July 2 - Im off to SWITZERLAND !!
Weather today was as beautiful in Norway as in Switzerland although quite a bit warmer in Switzerland.

I had to wake up 4:45 today and fetch the bus to the airport. My flight was scheduled to 7:45 and with all check ins and all I had to be at the airport at 6am. That is way too early.
I had breakfast at this airport restaurant and while feeling really shitty, as I managed to catch a cold - AGAIN (maybe the 5th this year) - and had a light fever running, no shopping nor stress was in my consideration. Only thing i bought was a book at the kiosk close to the gate - The book thief by Markus Zuzac. My big plan was to read during the flight.
That plan fell to pieces as my seat mate sat down. This little kid started out asking all about the book and he kept talking until we landed in switzerland. He was 11 years old, named Jonas and he was adorable. He had this funny way of telling me things.. like: between you and me... thats pretty funny and things like this.
The plane was kind of the smallest one ive ever been in. even the planes between Norwegian cities hasnt been this small, and I had air pressure in my ears all the time.

Arriving Zurich airport in Switzerland Jonas was picked up by the flight personnel and safely taken to his mom.
I walked around on the airport for a little while, looking at the stores of the mall. How cool is that.. a mall at the airport? damn cool if you ask me. The first thing I had to buy was a swiss phone Sim card since I was gonna stay that long. Then I got my train ticket to Gossau, SG and fortunately I did not have to wait long. The train ride took about 1 hour and I was arriving a bit earlier than I had announce to Vince already so I called him to let him know I already arrived.
And sent a text message. Hehehe. Then I sat down at the train station at a bench and started reading my book. Finally there was time and there was quiet and sunny, nice weather.

Vince called after a while and he had been visiting PapaSteed at the hospital so he was on his way to come pick me up. Finally. After like 8 months of chat contact!
Meeting Vince felt like meeting a long lost friend that I finally got to meet again. I was met by a HUGE hug and laughter and we had fun since the first moment. We talked about all and nothing and he took me home and showed me around outside and inside before he started cleaning up the kitchen and making lunch for us.

I got to meet the cats and immediately found a new best friend in the white cat, Steffu, while the grey cat, Seraphin, was a bit more shy. The white cat just hopped on my lap and stayed there. Vince made delicious pasta and after lunch he took me to ,, for grocery shopping for the upcoming party this weekend. We went to Cash and Carry for the main shopping round but we also stopped by a few smaller stores and the bakery ordering bread for sunday breakfast. We had a nice shopping round and as the cashiers packed and fixed everything we had a nice cup of coffee in the store restaurant until the lady came to give us the key to the cart and we could go.

As we got home we stashed all the stuff in the storage room in the cellar and in the garage before we watched some TV and continued talking. For dinner I cooked two different dishes of Whale meat witch came out pretty good according to Vince. Due to my cold and my lack of smelling/tasting sense unfortunately I could not feel that too much of it. He was thrilled. That was enough. We also had a few good glasses of wine and enjoying life and vacation.

July 3 - Arrival of a few more guests, preparations and pre-pre party
It wasnt the nicest day as we had grey cloudy weather and some rain.

As I woke up today, Vince had already left for work. I was waken up by another surfer arriving early, Martin. He got welcomed in and started playing with the cats. I made him some food and tried activating him into discussions. That I soon gave up and Vince told me to let him use his computer in the office. I worked most of the day due to a crisis situation at work and the rest of the day I slept till Vince came home.

For dinner, Vinces ex Nicole came over and we also got two more couchsurfers, Alex and Steffi that arrived early. We started hard work while having lots of fun, alcohol MIGHT have been involved, making name tags, preparing what had to be done of preps and teasing each other quite a bit. I baked chocolate chip cookies for the fun of it. We also had a few picture sessions with boxes on our heads (maybe just Vince), a few Swiss accessoires (Alex) and lots of laughter.

We had so much fun and I got my first room mate this night too. Steffi and I stayed up chatting till early morning hours planning practical jokes (which would be forgotten in the morning) and just having fun. Finally we fell asleep getting ready for a new day.

July 4 - The day before the day
Awesome, the great weather is back !! +25C and sunny is just what we want when for vacation !

Vince had to get off to work early and let us others sleep in. Or.. He actually woke us up to let us know that the fridges and the beer would soon arrive with a whole lot of other stuff. He would soon be back again with a few more guests like Luzius and later we would go to the store and we also went to pick up Florian. From this point fwd people just kept rolling in and while Steffi and I spent quite a long time in the kitchen baking cakes for the party tomorrow, preparing signs and stuff for the party.

Roger and Alex and Steffi helped the guys from the brewery set up the coolers and then started stashing them with beer and wine and juice and all we would need for the weekend. After this Roger came in and started preparing lunch for us all. Marcel and Natalya prepared dessert (coconut cream) and just as lunch was ready the party tent arrived and we all would go to set up this and the tables and chairs to go in it. Lunch was awesome and Anick-Marie and one of my room mates, Hector, had arrived by now as well. With AM came Ulf and a few other Germans and more Swiss people.

