Most boring post ever

Ahh, I left the mountain last night. I took the 9PM bus out of Adelboden and made it to Delemont by 12:18. Not terribly bad. It feels pretty good to be out in the real world. It's also nice to be in a place where the hills aren't nearly vertical.

During the two days I spent in Delemont right after my arrival, I was sure that I would die from all the hill walking I did. Then I got off the bus in Adelboden, looked up the mountain and said "Are you Kidding me? Seriously? I have to walk up that?" I definitely appreciate lower grade hills more now.

This morning we walked down to town. Delemont is not a really exciting place, but they're setting up a large carnival in the Old Town area. There's a house of horrors I'm dying to check out. It's called New York and has lots of bad interpretations of American things painted on it. My favorite is the baseball player wearing a football helmet. I will give a full report on that delightful amusement tomorrow.

We went to the grocery and bought some very swiss items like unsliced bread and chocolate. You can count on everything being at least twice as expensive here as it is in the States. For example, contact solution here costs 15 francs for the store brand. The good news is that everything is also twice as delicious--though I haven't tried the contact solution yet.

Here's a quick roundup of other things Swiss:

Light switches are buttons. I can't understand the road signs (I saw one today that said "Analog taping prohibited" near as I could tell). Trains are on time. There's no cheddar cheese. And postcards all cost at least one franc.

Cows

They brought the cows up this morning! In the mountains (here) they march the cows up the mountain in the spring following the snow line. We've got a few cows staying here at the chalet for the next two weeks until they march them even higher. Ben has been eyeing one for his supper, but I told him there just isn't room in the freezer.

The cows wear bells, I've been told that we won't get much sleep 'til they move on again.

Kitchen Disasters

There is a learning curve involved with quantity cooking. So far, I've made just about every mistake possible, but not the same one twice--though I haven't been here long enough to say that with much certainty. Yeah, it's been rough. I've made: salty chicken, runny shephards pie, and not enough rice to go around. Tonight is Lasagnae night, hopefully that'll go a bit easier.

I've also learned that the curry paste I use makes awful stains. I brought my dirty shirt in this morning, and I was going to scrub the stains out in the sink. The second I got the shirt wet--the stains turned from sort of a plesant yellow color to bright red. Blood red and spattery. Not a good way to make friends. Woah, luckily I found some bleach and all is well.

That's about how exciting my life is. I cook and then I hang out--last night I sat on the trampoline with some of the other staff 'till nearly 11. They told me they think Americans are stupid and lazy. Humm...hopefully I can show them other wise. I feel like an ambassador--I'm the only American on Senior Staff here at the Chalet.

Hamburg Iowa Update

Apparently I upset the Hamburg Iowa Public relations manger with my irreverent attitude. They left this comment:

Hamburg Iowa really does have more than a gentelman's club. And I hear that the
club is going to be shut down. The owner is up on charges for letting several
underage girls drink and dance there. But remember that your always innocent
until proven guilty. On mothers day on of the old buildings in town fell down.
Just a big hole there now. A new antique mall opening in July of 2008. Popcorn
day has parade, flee market. free popcorn, and sometimes rain.

I am grateful to learn what popcorn day is all about and definitely sorry to hear about the dramatic changes to the Hamburg skyline. I'm so lucky that I got to see the town in its original state.

I've done a bit of research on the Burg myself and have come up with these fun facts, hopefully the Hamburg Representitive will find them more suitable.

It seems that in Hamburg the population is experiencing slightly negative growth, how unfortunate. The census population in 2000 was around 1,200. A cozy little town I'm sure.

Also, the most common industry for males is Food service while health care is the most common industry for females. A town of cooks and nurses. At least that small community can feed and care for themselves.

51% of the population over the age of 15 is currently married, and 9.3% of them have at least a bachelors degree. 79% of them have graduated high school.

Hamburg is home to the Vogel Popcorn factory, which should explain the connection between all these facts, and Popcorn Day, if it is the major employer in town--well, now that the gentleman's club is closing anyway.

Well, that was fun. Hope everyone learned something.

And then the fog cleared.

The Chalet has been blanketed by very thick fog for the past few days. Until yesterday, when around sunset the clouds finally lifted and I saw the mountains for the first time. It's amazing that I was here for three days before I really got to see where I was. And it's Amazing. Take a look.

The Chalet has several buildings. This is the Staff Lodge. I don't live there yet, because there are still spring volunteers taking up space there, but as soon as they hit the road I'll move in there.

This is the Guest Lodge/Reception/Admin building. This is where I'm currently staying. My room is the one in the right hand corner on the 2nd floor. All the summer volunteers are staying in the attic. Like a big slumber party...every night.

I've been having lots of fun with the summer volunteers. After dinner is all cleaned up we usually spend a few hours playing. My second night we played sardines in the mist for several hours, and the next night was Chalet Rules Twister (which is a cut-throat game). I suspect this will change when the visitors show up and everyone is tired from touring around with kiddies all day.

This is the Main Chalet, where my kitchen is. It was built in 1932 and is pretty neat inside. All old wood and doors with iron latches, stuff like that. I've got a little office nook in the kitchen with my own window that I like to lean out of every once in a while. There is also a dorm type room in the attic. I imagine it's a happening place to be in the summer (if you're 12 years old and on the best trip Ever).

These are some of the Summer Volunteers. Working, or something. I don't know, it's my day off. And, because it's my day off, they're running the kitchen today. That's super nice because there's about 5 of them that are writing up my whole kitchen inventory. They're like an army of worker bees. Very efficient and friendly.

This is Kate. She's one of those Spring Volunteers and she's running the kitchen today. She's real neat and I'm sad that we don't overlap here more. I'm not sure why she needs a knife to make cookies though. Perhaps a spatula would be more appropriate for scraping a bowl?

Because it was my day off, I hiked into town. Here's the top of the hill near the Chalet. To get to Adelboden, you have to walk down into Oey, which is in a valley, and then back up the mountain into Adelboden. The vertical rise is about 1000 m on each side. The hike takes me about 35 minutes each way.

Down the hill...into the valley.

Cows with bells. In a few weeks they'll bring all the cows up the road to their summer pastures. It's a big festival. The cows get all dressed up in bows and impossibly big bells (like the size of basketballs). That should be exciting.

The river in the valley, and then up the next mountain to Adelboden.

Adelboden is impossibley cute and every building looks like the

Chalet. This is the visitors center.

I think nearly every town in Switzerland has a clock tower. This is Adelboden's church (I think). The bells are loud here.

And then I walked back to the Chalet. Hope you enjoyed my photo tour of Our Chalet and Adelboden...............