Italy... we're outta there - onto the Swiss!

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Tuesday 1st July
Today is a complete blur as the antibiotics kicked in. Thankfully a travel day so spent most of the day dozing on the back seat of the bus. The guests headed into Locarno for 2 hours - said it was nice, but not unmissable - going up the Madonna del Stresa gave a nice view over the Lake! Headed over the Gotthard Pass which the guests now said was THE absolute highlight of the trip - beautiful views - could see them having a snowball fight from the safety of the coach - and one of those awesome mountain-top views!

Arrived at the campsite 6.30pm, where Marzi was waiting for us. Was obviously about the crash into another thunderstorm, and all the tents were up in about 10 minutes flat. Dinner was held on the bus, as was a 10 minute meeting, before all crashed into bed.

Wednesday 2nd July
Another glorious day (we're had all our bad weather on travelling days, really). John, Paul and Sina disappeared back to Austria to pick up some skis, whilst the rest of the group had a prayer meeting for Switzerland, an 8.30am breakfast, and some whizzed straight off into Lucerne (about 20 minutes walk from the campsite), whilst others left more slowly. This left Freddie, Marzi and I to head in at our own pace, and swap the several hundred Swiss Francs in change for notes before having a look at the Chapel Bridge, wandering round the old town (with beautifully painted walls), the other bridge, and heading back to meet Richard. Once we'd met Richard, we found our free chocolate taster, then headed off to see the famous Lion hewn out of rock (memorialising the Swiss soldiers shot in the French Revolution), before finding an ice-cream, taking Richard back to the bridge, and then going round Migros Supermarket to buy the things we thought John would need, although we weren't entirely sure what we actually needed! Job done, we meandered back to the campsite, running into half the group sat on the lakeside on the way back. We nipped back to change and then headed into the water. Cold, but not too cold... very close to the steamers as they whizzed past at a surprising speed. Vanessa and Adele were looking after the food today and gave us a finjal BBQ - we were ready 7pm. John, Paul & Sina made it back for 7.40pm... we'd saved them some! The car they'd hired was RAMMED full of more than skis, but we found space for it all on the coach. Lisa was running the meeting for me tonight, and had added a chance to pray for us as a team, and a lovely thought of telling us what they thought of us (all nice stuff!). All was cut short by another rain-shower. Many sat chatting on the bus until late as the storm was receding into the distance. I went to bed before midnight, but woke at 1.30am to find that the storm was still going, and was again woken at 3am by noisy camp neighbours.. trying to ask them to be quiet and they said "but we're trying to blow up our air-bed"... not sure what kind of excuse that was, and they were clearly chatting/drinking beer, not getting their bed ready!

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