I arrived in Switzerland for my first Workaway volunteer experience, which revolved around babysitting a family’s child in exchange for having me live in their home for free. Yes, you read that correctly. Somehow, a potential host came across my profile on the online platform and concluded that I looked capable enough to look after their child. While I have never babysat in my life, I accepted the position. The little girl did not understand a word of English. I do not speak a lick of Swiss-German. To the host’s defence, I may or may not have added a few skills to enrich my profile to increase the chances of getting hired. Here is an excerpt:

Claim: Kids love me!

Reality: Entirely based on my own reviews. A while back, I thought it would be fun to jump out of the dark of the basement and scare my cousin’s kid. He was not only traumatised but has had issues with basements ever since.

Claim: I enjoy playing with kids.

Reality: I took my cousin’s daughter to the playground one time and had to take an indefinite timeout as I was extremely nauseated from riding on the swings.

Claim: I am a great cook.

Reality: I suffer from salmonella poisoning at least twice a year from my own cooking.

Claim: I can speak French.

Reality: …at a third-grade level.

Claim: I am a handyman.

Reality: I have never successfully built a piece of Ikea furniture without being left with a collection of unused, but necessary, pieces.

Claim: I am a responsible and mature adult.

Reality: Lol.

Seeing the effectiveness of these attributes on the platform, I thought placing these same characteristics on my dating profile app could score me dates with cute Swiss girls. Sadly, my features seemed to only attract married Swiss men on Workaway.

In order to get to my host John’s home, I had to take a $50 fifty-minute train ride from Zurich to Lucerne and a cruise to the little town of Weggis, which amounted to another $30. The cost of the journey more than doubled the cost of my flight into the country.

After touching down in Zurich, it was easy to see why the city was often ranked one of the best places to live in the world. The streets were immaculate. The beauty of its old town rivals any in Europe in its cobblestone lanes, towering church steeples, and charming buildings. If that is not enough, a serene river runs through the city and flows into Lake Zurich, where the Alps stand tall in the background. The people even appeared to be model citizens. As I was on the train out of the airport, I witnessed two young men rush out of their seats to help a woman carry her baby stroller into the carriage.

John was gracious enough to pick me up from the pier. Although we had never met or even had a face to face video chat online, I figured that since it was such a small town, I did not have to bother with describing my appearance: Look for the guy who looks green and about to throw up from the cruise.

Other than a small thumbnail profile picture, I was not entirely sure what he looked like either. People often say Asian people all look alike. Well, us Asians often get confused with white people too. Luckily for me, only one person was waiting at the pier.

When we arrived at his house, I was in complete awe by its beauty. It was situated right by the lake and was one of the nicest homes I had seen. The home was so cutting-edge that you could control all of the lights and speakers from the refrigerator. I was fortunate enough to not only have my own room but an ensuite bathroom as well. For the first time in weeks, I didn’t have to brush my teeth next to someone doing their business.

The town of Weggis could not have been more picturesque. The population of roughly 4,000 people is lucky enough to call the beautiful green landscape on the lake surrounded by the Swiss Alps, their home. It honestly looked as if it was straight out of a movie set.

That first night, we had dinner and discussed the plan for the upcoming week. It was during that meal that I discovered how Swiss people do not eat. When I was seated at the table, they brought out bread, a variety of cheese, cold cuts, and some jam. In my head, I was thinking, wow, this is a pretty expansive appetiser spread, I’m excited to see what the entree will be. To my detriment, that main course never emerged. It turns out that was a typical Swiss supper; just bread, a spread of cheese and occasionally cold cuts. Not wanting to frighten them with my appetite on the first day, I only had a few pieces of bread and some cold cuts. Within an hour, I was absolutely starving. It was 7 pm.

The next morning, my stomach and I woke up very intrigued to see what was for breakfast. Maybe they gorged on food to start the day and just eat less later on? Nope. Breakfast was even more minimal than dinner. It was essentially dinner without the meat and cheese—so, just bread. However, to make up for the lack of calories from the night before, and realising that lunch could very well be just a spoonful of butter, I devoured that bread.

They encouraged me to explore the town for the rest of the morning before meeting for lunch at their shop, which was located around the corner from their house. I proceeded for what might have been the most perfect leisurely walk. The sun was out, and the weather was absolutely perfect; not too hot, not too cold. I was treated to the sounds of birds chirping, trees rustling in the wind and water splashing against the rocks. The views of the lake in the foreground and the Alps in the background were absolutely breathtaking. All that was missing was a man yodelling from atop of a hill.

