May 30, 2003 – Friday

Les grenouilles (The Frogs)

We eventually stumbled back to Laurie’s in the morning, and caught the 1pm train into Estavayer-le-Lac in order to visit the Frog Museum. I’d found out about it through this cool book I have called Weird Europe. The town was very medieval, with lots of old buildings and artifacts.

The museum had a lot of neat stuff besides the frogs, but they were definitely the piece de resistance. The frogs were dressed and positioned in very cute ways. My favorite was called “Le Cavalier”, and it was a little frog riding a squirrel like a horse. This exhibit was created a long time ago by some man who lived near a creek, and would collect the frogs, stuff them, and make little dioramas. It was so twisted.

On our way back into town, we wanted to stop at an ATM to get some money, but it was closed. Unlike ATMs back home which run 24 hours, these shut down at 4:30 pm. Very lame.

My cousin Natalie invited us over to her apartment for dinner. As we were on our way out the door, my dad called us to give some advice on the weather and travel plans for the next day. When I finally got off the phone, we were running terribly late so I ran to the elevator. I should have taken my time however, because I ended up slipping and dropping Laurie’s apartment key down the elevator shaft. We stopped on every floor to see if, by any chance, the key had landed somewhere safe. No such luck. It was totally gone. I left a note for Laurie telling her what happened, and headed over to Natalie’s place.

Dinner was great, got to catch up on a lot, and Natalie gave us her spare key to the apartment so we could get back in. Laurie wasn’t upset at all, but I still felt like an ass.