High up on the mountaintop

Hi friends!

Greetings from my little "office" nook in the Chalet Kitchen (to the right of the fridges).

I haven't had a chance to connect my computer to the 'net yet so all those posts I've been saving are forthcoming. It may take nearly a week. Be patient.

In the meantime: The Chalet is amazing. I just finished playing Sardines and Twister with the summer volunteers. My fingers are frozen and life is good.

World Center, Baby!

I made it to Our Chalet. It's cloudy, cold and rainy. In other words...delightful.
The summer volunteers are currently climbing down every fire escape they can find.
On our way to the train station this morning, Laura and I stopped at the Migros for lunch. We met some Very Friendly Swiss there. An old man named John, aged 84 years, was chatty immediately. He can speak nearly five languages, thinks Chicago is overrun with gangsters like Al Capone, and thinks we're "Very Nice Girls". Then came Nelson who's father is Kenyan and so he hopes Obama wins the election. He's some sort of acquaintance with some sort of Obama's family.
Then I got on the train (upright thankfully). I did manage to make as many connections as was possible on my way to Adelboden. Just trying to get my money's worth. The trains here aren't so hard, but I still need to figure out the difference between the fast trains and the slow trains. Between Bielle and Bern we stopped at every village. There are a lot of villages here. Switzerland is a small but compact country. Sprawl is definitely not a problem here. Towns are discrete entities.
I start my training tomorrow, and after having the turkey roll for dinner tonight, I feel confidant that I can at least cook up to the current standards.

Basel, with a long A sound Bay-sill...but Swiss call it: Bahhh-sull.

I decided that I needed to conquer my fear of the train right away. Show that train who's boss and who can't be defeated by a little bit of humiliation. We meant to buy tickets to Bern but were given tickets to Basel. This was probably a good thing. Bern is much further away and I was pretty tired. The train ride went much better this time and I'm nearly over my fear of trains--though tomorrow I'll have to pack up some things and take another long trip down to Adelboden and this time it will involve a bus as well.

We walked around Basel and went to the Natural History Museum. The museum was interesting but was essentially a building full of stuffed animals. Usually I like to take my time in museums and wander around and really get my money's worth. However, all the placards were in German and that significantly speeded up our visit. After the hall of taxidermy we stopped at a small park outside a cathedral and watched people playing bocce ball. If anyone could explain the rules of that game to me I'd be much olbiged. Near as I could tell they were taking as many turns as they felt like, some people took three turns while others only took one. When all the balls were thrown they'd pick them up immediately. I thought they should have counted score, or argued about placement or something. But not in Europe. Everything is so much classier here.

I am very sore, my legs ache and my arms are tender from all my luggage slinging yesterday. I've been doing surprisingly well with the Jet-Lag and am enjoying all the delicious Swiss Chocolate.

Trains, WorstDayEver

The Joys of Swiss Trains

I've heard many good things about Swiss trains. They're speedy, they're quiet, they're clean, they're Easy. This last one is the one I had a little problem with upon my arrival to Switzerland.

I'd been told that "Oh, the trains are easy, you'll figure it out, don't worry about it". So, in the Zuirch airport I had the upmost confidence in my ability to navigate the trains. Oh, words can barely explain how wrong I was.

I in line at the ticket window, hoping that the window clerk could help explain where I should catch the train and at what time. Unfortunately I was spirited away by a man in a bright yellow reflective jacket. He took me over to an automatic ticket machine, punched in my destination, took my money, handed me a few coins, an inexplicable square of paper then said something in German and walked away.

The ticket the man gave me said "Delemont, Olten-Basel" and below that was a string if incomprehensible numbers. No platform, no time, nothing. If I'd known then what I know now: I would have walked up to the large time schedule and found the track number and arrival time for the Olten-Basel train and had a straight connection. But no, I didn't realize what that big blue board with the rotating words and numbers meant so I went for the first escalator I saw (which also meant conquering my fear of riding the escalator with the luggage trolly--it's true, you CAN do it, and they WON'T fall on you or your neighbor. But it only works in Switzerland, don't try that elsewhere). I took the escalator down and started wandering around on the platforms.

By dumb luck, I stumbled upon a train that said "Biel-Bern". That sounded right to me--I remembered Laura saying she needed to catch a train to Biel. So I got on it. With my three bags, I was an embarrassing American. I was much to tired to care though. I was in a big rush to throw all my luggage on the train--up the 18 flights of stairs (okay, three small stairs but it might as well have been the steps to the top of the Washington Monument)-- because I've been conditioned to irregular American trains that will leave with your leg stuck in the door if you happen to be so unfortunate. Once I'd thrown my bags aboard and fallen into a seat I must have arranged my facial features just right to display my pathetic disorientation and a nice older couple offered to help me. I told them I was trying to get to Delemont and asked if I was on the right train. In not so many words and lots of hand-waving they said "oooh, I don't think so: but you can get off at the next stop". At least I was headed in the right direction.

At the next stop, Olten, the couple helped me to my next platform and were gone. When the next train came I was feeling a bit more like I may survive the journey--until I saw the stairs I had to summit. These were steeper and more narrow than before. I was still afraid of being left behind with one of my suitcases out the door so I hurried to get my things on the train. I had about 120 pounds of luggage (lotion! bike stuff! Laura's Stuff, I blame her) to hoist. I strapped my backpack on, flung myself and my small suitcase up the steps and then thought that it would be easy to swing my large bag up while standing on the second-to-top step. The bag was about half-way there when I lost my balance and toppled over. Yes. that's right, my backpack strapped on my feet flailing out the train door and my large bag smashing to the ground. I scrambled to unbuckle my backpack and stand. I put my head out the door and looked down, the people on the platform had horrified expressions and then began laughing. Worst. Day. Ever.

A nice passerby helped me get my large bag on to the train and I kicked my backpack along the floor until I found a seat to hide in. The Swiss are so nice and polite--not many of them stared at me for longer than a few seconds. I decided that if the train at my next stop (Basel) also had stairs that I would just quit and wait for someone to collect me.

Basel's train had no stairs and thus I live to tell this tale.

Hello Europe!

I'm in Frankfurt. I was hoping to spend very little time here, but thanks to Lufthansa's lateness, the two (TWO!) security check points, and a connection gate in hell-and-gone, I've missed my flight to Zurich. Great. And I had such a good first impression of the Lufthansa. They had real pillows, real blankets and real food. They fed us two meals.

They also delivered us late and couldn't be bothered to hold the flight for all the customers on the Portland - Frankfurt flight who needed that connection to Zurich. Not just me. Humph!

Frankfurt has a building that looks just like the space needle. Unfortunately I didn't get to see much of the city because a gaggle of old-folks-on-tour were all in the window seats saying annoying things. One of them also felt the need to latch on to the back of my chair and brace himself for a good portion of the flight. The effect was that I was nearly launched every time he released his old-man weight from it to totter about the cabin. Blood clots are serious business, but I get cranky when I don't get enough sleep.

It's 9:22 local time and I don't know which way is up. Do I count that flight as "last night" and right now "this morning"? Where am I? I don't speak the language, I hold no currency, I'm soft in the middle.

I hope Zurich is a more friendly airport. It is HOT in here.