Friday, August 29, 2008

Birthday Eve

The last two days have been exciting. On Wednesday night Jen and I planned a special evening program of fun and games for the vols. We played "Chalet Special Summer Olympics Extravaganza" The events included a Spots On The Floor tournement and the Chalet Quadrathalon. We planned the events at the Alpenrose on Tuesday night. Originally it was meant to be a Pentathalon, but we forgot the 5th event.

The contestants had to give a 30 second Chalet tour. Rachel gave an especially funny one, explaining that boys and girls were not allowed to live in the same valley in the past and so they built the Kanderstag center in the next valley, and that Lord Baden Powell and Lady Baden Powell had to sleep in the separate centers when they visited. This is not true at all, of course, but we are still debating whether they slept in the same bed at the Chalet. Sarah also gave a nice tour in Real Time. "Please take your shoes off. Yes, both shoes. Yes, leaders too. Yes, right out side."

After the 30 second tour, we moved on to Program Packing. The contestants had to run across the room and pack for a day of program. There were appropriate items as well as inappropriate items. Katie packed a bottle of booze and a romance novel. She was subsequently disqualified. How sad. After Program packing we had a spoon throwing competition and wrapped everything up with towel folding.

The points were tallied and the results were as follows: Catherine D, Bronze. Ruth, Silver and Allison, Gold. I will post the pictures of the events and video of the medal ceremony when I return from my Birthday Trip Extravaganza.

Tomorrow I embark on my Grosse Velo-Fahrt. The weather is beautiful and should hold for the weekend. Please don't miss me too much in my absence. I won't be back to update you about my exploits until next Wednesday.

I went in and cashed in my spaghetti-sauce jar of change and came out with over 300 francs, which should finance my food and hostel stays comfortably. My camera is charged up and I've found my sense of adventure (behind the muesli in my cupboard).

Jen and I saw 16 spiders on the way to work this morning. She didn't seem too pleased when I nuzzled Big Mamma. "Spider Nuzzles! Eww" She said.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Ani's coming to CH!!!

Wednesday
10/22/2008
KKL

Luzern, CH

I don't like this At All

Baseball will be using the instant replay now too.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20080826&content_id=3370519&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp&c_id=mlb

What? How can they do this to the Great Sport of Baseball? Baseball is intriguing and exciting because there are moments where one official's call can determine the outcome of the game. Calls aren't always fair. Just like baseball stadiums aren't all built to the same specifications: infields can be grass or dirt, basepaths may be sandy or hard-packed--no individual offical is the same. Bad calls make baseball interesting. The implementation of instant replay will put an end to the era of dirt-kicking behavior of enraged managers and bench-clearing brawls, and potentially decrease the attendance at games.

Those poor Marlins are already struggling with preserving their small numbers of loyal fans--the ones who come to the games to watch scraps on occassion, and who actually cheer for the Marlins. A sad day for baseball indeed.
"As you well know, anytime you try to change things in baseball, it's both
emotional and difficult, but this [decision] everyone really thought was in
the sport's best interest. And that's why I made it."

Bud, Mr. Commissioner, you are wrong. This is a Bad Idea.

The Spiders of Switzerland


There are a Lot Of Spiders in Switzerland. This morning, on my way to work I saw 10 of these large spiders and about 5 times that many webs. I think I'll start naming them all--I've named one already, Big Mamma, and I give her a little pet and a good morning nuzzle when I see her.

I am really glad these spiders are not the face-climbing variety.

I took all these pictures on my way back from the Adventure Park yesterday--and it took me about twice as long to walk up the hill. Seems that I caught all the spiders around lunch time.
Mmmmm, Lunch!

This is primo spider habitat. The space between barbed wire.
An epic spider battle.




This one is just a baby.
"Good Morning, Big Mamma! Nuzzle! Nuzzle"
This is also Big Mamma, she ran away after I nuzzled her, but check out these chompers.