After lunch we had this wonderful idea about going to the beach !!
3 cars set off to Lake Constanse also called Bodensee (German name) and we ended up close to Arbon city, by a little bay there. Like shown on the map from Google.
Most of the already arrived people went there. Ulf, Anick-Marie, Florian, Roger, Marcel, Natalya, Wicher, Steffi, Bogdan, George, ? and myself. I got a ride with ??? Anick Marie and ??? to Arbon and we almost got a bit lost in the beginning of the trip as we were supposed to take the highway instead of driving through Gossau.

As we finally arrived we had a wonderful time and swam and enjoyed the day in the sun. It was so lovely and a wonderful day. They should all be like this. So many friends in one place at the same time.

For the ride home, We split in two groups. One group would have to go to the store to pick up food and the other group would go directly home. I went with the food group. We had to pick up food for the BBQ that was going to start when we got home.
Roger took me, Wicher and Bogdan in his car and we stopped by this little Aldi store close to Arbon to pick up what we needed.

We got home and house was already crowded with LOTS of new people having arrived. Woooooohooo. It was such a wonderful ambient, so many happy faces and so many new people to get to know.
During the BBQ more and more people arrived and for the following party we had a lot of fun. Maikel, Maurizio, Jakob, Marcus, Gabrielle, Birgit and Felix, Konstantinos, Thomas, Martine, Antoine and also Aldo, my other room mate, arrived during the night. We reached almost 100 guests already for this friday night ! Everyone was so happy and so nice. Lots of fantastic pictueres were taken. :D
After last car arrived with guests for today we went to bed trying to catch some sleep to be prepared for Saturday. Ha! Only thing is that when you finally have people around you, why should you sleep? I stayed up talking with my roomie(-s) most of the night.

July 5 - THE BIG COUCHSURFING PAELLA MEETING
Awesome, the great weather is back !! +25C and sunny is just what we want when for vacation !

Finally
The day is finally here:
casey, promitheus
breakfast in the garden. Most of the group set off to Lake constance again closer to with the Belgians, got to know Steven.
Huge day met Ben, Sams best friend

Long chats with steven. exchange of music,

Wonderful food, met the rest of the party participants like

video from dusk till dawn/shaft - nicole, marco, florian, anna, myself, aldo,
bedtime, hector stayed out?

For Video:
Superyamis production
Enter this link, scroll down the profile to where it says SWISS BLISS PAELLA 2008. Click link and download.

For pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/dusan.misevic/CSPaella2008
Collected Albums from Paella
Swiss CS Paella Pictures
My Couchsurfing Album from the trip

July 6,
roger cooked pasta, most others were at waterland, but some walking in city. hector and i watched butterfly effect 2, spent most of the day in bed sick with fever and bad cough
Video night, poolhall junkies ,
birgit, felix, paul, hector, aldo myself
after we went out to the party tent. hector stayed in, jason waterballoon boobs.

July 7 - Blue monday - Last big group leaving
Another Cloudy day with warm temperatures. We even had a few showers over us in the afternoon.

We were woken up at 8:30 after another night with minimal amount of sleep :D. Well, nothing bad in staying awake getting to know your room mates chatting half the night.
I felt shittier than yesterday and had spent most of the night coughing again. Im amazed my roomies got to sleep at all with me coughing like that. My voice was completely fucked up. Hahaha. It was quite funny. Squeeky and dry. Deep.

All the remaining guests were set to pack down the party tent, organize the packing of tables, chairs and benches used in the party tent and washing the paella pans. My dear Anick-Marie, Ricard, Ulf, Paul, my roomie Aldo and lots of others were among the people that departed after this task finished. That was sad. Never fun when friends are departing and you have no idea when you will meet them again.

As the biggest group left the remainers decided to go to Schoggi land, the nearby chocolate factory of St. Gallen.
Birgit and Felix, Joris, Bogdan, Ben, Vince, Christine, Hector, Alex, Roger, Jason, Maikel, & .

dinner at pizzeria, Video, late night party,

July 8 - Touristing St. Gallen
Today was mostly cloudy, but still temperatures were quite warm. We spent most of the day outside.

Remaining guests: Hector, Jason, Christine, Roger, Steven, Me and Ben.

We all woke up around 10 and Ben and I went to take Hector to the trainstation so he could get to the airport. After this we stopped by Aldi grocery store and picked up food for breakfast, some bread, juice, cheese and a few other things to eat. The fun thing was that both Ben and myself were still in Pyjamas. Hehehe.
Vince set up the table and benches in the front of his house and we all had breakfast outdoors. It was a quiet, nice morning.

As soon as we had finished up the breakfast we left for the nearby city St Gallen where Vince showed us around.
Our first visit was to the Baroque Cathedral and then we stopped at the pharmacy to pick up some stuff for the throath. Vince had lost his Voice too and Christine was feeling soar. Out next stop was at the Abbey Library of St Gallen. It must be the most beautiful library I have ever visited and together with the Abbey church it has even been made a Unesco World Heritage Spot.
This library is considered one of the richest medieval libraries in the world with Handwritten books as old as from the year 613 !!!!

