I arrived Europe fairly easily, with one small 3 hour delay in Chicago as my flight was delayed from SF...small travel woes, just a warm up for what it to come, of that i am sure.

Met Luisa, a Swedish girl living in DC, having been very well travelled, she related to me that you can tell at the airport who are the travellers and who are the tourists by their demeanor under travel stress...the tourists will be freaking and the travellers will be chilling, maybe reading, making the best of it.

It was good to chill with her and have dinner, making the best of it. I am thrilled to be a traveller and i have absolutely no reservations for what i am getting myself into...loving it.

Arrived Lausanne and met Marilyn at the train station, she has a great little 2 bedroom space in Lausanne and she has welcomed me generously. She was feeling under the weather and had the next day off so we just took a walk around Lausanne and had a chillout next to the lake, looking across to France and the "foothills" of the Alps...rising right out of the lake, the mountains are breathtaking, but Marilyn assures me that these mountains reach ony 1500M, nothing like the 4000M peaks we will be seeing on Saturday.

We ended the day with a trip to a Thermal Bathe in Bex, a very relaxing and nourishing venture that followed by an 11 hour sleep seems to have cleansed me of all jet lag, for which i am very grateful.

We will ride on Saturday and though there is no fresh snow predicted, i am thrilled to get to high altitude and set my eyes on some of these grand peaks.