June 11 ~ Lausanne

June 11th we were in Lausanne {pronounced like Law-Zan, where as the town we stay in is Leysin, pronounced Lay-Zan}. While there we saw the Lausanne Cathedral (one of the best examples of gothic architecture in Europe). The organ was quite the sight (photo below).

They have a town crier (sp?), who, starting at 10 every night, cries the local time. Yeah, just like on the Robin Hood cartoon! That's what I thought too! Ha ha. So we hiked like thousands of spiral stairs to get to the bell tower, and I took a photo of myself hanging a bit off the edge, just for effect (photo below).

After the cathedral, we snagged a bus and hoofed the rest of the way to the Olympic Museum. As I mentioned before, we had one week to get a torch designed in our 4-man group. We knew that we'd have a meeting with the people at the museum where we'd officially present the torch concepts. We assumed they'd probably say thanks, give us a tour and send us on our way as they stashed the pieces into the archive. Bob droppped the torches off right as we got to Switzerland so we wouldn't be traveling so much with them, etc. To our surprise, they decided to put them up as an exhibition in the front lobby, a very visible area. They told us how nice it was to have an independent group do such a good study on the torches, as something like that hasn't been done before. They're working on getting the creative briefs and introduction translated into the different languages, so it sounds like they'll be up there for quite some time. It was also fun to spy on the visitors of the museum and watch them walk up and point at and comment on the torches. (photos below) {As an added bonus they allowed us into their archives, something the public doesn't get to do. I got to hold a bunch of olympic torches, see stuff like Michael Johnson's famous golden Nikes, see some original olympic posters from the 20's, and a whole bunch of other really unique items}

So Lausanne is awesome, just like every other town on the Geneva shore. Would love to get back here during our free time.

Lausanne Cathedral Organ
Lausanne Cathedral Bell Tower Self-Portrait

The Exhibition
Me and the Exhibition
Our Groups Torch

June 12th we hit a kind of recreated park to showcase how the Swiss lived from the 15th to 19th centuries. It was alright, kinda cheesy in a Disney way, but the nature hikes and landscapes made up for it. That's it for now.