Holding pattern.

Work is easy lately. I helped Fixer dig a huge hole for four pipes the other day, and now we'll fill it up. We needed a better way to get the wood pellets into the storage bin for the pellet-burner (environmentally friendly Swiss heating system!), and the pipes are it. I am working on an inventory spreadsheet, and Swede, Brazil, and I cleaned the heck out of the laundry room yesterday.

I also cooked lunch for everyone yesterday. We had some sort of mystery fish in the freezer and I missed seafood, so I gave it a go. It has the same name in French and German, so it must be somewhat local. It wasn't in the German-English dictionary, and I've forgotten what the label said by now, but it started with a P. It was white. At any rate, I gave it a good ginger-soy marinade and fried it up, then served it alongside roasted carrots & potatoes and some garlic spinach. That was the closest I could come to what I might eat at home. It went over well. We've no chef again for a while, so we're all having a bit of fun in the kitchen. Finn's got some sort of rye conconction on the brain, Bowie made pizza with corn, Brazilian style, Sloan made a great mac & cheese, and Dutch made apfelmousse this afternoon for tea. I think it's going to be do-it-yourself omlette night now, though, after all that.

I'm a bit nervous about my phone interview tonight. I can't get to my online documents for some reason, so I don't know exactly what I put in my scholarship application. I'll just have to sound charming and winning and bright and hope for the best. It'd be nice to get a bit of money for school.

But that's nothing to do with being in Switzerland, so never mind. Dutch's music group had its first concert last night. I had some work to do, so I missed it, but Fixer and I met up with Dutch, Finn, and Swede in our favorite local pub, the Alpenrösli, afterward. I talked to Fixer's Swiss friend for a while, getting to know more about the area and what it's like to be Swiss.

I need to start planning my next few days off now. I think I'm going to go to Italy. I just found out that you need a reservation to see the Last Supper, so that's out. I still might try to catch a show in Milan, or I might just relax in Cinque Terre for a few days.

Travels. [unfinished]

I got up early Monday morning and caught the bus to Frutigen, then the train to Bern. I spend a lot of time on trains these days, and I keep forgetting to post one of my favorite sights in the train stations: the vending machines. You can get candy, chips, and soda, sure, but you can also purchase vitamins, lighters, condoms (center), smoothies, coffee, and cannabis tea (bottom right, orange containers).

Right, so I made it to Bern without any of the above items and headed straight for its colorful fountains. I think I took unneccesary pictures of most of them, but I liked this one in particular. It's the child eater, and it's ghastly. I then wandered along the cliffside, heading downhill. Bern was founded on the tip of a finger of land jutting into a hairpin bend in the Aare River, and the train station's right where the rest of the hand would connect. Heading toward the tip, you pass huge swathes of open land where succesive city walls used to be. The Bernese have torn them down and claimed the spaces for pedestrian squares. They've great green stone buildings everywhere, interrupted periodically with old towers and ornate edifaces of grey stone, like the theater off of Markplatz. Since it's famous, here's the clock tower. It was pretty neat to watch it chime, and I liked the zodiac and lunar clocks as well.

The main street down the city is lined with arcades, shops, and restaurants. I stopped by Albert Einstein's house, then admired the well-maintained cellers under each store. They used to be wine storage, back when the XXX was a huge city granary. The cathedral was nice, but nothing special. I'm getting spoiled on all the architecture and old churches. I did like all the terraces, though. Bern's finger of land is considerably higher than the nearby river, so it has great views and pretty terraced gardens. I skipped the smaller Kirsch and Rathous in favor of the bears. Bern's heraldic animal is the bear, so they've a super-touristy bear pen just across the river from the tip of town. The locals like their bears as well, but they're agitating for improved quarters for them. You can see why.

I walked back along the other side of the river for a while, enjoying the day. After crossing back into old Bern, I visited some more fountains and the remains of the last city wall. The prison tower is all right, but the Dutch tower has a better history: soldiers returning from WWI had picked smoking up from the Dutch, but they weren't allowed to do it in the formerly wooden Swiss capitol city. They hid in the tower to feed their habit and miraculously never burnt it down.

I also checked out the parliament, where a group was protesting the Turkish government. Odd, for a non-EU country, but perhaps I missed the point. The parliament abuts a large square, under which the Swiss government keeps its gold. It was tough to imagine that I could be brushing past muckitymucks and standing on billions of dollars. Bern is a very laid-back capitol. I wanted to jump in the river for a float downstream, like the Bernese do all summer, but they informed me that it wasn't warm enough yet. I ate my lunch by statures of bears and hopped back on the train to head for somewhere more exciting.

