A few musings from the road. In reverse order.
I’m currently on the train traveling from Zurich to Munich where I will meet up with Sjoerd, Andries and Shane for our Oktoberfest sojourn.
My last night in Switzerland was a good one. Easy-going and relaxing. It was misty and a bit foggy but not wet. I walked into the old part of the city which is choc-full of charm. Cobblestone streets and old pubs and restaurants beside modern retail stores. The history and stories of these streets and centuries old buildings is almost palpable.
The street-lamps reflected off the slick sheen of the cobbles. Couples walked arm-in-arm and chit-chatted. We mostly all carried our umbrellas but had not really needed them.
I had breakfast at 6:30 after my TOOM call but had not eaten since. I went on a long walk (~20K+ steps) to explore a bit and was now on the prowl for a martini and a meal.
I watched the boats going down the river for a good long while and dreamed of sailing. I watched the trains passing by. I could see the people clearly and wondered about their stories. Were they going home? To dinner with friends? Shopping? We’re all going somewhere.
I had a beer at a little pub with a view of the river but then moved along and happened on Simon’s Steakhouse. Perfecto!
I had a lovely dinner. Tomato salad with red onions, basil, olive oil and balsamic. Basic but so right. Then a steak with chimichurri and sautéed mushrooms. And, because getting a martini in Munich during Oktoberfest might prove challenging, I had one here. It was good. Belvedere vodka, Lillet rinse and a spritz of lemon and a twist.
I sat next to a very nice American couple at the bar. We had a good chat. They were kind hearted people. We talked about the embarrassment of current American politics. We are all striving to rationalize and understand. We also talked about dogs and how we missed our little friends when on travel. Their dog is 15 1/2 so they are carrying that weight. That knowing.
Later, after dinner, I stopped at a cigar bar I had noticed. It was a bit of a dive — had a rough feel to it. We were alongside the river and it had that vibe of a port-town pub, where sailors came and drank furiously and then left, sometimes hurried along by a bouncer.
I bought a cigar and a double Jameson and sat at a table next to four guys and a woman. I was eavesdropping a little and my ears perked up when one of the guys, the one with the woman, mentioned they’d brought their 63 Impala over from United States when they moved to Rome in the 70’s. My first car was a 63 impala. I bought it for 100 bucks and sold it for 100 bucks two years later. We laughed about that — driving a boat on wheels.
I’m pretty sure the guys were retired spies.They were all in their mid to late 60’s. They talked of missions and had some odd vernacular that seemed a bit guarded. One guy was talking about East Berlin and how he got into some trouble and ‘for the first time realized this was not a game.’
It was a good night. A night that makes you feel alive and pretty okay about it. I’m still sore from the big hike to Tanzbodeli, but that also contributes to the feeling of contentment. Like my bread was earned, and I got to see a small patch of the earth that not a lot of people get to see.
From Monday
Big hike today. Almost more than I had in me. But I am nothing if not stubborn. Somewhere around 4,400 feet of vertical over 16 miles. I think the average grade for most of the climb was near 10% or so. At the top, the last 500 or 600 yards, the grade is close to 20%. It was foggy and misty so the rocks and trail were slippery as ice, so scrambling those last yards felt pretty dangerous. If I slipped and fell, it was likely I would not stop rolling until I hit a tree or a cow — and I was way above the tree line.
It felt dicey enough that I seriously considered turning back, even after all that hard work and I was so close to the top. Stubborn.
But I finally scrambled over the last boulder and walked onto the plateau at the top. I could see only 20 yards or so around me. Nothing of the amazing peaks in a 360 degree radius were visible. Only fog. I did not meet one other person from the time I left Gimmewald and until I returned there. Everyone else was smart enough to stay in lower elevations or do some day drinking.
I made a few hiking mistakes.
First. I had forgotten to completely charge my phone. So by the time I neared the top in complete fog and on a very steep, very wet trail, I may not have been able to call for help if I broke a leg or was seriously injured. And if I was badly injured, there would be no helicopter rescue due to the whiteout. It would have been just me and the cows for the rest of the day and the night.
Second, I had only a slight breakfast — a small bit of yogurt and a croissant and had brought no other nutrition. I did remember water but if I were seriously delayed some calories would have been helpful. Brittany packed me nutrition bars but I forgot to put them in my day pack.
Third – I had not told anyone where I was heading or which route I was taking. Rookie mistake.
Last – I had forgotten my lucky hiking scarf. True, not technically a safety issue, but I do like to hike with my scarf and dammit it looks good. So that was disappointing.
I was very tired when I got back but an hour in the Finnish spa and then a massage, followed by a cold beer and hot dinner — and all was right with the world.
Sleep came easily.
Brittany took Marti to the dog park the other day and a car pulled up that is same as my car. Brittany said Marti ran to the fence and watched the car with tail wagging, until some strange lady got out, and Marti went back to Brittany with a sad look.
So that is just about enough to spoil a European vacation.