*********** Except for the multiple pictures of Big Mamma, the spider vs. beetle battle and the closeup of the spider's lunch, these are all different spiders (for a total of ten spiders I saw yesterday afternoon). I saw Big Mamma this morning and a one of the reddish-colored spiders, but most of them were different. That means that I've seen at least 18 different spiders... Where do they come from? Why haven't I noticed them before?


Adventure Park report and other fun

Yesterday, as you all know, I got the chance to escape the gloomy confines of the kitchen and go to the adventure park--which is basically a bunch of cables strung up under a bridge. You can zip-line or rappel off the bridge, or walk across a wire under the bridge, or you can jump off the bridge if you like.

I was certainly in need of some fresh air.


It's a beautiful walk to the adventure park.

I really enjoyed the zip-wires, and I Did jump off the bridge--mostly just for bragging rights. I did not enjoy it. Here's a video of a kid jumping off the bridge.


My video would have been awfully boring: I stood on the platform for about a minute shaking violently. I couldn't jump headfirst. I had to stand on the bridge and sort of drop off backwards. It was awful. I would not recommend it. I thought maybe that it would be fun. I thought that I just had to jump and then I'd really like it. Nope, that free-fall feeling is not fun. I'm a bit disappointed in myself, that I couldn't jump off the bridge the brave way. Laura says that I couldn't jump because I'm too sensible. Ha.

And to wrap it up, here's a glimpse of my afternoon at the Chalet after that.

"Heather, can you deal with this rotten, liquedizing celery for me? I'll bake you cookies, Kisses!"

MMMMMMmmmmmm.....



Oh, how sad, Heather has stroganoff on her pretty frock!
At least it's not celery goo.
Pretty Apron Fashion Show 2008

Look what Ruthie made for me.And here's Ruth hard at work in the shop. In the shop? She should be cleaning, or mending something for me.

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

The Valley of Oey

I live on a hill called Adelboden, to get to work I have to walk down to Oey cross the river and then drag myself up to Eggelti. Therefore: I go uphill both ways. It's about 100 vertical meters on each side. Here's a lovely picture of the valley. Clearly the tourist office has been busy promoting the peaceful valley image of Oey online.



Speaking of Hills: Jen and I are on our way. We've started training for the Jungfrau marathon. We haven't yet determined if it actually exists, but it doesn't matter.

We ran to the Adventure park and then along the river and then back up to town. We thought that our first run would be really hard and we'd want to die, but turns out we are in better shape than we thought. I guess, hiking to and from work every day in addition to weekend marathon-hikes is fairly good exercise. We celebrated with a Recovery Beer and an Ani party.

And now for the Big News: Today I am going to the Adventure Park to have Fun. It's the last week of program for the summer so Boss Katie has said that non-program staff can spend some time on program (or having fun outside) Yay! I've packed my lunch, my water bottle, my rain gear and tons of candy. I Am Ready. I think I'll go down some ziplines and maybe jump off a bridge. Don't worry Mom, we wear helmets.

**Photo Credit: Schweitzer Berghilfe http://www.berghilfe.ch/de/projekte/waldundholz/oey.htm

Monday, August 25, 2008

Event 14

Here's to the Last Barbeque Day of Summer! Of course, it's raining.

And, as we all know: winter is coming. There's fresh snow on the Lohners and on Wildstrubel. It's only a matter of time before I'll be able to sled to work. Yippie!

There are only 39 guests staying with us at the Chalet this week. That should be easy, we should be done with dinner by around 7:20 every night. Unfortunately last night was The Longest Night Ever. Why? Because the Canadians missed their train. So, I cooked a 6:30 dinner for the brits and a 7:30 dinner for the Canadians. I wasn't done until after 8:30. I am thankful though, that I was cooking for 20 people each round and not 60. Otherwise, I would have been crying. Crying in my Carbonara.

Laura gave me a book to read called French Revolutions. It's about a british guy who decided it would be fun to hop on his bike and ride the Tour de France route. He was able to take a few months off, ride around on his bike and write a best selling book that made him tons of money. He writes very long sentances and I am having a hard time reading it because it makes me Jealous. (Laura, I'm not saying Anything about your Sister, I promise). So Jen told me that we should train for a marathon and that I could write a best selling book. So...Jen and I are going to start by running on gentle downhill slopes, and then we're going to run the Jungfrau Marathon or something equally ridiculious. Stay tuned.

