Back In Switzerland For The Apricots

I couldn't stay away forever but obviously being the ridiculously skint student that I am, I had to get a job in Switzerland to visit again.

The problem with working en suisse is the outrageous language barrier. My french vocabulaire is limited mostly to fruits, stationary, shop names and numbers (everything I learnt in school) this left me pretty stumped last night when I tried to have a conversation about gallerie du rhone with a dude in a bar especially when it turned out he was Italian.

Fortunately in summer Switzerland has a ton of jobs involving menial labour without much french necessary. My friend Bastien who I am staying with called up a few places and asked around to see if anyone needed a skinny english kid to help them pick fruit.

It turns out they were happy to take me, surprisingly most people don't want to spend 10 hours a day in the blistering sun picking fruit from row after row of trees. Personally I couldn't see it being worse than being stuck in a stuffy office filing mounds of meaningless paperwork (my only alternative job offer in England)

Anyway to cut a long boring story short. I got the job, booked a flight, caught a plane to Geneva and hopped a train to Sion (Capital of the Swiss state of Valais, a popular tourist destination with a thriving cafe culture) and thats where I am right now, sunk into a leather sofa drinking coffee and listening to church bells ring out from the 3 churches nearby. Its a hard life riding the wave of my youth pushing my luck to the last minute.

I should have started work on the 8th but apparently the apricots that im going to be picking won't be ripe enough until the 15th so until then im trying to conserve my last 40 francs (difficult when a beer is 5.80 and you can't get a coffee for under 4, necessities you understand.)