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Where there's smoke there's fire, or rather, a lot of cigarettes. It is unfortunately a rather frequent experience to choke on clouds of second hand smoke just about everywhere on the streets of Lausanne. The bitter smell lingers around the whole train station and if I want to sit outside to enjoy the sunshine in a public place like a park or a café I also have to be prepared to deal with breathing in the acrid fumes. On the metro or bus I am often sandwiched between people whose clothes reek of ash tray. The streets are littered with orange and white butts flicked from careless fingers. I start to wonder at the irony of a country obsessed with recycling and going green who are singlehandedly polluting their own bodies. Although I think it's sad to see so many smokers, particularly young ones, I generally don't have a problem unless someone is blowing their smoke directly in my face. But on one particular day, as I am walking through the train station during a busy afternoon, a man passes close by me with a lit cigarette held loosely by his side. In the jostling of the crowds, the glowing tip presses against my finger and leaves a white hot burn that quickly turns to a blister. He mumbles an apology and slinks away. Thus I learn an important lesson: cigarettes are harmful in more ways than one.
A perk of public transportation is the people watching. Mostly people are on their phones. They don't do more than text or bop their head in time to their music, their fingers swiping across touch screens answering messages and playing silly games in silence. It is important to not disturb your neighbors. On this day, I'm on the metro going to the university and watching a little girl with her dad. I can't hear the words but she's tapping on the window with a small chubby finger and asking him a question. He smiles at her, leans toward the glass and breathes a hot puff of air leaving a smudge. She draws her fingers through the condensation caused by her father's breath on the window, delighted as if you had given her a coloring book and every Crayola color under the sun. She's just another metro rider swiping at a screen, but her laughter is not silent and even the woman playing Candy Crush next to me looks up to see if she might be missing out on life. The dad smiles at the little girl, breathes once more on the window and, above the scribbles of his daughter, draws a heart.
It's 7:30AM. I know because the drilling noise has begun and I can't block it out with my pillow. Yesterday there was a note in the elevator informing our whole building that they were going to be doing some work tomorrow starting at 7:30AM. It is not a time of day to appreciate Swiss punctuality. It's 7:30 AM and I needn't have bothered with the alarm.
My toilet won't flush. I know I need to call the plumber but I've been putting it off. It means a phone call in French and one out of three times I can still get the toilet to work…I call the plumber. The French conversation goes rather well but I have to wait five days for an appointment. The morning of, a short man in overalls with a tool kit shows up at my apartment, his fingers stained with grease and a cheerful can-do attitude. I show him to the bathroom and he helpfully supplies the French verb for flush when I trail off with a purposeful gap in my explanation of the problem. He putters away while I work on something on my computer in the other room. After about half an hour, he emerges with a moldy looking plastic contraption that he has removed from the toilet. With finger pointing to the broken piece he explains to me the reason for the problem I've been having. "You only have the one toilet?" he asks me. I say oui. He explains that he doesn't have the part with him in his van and in fact I need a completely new flushing mechanism. He will have to go to a store to get it. "I'll go right now and be back as quickly as I can," he says. Thank God for cheerful plumbers who go out of their way to make sure that before the morning's out I have a working toilet.
European changing rooms are an education. In the US, changing tends to be a discreet flash of naked flesh quickly hidden beneath a strategic towel or article of clothing. Here, I am confronted with so much nudity, I am aware of these women's tattoos and piercings in places I shouldn't be seeing. The showers don't have doors and consequently I keep my bathing suit on. A little blond boy about three years old is in the ladies' changing room today with his mother. He stands naked across from the shower stalls where his mother is finishing her shower and talking to him. He keeps staring at me and then glancing at his (I assume, naked) mother as if wondering why I'm still in my bathing suit. I finish washing my hair and have to walk by his mother's stall… I try not to look, it's just…there are no doors!
When I arrive at my building, the old man who lives across the hall from me is just arriving too. He doesn't walk very well and is losing his hearing. He has a series of hired women who come in and help out and they are always left banging on his door and repeatedly ringing his bell because he's too deaf to hear that they are there. When he sees me, which is rare, he greets me with a, "Are you the one who lives across from me? Are you my neighbor?" I smile politely, nod my head and say yes. He usually asks me some kind of question, and I often have to have him repeat it. Tonight isn't much different as he shuffles into the elevator and I push the button for the fifth floor. I think he asks me something about the weather but I smile and make some kind of noncommittal noise as I'm not sure. We arrive and he pushes the elevator door open and booms a "bonne soirée" in my direction as I unlock my apartment door. I shut the door, have dumped my things on the table, when my doorbell rings. Surprised, I wasn't expecting anyone, I go to the door and open it to find the old gentleman outside. "Can you help me," he asks. "I can't get this button undone. He gestures to his coat. Although a bit taken aback, I nevertheless reach over and undo the offending button for him. He thanks me and turns back to his apartment. I close my door again and am glad that, for once, being neighborly hasn't required any words.