In Other News:

Mom and Dad, I Did try to call on Friday but I got an answering machine, I would have called Dad's cell but it said you were out of town and I thought that the international rates on his phone would be a bit expensive.

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Luzern, redux

I did not go biking this weekend. Did anyone see that coming? It was raining, I can't help it. Actually, I didn't feel that great either. We went out on Friday morning and made it about 10 very slow kilometers out before we decided that it was going to rain any second and that we had better turn around. The rain-thing was an excuse of course, but we ended up being lucky and getting back to the house 2 minutes before a torrential downpour. I'm quite responsive to dropping barometric pressure it seems. I was awfully dissapointed that there was no biking this weekend, but we made up for it by watching the Whole First Season of BattleStar Galactica. OH my God.

On Saturday we went to Luzern, it was raining and Laura spent nearly the whole day looking at me like this:




It's not her fault: she wasn't feeling well.

We went to the Depot, though I think we would have been better off visiting the Glacier Gardens with it's internationally celebrated Hall of Mirrors. The Depot turned out to be exactly what it claimed to be: a warehouse full of junk. Catalogued junk at least. What I think really happened was this:

Mayor of Luzern: "Oh boy, we have a bunch of junk and someone needs to go through it. Maybe make a little museum out of it?"

Luzern's historian: "I don't have time for this, how about we just keep it all where it is and let people figure it out themselves?"

They gave use a hand-held-scanner that read the barcodes attached to the objects and gave a description. Problem with that is, it doesn't give you any sort of historical context. We got bored with scanning things after about 45 minutes and Laura was hungry so we were getting ready to head out when I discovered that there were self guided tour thingies built into the scanners that gave actual museum like information. So, I guess I'll have to try the Depot again-again.




Then we had lunch, I fed some birds.






Thursday, August 21, 2008

Meat Loaf Day

Thursday again at the Ranch. That means around 5 pm tonight I'll be up to my elbows in squishy, cold, bloody, ground beef. Or, as we call it here: Rinds-hackfleisch. Mmmmmm.

Thursday also means that ... It's The Weekend!

I'm heading up to Delemont for the first time in Ages. I've missed my bike so. It's a good thing I'll be getting back on the bike...

(provided that Mrs. Beauchat has released it. She's been holding it hostage in the attic of her house, and since she speaks as much english as Laura speaks french, the situation has been at a standstill for the better part of the last month. I guess what happened is: Laura put the bike into an unlocked room. Mrs. Beauchat locked the room and took the key. And there it stayed. Laura had a friend at work help her write a note, saying something like "Please release my bike! Love and Kisses, your tennant Laura", so hopefully that helped. But really? Mrs. Beauchat is a mysterious woman and I'm sure she doesn't always have good intentions. She unlocks and locks rooms seemingly at random. She goes in and out of Laura's room at will. She sometimes strips Laura's sheets and does other passive aggressive type things like leave a vaccum right in the middle of the floor. I'm not going to lie: I'm afraid of her. But I digress.)

I'm not sure where we'll be biking to this weekend, but it's good that I'll be biking again because Laura and I plan to spend 3 days biking from Delemont to Nyon as my birthday extravaganza next weekend. If you look at a map, that's nearly the entire western border of Switzerland.

We're still in the planning stages but we've got a map, and a list of cheapish hotels along the way. Right now, we're trying to decide how much we can fit in our camelbaks. I think I'm more concerned with the number of candy bars I can reasonably carry while Laura is calculating the net weight of every item of clothing she owns.

It'll be interesting to see how we pull this trip off. The plan is to hop on our bikes on Saturday morning and head south. We should end up in Nyon by Monday afternoon. We can't carry hardly anything on our backs and neither of us have panniers, so we'll be relying on finding stores and decent hotels along the way to refresh and refuel. I'm looking forward to this trip, it seems to have the possibility of being horribly miserable for at least 30 to 40% of the time--which, as you all know is a requirement for any good trip.