From The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz – 1953
The inhabitant of Central or Eastern Europe is incapable of understanding delays, absurd decisions, political campaigns, mutual recriminations, public opinion polls, and demagoguery, which he considers to be characteristic of the west. But at the same time, these encumbrances assure the private citizen a certain security. To seize a man on the street and deport him to a concentration camp is obviously an excellent means of dealing with an individual who displeases the administration; but such means are difficult to establish in countries where the only criminal is the man who has committed an act clearly defined as punishable in a specific paragraph of the law. Nazi and Communist criminal codes are alike in that they efface the frontier between penal and non-penal deeds–the first, by defining criminal as any act directed against the interests of the German nation; the second, as any act directed against the interests of the dictatorship of the proletariat. What the man from the East calls the “lifeless formalism of the bourgeoisie” does, on the other hand, afford some guarantee that the father of a family will return home for supper instead of taking a trip to a region where polar bears thrive but human beings do not.
I am staying at the Eiger Guesthouse in Mürren which is fine. I am solo on this trip and staying on budget. But I have an amazing private room with a view of Eiger and Jungfrau that neither words nor iPhone can capture with any integrity.
Mürren is sorta like a fairy tale village. Nothing but historical old buildings framed up against one of the most amazing Mountain views anywhere in the world. I took a spin around town. Gaped and gawked, had a beer and a coffee and a cigar and generally continued to find my peace.
I had an aperitif at the hotel next door which is also very beautiful.
When I get back to the hotel for my 7:00 dinner reservation, the lady that seemed to be in charge was on the phone. And she was hopping. It was busy. Someone was apparently calling about a pizza to go and she curtly said ‘tonight it is 8 francs more because we are busy.’ Remarkably, that did not end the conversation. She rattled off some pizza topping options and took an order and hung up.
I was living in Europe when George Bush was first elected. At that time, Europeans generally seemed to think Americans had gone a little crazy to elect a wanna-be cowboy into the White House. The general sentiment was that he seems a bit dim but maybe also a bit charming in a hokey way.
When he was re-elected, they were less forgiving. The two wars he kick-started were not popular. Also the extraordinary rendition, torture (remember Abu Ghraib), generally casual view of human rights, and a little icing on the cake — total meltdown of our financial institutions and economic collapse due to his immature view of governance and distracting habit of clearing brush on his ranch.
This was the first time I personally noticed Europeans, who mostly admired (and sometimes revered) the United States in the post WWII era, start to have a more reflective evaluation of Americans and the American government. The luster had worn off. We were still remembered fondly for our WWII efforts, but there was a growing consensus that maybe we had gotten a little too big for our britches. That our actions on the world stage were turning darker and perhaps we were even doing more bad than good.
GWB I seemed goofy but mostly harmless. GWB II was a menace and Cheney downright mean and ugly. The worm had turned and our motives, actions, and ability to elect leaders was suddenly under scrutiny.
Obama restored some sanity and global confidence in America. We still had McConnell and a host of other ridiculous villains in Congress, but Obama was strong enough to keep most of their vicious intentions out of policy.
From a European perspective, Trump I was a significant escalation from GWB II. ‘What the fuck were you Yanks thinking’ I would be asked. ‘I don’t know‘, I apologetically replied. ‘I had no idea that somewhere between 45% – 51% of my countrymen and women were either dumb, mean-spirited, or greedy.‘
Trump II has no parallel. Europeans are as dumbfounded as the non-MAGA’s (and most of the rest of the world).
A phrase that developed in Eastern Europe during the Cold War went ‘It’s better to deal with an intelligent devil than a good-natured idiot.’
Intelligence is predictable. Trump is predictable only in the sense that he will take the most extreme and senseless position possible.
By example, Richard Nixon was an intelligent devil. George Bush was a good-natured idiot. He made more bad decisions than good, but those decisions were generally predictable based upon his party and his cabinet.
Trump has no parallel in modern American Presidential history. He is a savage, ignorant, madman that far exceeds any other president in his commitment to being 100% wrong about everything, all the time.
From Saturday
Had a lovely day in Geneva. The weather was sunny and warm and it is a beautiful city. After a long walk, I went back to the hotel and showered and wandered back downtown and sat at a nice outdoor cafe and had a coffee and read my book for a couple of hours. Coffee turned into a couple of beers and then a very satisfying dinner of calamari and pasta with mushrooms in a Dijon mustard cream sauce. Then espresso, whisky and a cigar. 3 ladies and 2 men sat next to me and we got chit-chatting and pretty soon I was absorbed into their group. Only a couple of them had good English but we got along as humans do. We then left the restaurant and were supposed to go to a disco, apparently, I didn’t realize that was still a thing. But we stopped instead at a lovely Spanish cafe with outdoor tables where they saw some other friends and we sat there until around 1:30 am or so. I Ubered back to the hotel and crashed pretty hard.
Now on the train from Geneva > Bern > Interlaken Ost > Lauterbrunnen > Grutschalp > Murren. Several trains, a cable car and some hoofing the last 1/2 mile as cars are not allowed in Murren. The countryside started beautiful and turned stunning as we entered the mountains.
The weather has cruelly turned against me at the worst possible time. I was planning long hikes on Monday and Tuesday, but the forecast is rain and rain and cold rain.
But I will adapt. What are the other choices again?
We switched to small gauge rails for the final miles into Lauterbrunnen and as we gained elevation. The train had a special track system to help get up the hills. The windows were open on the trains which was magnificent.
We went by a school and a lone kid was on the soccer field practicing his approaches and shots at goal. He was fat. Pretty fat and pretty slow. But he was out there working on his game so good for him.
Humbly Submitted
Robert Myres – Flanker, Portneuf Valley Rugby Football Club (ret.)
The Martini Tales 