulevard Sunset.' Here, we passed by housing owned by rich people by the lakeside in somewhat North American suburban housing style - you have a garden, a gate, a backyard and a garage for your car. Except for the small street at the front, it seems like like I am back in Canada when passing through the street.
After 4 hours, we reached our destination of Ouchy, a suburb or banlieu as they call it en francais of Lausanne. With that, the group trekked into a cosy restaurant where the menu is just awesome but awesomely expensive on your pockets as well. Deciding to join a bunch of WHO P-position employees (P as in professional, i.e. starting salary at least CHF 6,000), I cannot say no to their choice of restaurant and just went with the flow hoping that my order would not make a dent in my pockets. I just imagined to myself that I am rich this time around with tonnes of francs in my wallet that I can order anything I want on the menu.
Well, it turns out that there has been a reservation for us in the restaurant and that there is a set menu worth CHF 40 per person that the organizers prepared. Here is another problem of the language barrier as the announcement was all done in French and me being 'conversant' and 'expert' on the language of the Gauls had not understood some additional important details regarding the trek. Well, oh well, just care about your hungriness after the hike and don't let the price deter your appetite.
So the first part of this restaurant extravaganza is a bottle of water, especially prepared and formulated to suit intricate local taste. Mind you, this is not a regular water as the 1.5 L bottle costs like CHF 7.50, that means that each glass of water (approx 250 mL) costs CHF 1.25, which in today's exchange rate would be enough to buy me a regular cheeseburger MEAL (burger, fries and coke) in McDonalds during my college days. Need to savour this water like wine then as its something extraordinary.
Next after the water came in the bread which came in two batches:
And then, we were actually asked for a drink again and not being able to say no, I asked for their CHF 4.50 Sprite that came in special livery:
Next came the salad which I really, really liked. I was disappointed that it was just a small piece and but nonetheless was really satisfied of it as an apetizer.
And now the main course, was delighted to have a taste of it but could be better if I could have an extra rice after 4 hours of hiking. Being in an elite restaurant, ordering an extra rice just destroys the form and would be judged as not in the norms and somewhat strange.
And finally, the dessert, chocolat ananas:
And after a couple of minutes of digestion and conversation, here comes the moment of truth. L'addition sil vous plait! Guess how much... Well, for all the set meal it was CHF 40 plus the drinks arriving into a whopping CHF 50 for the entire meal. I can't imagine that my one week grocery in Migros and Denner combined can actually turn into a single meal which was more for the eye and not the stomach. Anyhow, I tried to swallow it and gave my 100-franc bill and got the green 50-franc bill back.
It was actually a good experience for me to be exposed into European culinary tradition. The intricacies embedded with the craft was just awesome but the price is absolutely awesome as well. On closer analysis, it is still pretty much affordable to others considering that people working in McDonalds and other minimum salary blue-colar jobs earn CHF 3,000 which allows them to somehow splurge on this experience without any mental baggage or stress afterwards. And moreso, if people here cannot afford this type of restaurants, then for sure they would somewhat lower the price to avoid closure and attract customers. As I scan the restaurant, the owner is surely be not on break-even terms as customers come and go on a quiet Sunday afternoon.
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