Oh boy, the meat is here!!

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Clouds

I walked to work in a cloud this morning. Two clouds really, one is in my head and one is outside getting everything wet and even floating in through my window. I stayed home yesterday and slept. I was worried that I was coming down with a case of strep from my dimwittie (can that happen?) so I figured the kitchen wouldn't be the best place for me to spread a highly contagious disease to paying guests. So I slept. Katie dropped me off at my house around 7:30 on Monday and I didn't get out of bed until 6:00 pm on Tuesday. I am feeling much better but my head is still a bit light.

Ben wrote me and said that if you don't plan trips you're never late. I'm not sure if I agree with him at all. Plus Ben, you know how much I like to be invited to things just to decline: If you don't make plans, you can't break them! And for the record, I have a year long contract at the Chalet. That means, I'm working until the end of Next May. Hope that clears up any confusion. The volunteers stay for 3 months, they get worked hard and sent home exhausted.

And finally, congrats on your new presigious job Ben! I wish I was as good a cook as you, but I did get included in a general thank-you email to the Chalet from last weeks guests--"...and the food was superb" Superb. Great!

Ok, time to order meat. Kisses and snuggles to you all.

Sunday, August 17, 2008

Event 13

It's Event Thirteen here at the Chalet. I hope it's not an unlucky one, though it's started out quite differently than all the other events.

For instance, I have absolutely no special diets. None. Well, there were 6 visitors tonight who had one special diet, but they are not here for the Event, so they don't count. I hope things keep going well, but I'm skeptical. How could I be so lucky? Also, there are only 60 guests in the dining room--even with a short staff tonight we were done by 7:45. How magical is that?

In other news: Winter is coming. It's a good thing Laura and I knocked Bunderspitz off the list, because it snowed up there over the weekend. I think the hiking season is nearly over. I've got to get my big bike ride out of the way here soon, too. Laura and I have planned to do nearly the whole western border of Switzerland as my big Birthday trip.

Visitors, Again

Laura's friends visited on the weekend again. They're laid back and fun, but bad at planning things. Well, at least they plan things differently than I do.

On Friday we met them in Bern, and saw the Parliment building. I wanted to go in, but we got there too late.

That evening we we went to the Kiosk in town to watch the Olympics and drink some beer. They behaved badly and we got yelled at. Damn, its the one place in town with a TV that's Not the Alpen Rose and now the girl in there gives me dirty looks



The next day, we walked to the base of the waterfall and climbed up a rock.

We spent about 2 hours just hanging out at the bottom of the waterfall. Laura's friends used some of the time to plan their trip to Amsterdam the next day. I don't understand them at all: They've come all the way to Europe and haven't even planned where they're going, or what they will do.


In other news: Laura and I went to a coffee shop and I ordered food in Switzerland for the first time. It's taken me some time to get around to this only because I'm cheap, not scared. I ordered a Green Cake and the woman laughed at me. It didn't taste like much besides Sweet. I was dissapointed.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Thun Castle


Last Friday, while Laura's friends were visiting, we all went to Thun. Her friends hadn't seen a castle yet, and so we thought that they might like to see the one in Thun since it is quite large and impressive.
The Thun castle sits up on a hill above the city, and is a very nice castle shaped castle. It has four round turrets and a huge hipped roof (I'm not sure what hipped means, but it's in the architectural notes). The castle has been there since at least 1200 (based on dendrological testing of the rafters in the great room) and has seen battles and even fratricide. It contains one of the largest and best preserved great halls in the area (though, it seems to me that every attraction in Switzerland is "The Best Ever", "The Greatest Example Of" and so on, I'm starting to not believe it anymore. In any case, the Great Room (or Knights' Hall) is just that: A large room. In fact, all the rooms in the Thun castle take up the whole floor of the inner building between the turrets. The Knights' Hall just has a higher ceiling. The ceiling in the Knights' Hall was stained with ox blood but is now black with soot. When the room was not being used for ceremonial purposes, it served as a smoke house, a grainery and a torture chamber. Then I suppose they'd sweep the floors, mop up the blood, roll out the nice carpet, bring the throne in and have a party. Nice.