---

I headed to Kerzers very briefly, mostly just to see the countryside out the train windows. I was up in the northwest of Switzerland, just south of the Jura mountain range. This is where Neuchatel is, of the cream cheese, and it is Switzerland's best farmland. They have incredibly rich, dark soil here, and the touristy thing to do is rent a bike and either go on a "vegetable ride" through the fields or cycle up to the summit of Mont Vully to see the vineyards and look out over the farms. I wanted to see all I could, though, so I skipped the bike rides and admired the land from another train's windows.

Murten is right on the border with French-Switzerland, so about a quarter of its citizens call it Morat instead. They've got a full city wall there, available for a rampart stoll for any aspiring guardsman.

More new staff.

It's getting exciting around here. Our workdays are a bit slow, but the company is fabulous. Pax kept us laughing during his four days here, and now we've a few new people to meet.

Swede is witty and thoughtful, and I spend a great deal of time with her these days. She's been here twice already and is currently serving as an assistant everything as we prepare for the summer season. She's great to talk to and has been stellar at pictionary. Dutch and I won two rounds against Pax and Finn, but Swede and Finn together beat both the teams of me & Fixer and Pax & Dutch. I'm enjoying all of the Scandinavians I meet. I'll have to head up there some day and see what drives them.

Fixer is new as well. He worked in the next valley over for years and has come here to get us back in working order. He's good with wood, computers, engineering of all sorts, and practical solutions. He's also game for a night out whenever and brilliant at charades. We figure he picked the latter talent up when he first moved to Switzerland. He speaks near-fluent Swiss-German now, which is a kick to listen to. I can't pick up the accent, though I've learned a few Swiss words.

My consistant favorite part here is the international flavor, even over the chocolate, hiking, skiing, and views. We talk about language all the time, and I love hearing foreign expressions and phrases. I love comparing which words we use for which items and trying to figure out how they're related to other languages.

Swede says I'm good at pronouncing her language and should study Swedish. Ha. I can currently say "yes," "no," "ice cream," "cheers," and "it's in the lake" in Swedish. (We played Go Fish after alearning the Finnish and Swedish versions of another card game one night.) I will perhaps work on counting next, but only if it's nothing like counting in Finnish. I'm having a terrible time with Dutch due to its similarity to German. My Dutch is still limited to "I love you."

Also, the snow is melting. I need not say it, but the hills are now alive.

New staff.

Our new head manager, Bristol, started work today. I took her to Engstligen yesterday, since we both had a free day and I felt she should get some skiing in before the season ends. She's lived in CH before, in a nearby valley, but she's unfamiliar with some of our pistes. She was telemarking and she said she was still learning, so I took Sydney's snowboard up. We got a late start on purpose, since it's cheaper later and we figured we might get tired early. We decided to start on an easy run, but they had closed it for grooming after the morning's snowfall. It was a perfect day: fresh snow right before we got there, then sunshine all afternoon. We had to start on an ungroomed red run, but at least it made for a lot of laughter. We practiced a bit in the late morning, then hit the harder runs after lunch. We stopped to talk a bit too much, but I think Bristol was tired from not having skied in a while. It was great to get to know her, too. She told me about the movie nights they hold up the valley, where you can cycle there in the afternoon, then flop down on the lakeside beach facing the screen & speakers floating in the water. I'll have to give that a shot at some point. I also need to remember to go to Dutch's concert--she just joined a music group in town, and I've been meaning to go to a yodeling night or concert in town for a while now. Oh, and don't worry, I did not attempt this jump.

We also got a new chef today. Pax is temporary as well, and will only stay for a few days. He's a professional and will help us get our act together until we get our real chef in June. It's amusing when we go to town, because "chef" means "boss" in Swiss-German, so we can't tell if the Adelbodners are asking about Bristol or Pax. We're a major source of gossip for the town lately, since we've been having so many staffing changes and what we do has an impact on their businesses.

I've just been doing spring cleaning all day, which isn't so bad. We put up the trampoline for summer, and we'll clean out the sheds, pitch the tents to check for missing pieces, and prepare for a lot of new staff in a couple of weeks. I cleaned the staff house top to bottom today, so we'll be all set as long as we don't eat, shower, or breathe for a fortnight.

