Swiss Chronicles - 21 May 2001

I am in Benecassim now, but here's an email I composed in Switzerland but was unable to send. Hope you enjoy it; the installment from Spain is coming tomorrow or the next day! I'm composing this on a computer that belongs to my gracious hosts (friends of the family) at Adams Alpine Eden in Kandersteg, Switzerland. I may have already overused my computer welcome, so I'm going to keep this brief. Also, I have to get up tomorrow morning at 6:45 to catch my train to Barcelona. First things first: The reason I may have overused my computer welcome is that they have let me upload 64MB of pictures from my digital camera. I haven't organized them very well yet. And they are quite huge, so you may wish to wait until I implement a dynamic scaling thingy when I get back to LA. But if you want to look at the thumbnails (and click for larger images at your own risk) then point your browser to this URL: http://www.elem.com/~joe/europe-2001/ Here in Kandersteg, I have done a lot of outdoor activities: hiking to the (phonetically) Uhshenental and the Ooshenental, biking to the Gasterntal, and rock climbing in the Ooshenental. Have a look at the pictures to get the real story. I met a couple speaking English in the local bar who are traveling between final exams and graduation from Yale. And I've spent lots of time chatting and eating with my wonderful hosts, Bill and Pam. Just one quick vignette from my bike ride today: The Swiss are serious about their military. I guess that explains the great knives and watches. Every man between the ages of 20 (or so) and 40 (or so) spends at least a week serving in the military. So in order to keep them busy, there are lots of training exercices. Today I rented a bicycle at the train station and headed for the Gasterntal -- a highland alp at the south end of the valley that is home to Kandersteg. The road is cut into a ledge and, in two places, goes through rather long tunnels in the ledge and is very narrow. So traffic is restricted to going uphill between 30 after the hour and fifty after the hour and downhill between the hour and twenty after. So I hustled to the entrance to make it there in time for the 11:30 uphill opening. I got there just in time and cycled so earnestly to make the top before the turnaround time that I almost tossed my mueslix. Of course my caution was extreme as usual; I made it up in just eight minutes. At the top, the road is blocked by a red and white striped piece of tape and a guy in an Army jeep. He babbles something at me in the local German dialect and I say, you guessed it, "Ich spreche kien Deutsch." He claims not to speak English, but he gets the idea across that I should wait five minutes before proceeding. I am beginning to wonder why he's making this strange request when a barrage of rifle fire breaks out to the South. OK, I figure I'll wait here. Finally, after about five minutes, it's punctuated by a thundering artillery (?) explosion and he says I can go ahead but please cycle quickly. As I go up, I pass a higher checkpoint and decide to try French on these guys. Much better. I am so excited to be able to use this! Anyway, I cycled to the end of the valley through intermittent showers and through a giant, almost melted avalanche that has flattened and denuded about 100 acres of trees near the road. At the end, I ate the "sammies" (sandwiches to us Amurricans) Pam insisted I take with me in a damp pine-scented forest and read my book for a bit, miles away from any other human, I think. I hope you are all well and enjoying where you are as much as I am enjoying where I am.

-Joe

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