We walked up the stairs into the Knights' Hall and then continued on through one of the turrets up to the attic. I like visiting castles and museums around here because I get to see things that are older than 800 years old or so--unlike anything we can see at museums in the states--well, unless you count Native American artifacts, but those baskets and beaded clothing items seem much more peaceful and mundane than bloody spears and battle flags--Ok, but the attic of the Thun castle was Not full of instruments of death and conflict, but rather a display dedicated to the Thun theatre association and their production of Faust. Boring. I was dissapointed that my 7 francs went to a forced-viewing of an advertisement for a theatre company.

After the disappointment of the attic and turret rooms (they were round prison cells, which had awfully nice views), we went back through the Knights' Hall and to the floors below. We also saw a room full of old toys--about 100 years old--and a small organ that was installed on a ship that sailed on the Thunersee. We put 50 rapon in it and when it started to play everyone jumped, and then groaned. Ha. Below that room was the display of battle flags and bloody spears. The people of Thun showed that they were not sissies in the 14th century during the Battle of Murton and the flag that they carried into battle that day was on display. Also, there were several medieval tapestries, including one that a rich widow donated to the church to ensure her eternal salvation, as well as the salvation of her family and close friends. What? I guess that's the out of control behavior that went on before Reformation.

From the Thun castle we walked back through the Old Town. I really wanted to rent a boat and row around the lake but when we got about 15 minutes past the train station we gave up and headed back to town. On the way back, we passed a Liquidation Super World. Well, I can't remember what it was called, but it was a warehouse full of magnificent crap. I've never seen anything like it in Switzerland before--because this country is too classy to have warehouses where things go to die. I bought a new espresso cup and a tube of super glue that turned out to be empty (that's how they can sell it so cheap! you don't actually get any glue) and a candy bar that tasted like it was about as old as the castle. It was so bad, I couldn't even eat it.
Even though I didn't get to rent a boat, and the castle was somewhat disappointing I had a nice trip to Thun. I'd like to go back and try to tour the town again because I didn't even go in the church, and what's a European Vacation if you don't see every old church you can?

PS: I found all these pictures using The Google.

Bunderspitz

We finally did it. That's right, we went up Bunderspitz. It was awfully steep (well, it is a mountain, I'm not sure what we expected), and we nearly died.




On the way up, we passed a cheese maker's hut. There were some other people visiting and so the CheeseMaker had gotten out his alphorn. While we were passing the Lohners about an hour later he started to play it (those are the big mountains that you can see from the Chalet--the spiky looking ones). The alphorn music was echoing off the rock face and we stopped to listen to it while gazing at the valley below. It was really beautiful and quite Swiss. I've heard the alphorn played quite a few times, and I never thought that it sounded especially nice--every Tuesday night at the Chalet, Fritz plays a concert for us--but I think it sounds pretty from about a mile away and with mountains to reverberate off of.





We were planning on going back down to Adelboden after we summitted, but we got distracted by the sign that said "Kanderstag--this way" and we followed that.








I am pleased to report that we saw some wildlife on this hike. This salamander is the only live wild animal (besides raptors) that I've seen since arriving in Switzerland.
When we got to the bottom of the mountain on the Kanderstag side we stopped into the Kanderstag International Scout Center (KISC) which is the boy's version of the Chalet. Their building is much more institutional looking than ours, but they can house and feed a hell of a lot more people. While we were in the reception area, we ran into some of Laura's friends from work. That was a bit surprising. We took the train back to Adelboden and passed out from exhaustion. The hike took us around 7 1/2 hours, covered about horizontal 15 kilometers (I think), 1300 meters up and 1400 meters down. I spent 2 days waddling afterwards, but it was worth it.