When lunch rolled around, I headed to their shop and met a few of their very friendly employees. One, in particular, was around my age and was quite pretty. We all had lunch together, and to my surprise, it was actually a hot meal. And finally—there was meat! The lunch special for the day was spaghetti and meat sauce. I was ecstatic. While they all talked in German about business, I discretely helped myself to about forty servings. To accompany the meal, they served a clear, carbonated beverage called Rivella which they described as the national drink of Switzerland. I thought it tasted pretty good and they kept pouring me more. After my fourth glass, one of the staff members said, "It’s good right! Can you believe it’s made from milk?" I nearly sprayed my mouthful all over the poor lady sitting across from me. I was honestly trying not to blurt out, YOU TELL ME AFTER MY FOURTH GLASS THAT THIS DRINK HAS MILK IN IT? WHAT KIND OF POP HAS MILK IN IT? I looked it up, and this was the description from Wikipedia: “Rivella is a soft drink from Switzerland, created by Robert Barth in 1952, which is produced from milk whey, and therefore includes ingredients such as lactose, lactic acid and minerals.”

In my mind, I was like, I am not even going to make it past a full day with the family after they kick me out for the horrors they’re about to witness owing to my extreme intolerance to lactose. I will not lie to you, there was a very small part of me that considered blaming the child for whatever smells would surface that day. Luckily for everyone, I was able to spend the afternoon outdoors.

My job for the day was to power wash their deck. Sounds simple and straightforward enough, but may I remind you—this is me. While I was in the midst of spraying down the deck, John decided to activate the robotic lawn mower before he headed back to the shop. I was washing away when I suddenly heard a crack, and the water stopped flowing. Confused, I whipped my head around and immediately the hose burst, and water spewed in every direction. It turned out the robot had run over the hose and punctured a hole in it. Water was spraying everywhere, including areas I cleaned, and places that definitely should not have gotten wet. So on my first assigned task, I not only broke their expensive machine, but I also managed to make their yard look as if a typhoon ran through it.

I was so mortified that I considered grabbing my backpack, stuffing it with my clothes and a few bottles of Rivella and sprint out of town. Nevertheless, I decided to take the noble route by staying and telling John exactly what happened—that the family dog was the perpetrator of the mess.

The next morning at breakfast, they asked if I was bothered that their daughter went to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I found that a rather odd question. Then I recalled someone telling me that people do not flush the toilet in Switzerland after 10 pm. At that moment, it occurred to me that I went to the washroom in the middle of the night. I realised this might have been their way to passive-aggressively inform me to not flush at night. To make sure I did not mess up an already awful experience for my hosts, I decided to look up other peculiar customs or laws they have in the super courteous country:

- In some cantons, men cannot pee standing up after 10 pm

- On Sundays you are not allowed to:

·         recycle

·         mow your lawn

·         hang laundry out to dry

- You cannot hike naked

- Every house must have access to a nuclear bunker

-My personal favourite: You cannot ski while reciting poetry

The next day, my task was to help John set up some furniture at their cottage home situated on Mount Rigi. Although it was a pain transporting an entire cabinet up a mountain, it gave me the opportunity to hike up to the peak after we were finished. It is famous for offering amazing views of the towns and the three surrounding lakes.

My host offered to pay for my ticket on the cable car to reach the peak which cost nearly $50, but I wanted to earn the views. Before heading on the trek, I needed to pick up some food for the journey. With my limited budget and the fact that Switzerland is extremely expensive, my only option was to go to the grocery store to purchase ingredients to make a sandwich. Even then, my choices were limited. Cheese, condiments and vegetables were luxuries that existed outside of my budget. All I could afford was a bun and a questionable package of cold cuts that had a picture of a chicken, pig, and cow on it, which still cost $9 altogether. I’m pretty sure that same meat is sold as pet food back home.

As I began the hike, I was stunned by the beauty of the surroundings. Peeking through the towering spruce trees that stood neatly side by side were the snow-capped Alps and the bluest skies I’d ever seen. The path eventually led to a lookout point with some of the most breathtaking views I’ve come across. It was a perfect marriage of the majestic Alps, lush green forests, calm lakes and communities of houses dispersed throughout the peninsula. I’d never encountered such an extreme contrast of colours.