In which I stuff and roast myself.

Finn, Canuk, and I hit the Engstligen pistes again yesterday. Finn went home early, but Canuk and I stayed through lunch. It was bright and sunny, and we did realize that we’d forgotten our sun screen, but we kept skiing. We had a great time flying down all the runs and slicing through old tracks. We took videos all day—I have discovered that I do not have a talent for filming and skiing simultaneously.

We went snowtubing before Canuk went back home to pack up. My first run down was extremely fast, and I spun in rapid circles.
I laughed till it hurt. My second run wasn’t as great, but Canuk’s was, and it was a fitting end to a wonderful ski season for her. I stayed on to get my money’s worth from my day pass, getting home after about six hours out there.


I could feel the burn developing on the bus ride home, but I didn’t get the chance to ice it till I got back to the Chalet. Finn and company had put up the trampoline in my absence, and everyone was so worn out from working and bouncing that they were laying about in the sunshine. I covered up and joined them, as I was tired from skiing all day and then carrying my gear up the hill. The Guild gave us a parting gift, and we spent it by going out to dinner together. Finn, SAussie, Canuk, Sloan, Bowie, Brazil, Dutch, and I headed into town and ordered Swiss food. I finally got my Rösti, complete with Alpkäse and Spiegelei, but no Speck (a cake of hashbrowns with melted local cheese and a fried egg on top, ordered without bacon). It was utterly delicious. I had a couple deciliters of Fendant with it, then ice cream for dessert. I tried the pear and the Ovomalt flavors, and they came in a huge sundae bowl with sliced strawberry, melon, a fig, and a cookie. We had money left over, so we went for coffees a few doors down. We capped the night off with a good bounce as soon as we got home.

I was all pink from the neck up by the time we got inside again, and Canuk had developed a blatant goggle and helmet burn. I’m hoping lotion will help keep it from hurting. It doesn’t hurt yet, though it’s blistering a tiny bit. Dutch got a similar burn when out walking on the Silleren Schneewanderweg last week, and she recovered well, so I have hope. I didn’t go out again today, though I really wanted to. Instead, I stayed in and tried to get some work done. Our internet’s out again, though, so I could only do so much. I had asked the new center manager if she’d go skiing with me this afternoon, but we lingered at lunch and missed our bus. Instead, I did a bit of the Staff Challenge and watched a video with the other junior staff members about this place in the early 1930s. Those women out hiking and skiing in their thick skirts impressed me with their hardiness.

I was sad to have missed out on my last chance on the pistes today, since I don’t have another day off until after Engstligen closes, but I ended up getting tomorrow off as well. I pointed out that I had one fewer day off in May than the other junior staff members, so Dutch said I might as well take one of the next few days. We don’t have guests for another few days anyway, and I was hoping to get one last day on the slopes. I’ll slather on loads of sun screen and hope for a more overcast day.

Chocolate + natural splendor = CH.

I’d been looking forward to today all week. It was Interlaken day, which meant natural splendor, friendships, and all the Handgemacht Schweizer Schokolade we could eat. We took the Guild to Schuh Chocolatier immediately. While the first half went in with Finn and Brazil, the other half treated SAussie, Canuk, and me to coffee & tea for being patient. We admired the fancy marble WC and drooled in the shop while we waited. They have truffles with cream, nougat, cherry, pistachio, vanilla, chocolate mousse, lime-orange, caramel, mocha, marzipan, almond, hazelnut, and pineapple crème, as well as whole almonds, hazelnuts, chocolate nibs, and walnuts, plus those with Baileys, vodka, kirsch liquor, grappa, champagne, Grand Marnier, Cointreau, and latte macchiato inside. These mostly came in Dunkel and Milch, but there were a few Weiss chocolates. My favorite through the glass was the Swiss Töpfli, which contained praline chocolate and waffle in traditional Swiss fashion, and had edelweiss and Swiss flags patterned on top. The official Schuh truffle was 70% Granadan cacao solids. They also had pavé, which were cubes covered in cacao powder and looked to be the melt-in-your-mouth sort. These truffles all looked extremely fancy, but they were priced beyond my range, even for chocolate. Besides, our chocolate show was coming right up....