As soon as we had seen these spots we stopped to shop cigarettes for Steven and Vince and we walked through the streets of St Gallen.
Next stop was at the Hospital of St Gallen where Dave was hospitalized for a short visit. He had a terrible motorsyckle accident some weeks ago. After the hospital visit our next stop was at Walter Zoo where we had a nice walk looking at groundhogs, deer, mountain goats and lots of other animals.

As we finished up and returned to the house it was time to take Jason to the trainstation as it was his turn to leave now. Vince and myself drove him and then Vince took me to the Doctor, where we stayed for quite some time. I got 4 different medicines for my cough and sore throath. It was a relieve to finally have something to cool it down with. It was quite expensive though, but thankfully I have my wonderful inssurrance :D

For dinner we picked up Pasta and Salad. Vince cooked this while talking with Corrinne and the bunch of us stayed wisely in the living room till the conversation was over :D I had a wonderful chat with Christine while the guys were watching some kind of religion history.

Pasta, Salad and Sausages tasted wonderful ! Great. And better of all.. My medicines started to work. The cough was really terrible still but... Its already a bit calmer (after Roger gave me the inhalor yesterday) although far from well. One of the big sports of the night was to kill flies :D
But the party took off when 5 of us sat down with each our computer and logged in to CS chat where we sat 5 people in the same room chatting with each other. Hahaha. We had quite some fun about that.
I have completely new roomies tonight, Steven and Benjamin. Lets hope we killed enough flies to sleep in tomorrow :D Damn flies

July 9 - Going to Liechtenstein for breakfast & returning to Norway

Today was mostly beautiful and sunny, with some clouds to be seen, in the lowlands of Gossau temperatures were up to 27C and in the Liechtenstein alps temperature was down to 20C. Still beautiful and sunny.

Remaining guests: Roger, Ben, Steven and myself.

This morning my alarm was set to 8:30, I woke up before the clock rang due to the damn flies that sat on my face and arms and annoyed I tried getting rid of them. Benjamin and Steven were still asleep and I went out of bed to start packing my suitcase. No point in keeping up the fight. Flies won and I got up to take my shower while the others woke up and prepared their suitcases and backpacks we prepared for leaving. Christine had already left so we didnt get to see her any more.
Before we left though we had to have a picture session with Vinces snakes. First up was Benjamin and he took it very nicely as the snake was just hanging around his neck like a scarf. When my turn was up, the sneaky thing started curling up around my neck. I think in some of the pictures that were taken, I might look a bit scared. Hehe.
Worse it was for the photograper. Steven was almost dying on himself :D Poor thing. But he did brave considering his snake phobia. In this photo Vince is putting one of the Pythons around my neck. I am still smiling :D

We were ready for takeoff. As we had planned impulsivelyh yesterday we were going to Lichtenstein for breakfast! Pretty awesome actually. Especially since its so close, just half an hour away in car.

Now we were just 5 left. Ben, Steven, Roger, myself and of course our host Vince and we all fitted into one car now. We took off and drove towards the Rhine Valley towards Liechtenstein and crossed the border line. We suddenly noticed a change in car habits. There was a lot more of Lambourghinis and Porches and nice houses.

We drove through Vaduz and Triesen and Triesenberg, passing the Town Hall Rathaus, the Princes Castle, Schloss Vaduz, on the way before taking off towards Gaflei and Masescha where we would stop.

Our destination was a nice little cafe in the hills of the Liechtensteinean alps, about 900 m over sea level, with one of the most amazing views I have seen, over the Rhine Valley, about 900 meters over sea level.

This nice, old lady took our orders of food and beverages and while we enjoyed the view and listened to some strange birdsounds we had a great deal of fun on this experience that would be the last before we all departed and went in separate directions. We had omelette with ham and soup and I also had one of the best apricot cakes Ive ever had before. The guys had beer, which I envied them a bit but I didnt want to spill the effect of the medicines that finally started kicking in in their work to kill this bad cold I have. Food was absolutely delicious and so it was being with these wonderful people that I have learned to appreciate as good friends these last days.

On our way back home we had planned to stop in Vaduz, but time was running and we did not have more time to spend on travelling. My flight time approached and we had to return to Gossau, SG, to pick up my luggage. All the guys came to the train station with me and it was really hard saying good bye.
Thankfully Ben came with me going to Zurich with the same train as myself and he saw me off at the airport, or else I think I would have cried leaving those wonderful new friends.

The train trip was however a bit sad. Ben feels like family as he is a direct link to Sam (for those of you that dont remember, Sam stayed with me for 3 months last year), and Sam I care about as my brother. We split as I had to enter the passport control to catch my plane and I was on my own again. I picked up a few bottles of local wine from Switzerland and went to the gate. On this trip I did not make a new friend like little Jonas on my way down but I did get to read my book a whole lot. I had to change airplanes in Copenhaguen and with just the right amount of time the plane started boarding when I arrived the gate, so I did not have to wait for long there. I arrived home safely and Im looking foreward for picking up Saffi tomorrow to have company at home again.

Vince, Thank you so much for a fantastic stay, thank you for all you did for all of us! You have been wonderful ! Roger, Steven, Ben it was a great pleasure to meet you all. I miss all of you guys already.