Hiking down the mountain was a different story. There happened to be a path that could take me all the way back to Weggis, but it was not only steep but slippery. As the afternoon rolled around, the sun was just beaming, and the heat became unbearable. I also made the mistake of having a few premature celebration beers at the top and was feeling quite sluggish afterwards. For the next five hours, the closest thing I saw to a human being was a completely mangled dead bird which I am pretty sure was ravaged by wolves. At that point, I was so exhausted that in my mind, being eaten by a pack of wolves would not have been the worst thing to have happen, as my feet had given up on me.

Fortunately, I received some good news when I finally made it back to the house. John informed me that the cute girl from his shop offered to take me out for drinks and show me around the city of Lucerne the next evening if I was interested. I obliged.

The next day, it was time to reveal my skills as a handyman as John and I went to set up the family trailer for the upcoming cottage season. He assured me that we would have enough time to return home so I could clean up before I head to the city in the evening. The problem was that he was not much of a handyman either. It took longer than expected but we had it standing before we left. So obviously, I put this feat on my Workaway profile. I would bet the price of a Swiss sandwich that it fell apart within a month.

We spent two hours more building the trailer than we expected which meant I had to head straight to Lucerne for my evening out with the cute girl from the shop. Since we were working in the sun all day, I was already quite sweaty and not smelling all that great. As we arrived into town, my host decided to make things even more challenging by dropping this tidbit of information: "Oh did she tell you that she won the city beauty pageant contest last year?"  More sweating ensued as I stepped out of the car.

The evening went quite well for the most part. We went to see all the major sights while dropping into bars in between. During a stop, she asked me what I wanted to eat, and I asked her to surprise me with a local favourite of hers. She ordered a dish loaded with cheese, which typically would not have been a problem since I carry my lactase medication with me all the time. I reached into my pocket, and to my horror, I realised that I left them in the car. Of course.

I did not want to offend her by refusing to eat what she ordered, so I scoffed it down and just wished for the best. As luck would have it, I did not explode from the dairy during the entire time we were together. In fact, the evening went so well that she invited me to go out with her and her girlfriends on the Friday night. In my head, I applauded myself for managing not to screw this up, as I typically do.

But then again, this is me we’re talking about.

At the end of the night, she approached for what I thought was a hug, but at the last second, she aimed her cheek at me. Hesitating for a moment, I gave her a peck on the cheek. Thinking that was it, I leaned back, but then she offered her other cheek. I awkwardly went in for another kiss. Thinking surely that must had been it, I retreated, but to my disbelief, she positioned herself for a third one. Not sure what was customary in Switzerland, I just froze for the most awkward half a second ever before she gave up and went off. I shortly found out that it was three kisses in Switzerland. I felt like the biggest idiot on the ride home, but things got worse.

As per usual, I got a little-lost jumping off the bus and reached the house a little after 10:00 pm. When I reached into my pocket for the house keys, I realised I left those in the car too. I should have just run off during the robotic lawn mower incident.

My choices were to either ring the doorbell, which would wake up the toddler or sneak through the back and hope that the door was open. I decided to go for option number two. Easily mistaken for a burglar, I tiptoed around to the back but found out the door was locked. The good thing was that the television in the living room appeared to be on, so I decided to head there and lightly tap on the window. I ended up completely scaring the crap out of John’s wife. I had never seen such a terrified look in my life. In fact, her expression even jolted me a little bit.

I decided that it was best for everybody that I made plans to leave within those next couple of days. The initial arrangement was to stay with John and his family for a week, but amidst all the issues I tended to cause, they liked me enough to let me live with them for as long I wanted. I ended up using the feature on Skyscanner.net which lists the cheapest places to fly to from wherever you are. Warsaw was on the top of the list, so I booked a flight for the following day.

It was hard to leave such an amazing place with such a great host family. I grew accustomed to the community and the Swiss lifestyle. I even started getting full by the end of meals. I felt sorry for John that I had to be their first Workawayer. However, I did set the yardstick quite low for all future volunteers—you’re welcome.

Oh, if you were wondering how the babysitting went, I nailed it. John’s daughter happened to adore me. It probably helped that I still had the maturity of a five-year-old. My heart melted when she told her parents that she wouldn’t act in her school play unless I were there in the crowd. She ended up crying when I left. I convinced myself they were tears of sadness and not joy.

Stats

Days on the Road: 38

Countries Visited: 6

Personal Triumph of the Week: Managing not to soil myself from a dairy related mishap while on a date

Travel Tip of the Week: To avoid looking like an idiot, learn the customary greeting of each country before going on a date with a local