We got a video narration by one of the chocolatiers, in addition to the explanation on the film itself. She went through the chocolate-making process and showed us the secret of how the Swiss get their chocolate so smooth. The chocolatier then made four truffles in front of us, as well as a bunch of pavé. She finished up by molding a tri-colored chocolate cow, showing us how to paint the mold and how to get the walls and base the proper thickness. Finally, she turned us loose to look at the giant chocolate sculptures in the showroom, ask questions, and eat all the chocolate discs we could from three-tiered displays. They had the truffles she made available for snacking, but I let the Guilders try those and filled up on dark, milk, and white discs, plus the trays of pavé and a few nibs. The milk chocolate was a bit sweet for me, so I mostly ate the dark bits. SAussie said Canuk and I were banned from the chocolate shop during the next trip for eating so much, but I think she’ll relent.

Our next stop was Lauterbrunnen Valley. Inside one of the cliff faces is Trümmelbach falls, the sole escape for the melting snow from the Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau. The twelve or so falls run through caves in the Cliffside outside Lauterbrunnen, which is a small town deep in a sheer valley. The ride through the valley let us see the layers of rock in the cliffs—they were shockingly straight lines, then suddenly pitched and whorled over themselves. Many smaller waterfalls came down the cliffs all along the valley, setting us up for Trümmelbachfalle. We got a lift up a steep funicular inside the cliff, then climbed up through a series of caves. There’s a bit of light coming through the top of the caves, but they’ve lit up some of the falls as well. I wish I could post a video of all of them, top to bottom, but the separate pieces will have to do. It was incredible. These falls drain about 20,000 liters per second through the cliff, and the falls are all thin and swift.

We spent the afternoon strolling through Interlaken. The town itself isn’t very exciting, apart from the chocolatier, but the walk along the Aare river was pleasant and we could watch the paragliders landing in Höhematte (the high meadow). This park used to be the monastery farmland, but now it’s a calm public space. They’re starting to set up for the Euro Cup soccer tournament that will consume Switzerland and Austria for May and June, but that won’t pick up for a while, apart from the fussball merchandise in all the shops. I wanted to swing through Unterseen, the old town, but the others wanted ice creams instead. I’ll be back in Interlaken in May, so I can explore more and go on a hike at that point. There are also a few castles on Lakes Thun and Brienz that I’d like to visit.

We just got back from a closing night campfire with all staff and all the Guilders. They sang while we sipped hot cider and whispered. Our cooks leave us the day after tomorrow, to be replaced by a temporary fellow from London, so we gave them their presents during the campfire. The Guilders handed us a little packet as a reward for taking such good care of them. Word is it’s quite a bit of money, enough for us all to go out together.

Finn, Dutch, Canuk, and I stayed on a bit, circling around the embers. Canuk and I sang each other’s national anthems for the curious Europeans, and they sang us theirs. The Dutch one’s hilarious. It was written as a joke by the Spanish, or something like that, and they just kept it as an anthem, all nineteen verses. We compared songs, but the only ones we really had in common were various versions of Frère Jacques and the Do Re Mi song from the Sound of Music. They’ve both been translated into all sorts of languages. We all knew a fair number of English songs, too, but we gave up after a bit and headed for the kitchen. Leftover fondue, you know.

Fondue, funding, and storytelling.

Work was easy today. I finished up an orienteering project I’d been working on for weeks, then did a bit of tidying. The Guild spent the day in Adelboden, on that sleigh ride I arranged, or wandering the hills around here. A few went on the hike out to Bonderfalle, but reported back that it was still snowy enough deep in the crevice of that valley that they couldn’t safely make it to the foot of the falls. Some Guilders pitched in on our work, and others told us stories about their adventures and marveled aloud that we should be able to travel on our own at such a tender age.

Brazil and I held a Swiss Night for evening program. We had a few volunteers act out the story of Wilhelm Tell. They did a splendid job, bringing the whole room to laughter. I missed half of it while melting up a batch of rich chocolate fondue, but I could still hear the goings-on through the hatch. We split them into nine teams for the quiz on Switzerland. Staff members had been slipping answers into their spiels on the bus all week, and the Guild did well. We awarded them fondue with cookies, apples, and bananas. I had planned for ten groups and Brazil had created nine, so we had our own plate of treats for dipping into the leftover sauce. At the end of the night, they presented Sydney with a check. The Guild raises money for one of the four centers each year, then visits it and donates the funds. We’re going to use ours as a scholarship to help pay for flights for staff members from developing countries, so that they, too, can work here.