Custard in Clockland |
It's a Unique Feeling |
Perfect Eggs |
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Next morning I got a taste of things to come with an introduction to Swiss cheese and bread. Very much to my liking, I was in for seconds but I couldn't stay sitting for long. The view from the window was enough to get me dressed and outside to explore the cobbled streets, the brightly painted shutters on rows of pastel coloured houses, with flowers growing in all the windows or out on the small balconies. The trams (that are never late), the expensive shopping streets, cathedrals that look older than Jesus himself all featuring very large clocks, and the old part of town where all the buildings join together in a continuous collage of bright, fresh pastel. The buildings look as though they were built without a string-line or a level and as if they were all pushed together into a space slightly too small for them to fit. They lean on one another with some being squeezed in and others being pushed out. The mixture of residential and commercial occupation gives a genial atmosphere to your shopping and dinning experiences.
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I was only an hour late for my first appointment to meet the boss, which by Swiss standards is equivalent to being a week late in any other country. Fortunately he is from the Italian part of Switzerland where they are a little more relaxed so this was probably only like being two days late. After this I got my first taste of fine wine and food from a Swiss restaurant for lunch and, to Claudia's disappointment, the boss informed me I'll be going on an 'all expenses paid' holiday to the Italian part of Switzerland for the next two months. Fortunately I get to come home in the weekends. He topped off our pleasant wee introduction by giving me more than my first months salary to go and buy a one year free pass for every train, bus, boat, tram and everything else that moves in Switzerland. |
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The following day was a scenic detour through Italy that took us over a very high and very snowy mountain pass that must be the most dramatic achievement of road engineering I've ever seen. And it is kept open all but just a few days per year! We were on our way to the southern part of Switzerland where I drank some wine with lunch before attending a meeting held in two or maybe three different languages, none of which I understood. I will assume they were talking about roads, as this is the field in which I am working, once again. This time I'm responsible for hurtling around the countryside with 3.5 tonnes of fat Chevy van loaded with every kind of sensor, gyroscope, accelerometer, video camera, monitor and computers galore that you could imagine, for measuring every little crack and wobble in every road in the region. I get to see some beautiful scenery and small ancient villages that look like they've been perched in the hills since the Swiss started making clocks. I can tell this because there is inevitably a clock featuring prominently on every church in every little village at the end of every mountain road. The Swiss are apparently quite religious, as is evidenced by the numerous churches and small religious shrines, sometimes just in the middle of the hills not even near a village. So after playing on the roads for a couple of months I'll get to play on a computer for a while longer trying to sort out the screeds of data collected into some form of presentable report, probably in a language I don't understand. | ||
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Now, Monday morning, I'm heading back down south to start working with the French Rasta man again who drinks wine, not water, if he bothers drinking at all. I'm passing very kayakable looking rivers on a train that will arrive on-the-minute after a three hour trip through the alps, quite a contrast to India. And to achieve this the Swiss have made more holes in their mountains than they make in their cheese. The holes are also made for roads, army shelters, stores and just about any other reason you could possibly want to make a hole for. The nation is prepared for any and every possible disaster which includes a designated space in a nuclear fallout shelter for every Swiss citizen, not to mention the couple of years army training all the blokes get. A very interesting country! The people do seem polite and reserved, which is their stereotype I suppose, but they are friendly and I have been made to feel welcome in many different ways. If it is the country that make a people, well ...for me, it is those people that make the country. From Custard in Clockland.
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Here in Switzerland I have noticed the strengthening of some old addictions and the development of some new ones. My addiction to coffee, if it wasn't already strong enough, has now tripled due to an abundance of very good coffee and an appropriately matching culture of very good coffee drinkers. There is even a machine at work that grinds up fresh beans every time you want a drink. My weekly dose of exceptionally fine cheeses and chocolate has been increasing steadily and I never want to eat a slice of square white New Zealand bread again. My passion for banana (and now pear) pancakes, and plastic boats remains fairly constant although it was nice to receive a little booster over the three day weekend with a big pancake followed by a sojourn to the Engiadin Valley and the Inn river. |
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Now despite how efficient the Swiss claim to be, and in fact demonstrate to be in most cases, I have observed an exception at the doorways to public transport facilities. Here the preferred approach is for the masses to distribute themselves evenly along the platform, which ensures that when the carriage pulls up, the waiting passengers can quickly form barricades of equal resistance at every possible exit. Meanwhile on the approaching carriage, at precisely three minutes before the scheduled stop (I've timed this several times to amuse myself), people have begun their approach to the exit; even the old and frail will run the swaying and tossing gauntlet in order to get their fix of door watching. I find the most hilarious thing to be when they stand for three minutes watching the door on the opposite side from the platform which consequently stays closed on arrival. So these congregations in and outside of the doors mean that when the doors finally open there is a sort of blank faced stand-off until either common sense or habit dictates that the inside people should be allowed to get out first. Unless you happen to be holding something large and cumbersome, like a kayak, in which case a panic ensues and all the waiting passengers just barge in, presumably in the fear that you will somehow get stuck and block the door completely. However, under usual circumstances, a narrow opening ensures that all exiting passengers can be subjected to a thorough inspection before the original barricade once again forms a loose scrum to attempt boarding. |
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My stint working in Tessin (the Italian part in the south) finished about a month ago with an extra few kilo's to show for all the fine restaurant dinning and for being so far away from my bike. Situation now rectified and, in fact, the last two nights bike riding, I think, have been my own subconscious way of trying to make up for lost time. A total four hours of 'balls out' riding with no good excuse other than 'I like it'. Just a pity the trip home from work isn't very interesting to bike 'else I would replace the one hour foot/train journey with a bike ride. |
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To Austria this weekend for a kayak fest followed by a week off work to go play in Chamonix (France).....and the summer continues. |
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Love From Custard.
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PERFECT EGGS |
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August 2001 |
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Sitting here alone eating New Zealand mussels (sand included) lightly fried in butter with fresh garlic, drinking beer and listening to Alice in Chains, it's not that I feel like I need to escape the Swiss life, just sometimes it's nice to take a break and remind myself I 'm a Kiwi. |
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Ah yes the Swiss life; tried a Swiss BBQ the other night, walked up into the forest behind our house and I built a fire (as nominated expert) while Claudia laid the spread. Very similar to a kiwi BBQ really but a little more cheese and chocolate involved and it is legal here, albeit expensive, to buy trout from the supermarket; which we (for better or worse) BBQed. We also pushed bits of dark chocolate into ripe bananas, wrapped them in foil and roasted them. Wonderful, right up there with the ash blackened potatoes. |
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I'm trying to stir the erogenous zones of my imagination with the scrawling of my own literature. I want to write but I do get a little bored writing just about my weekends or myself. But when I take a different scope I only seem to struggle to inaugurate any creative activity within my imagination. Got a wasp sting on my wrist yesterday while riding the Vespa to rock climbing. Nasty little creatures but I guess they have a reasonable excuse to be in this part of the world (contrary to NZ) and to be fair I was probably going a lot faster than it was when we collided. |
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France is incredible. I have never been insulted and abused so much by people I am actually giving money to let alone people I am not. The most unhappy and unhelpful waitresses in the world. The supermarket check-out lady even tried to steal our cheese after we paid for it and then tried to call me a liar whilst I was showing an irrefutable receipt. Fortunately her entire monologue of abuse was blurted out in a rapid torrent of French so I understood very little except that she was fairly stupid. Not wanting to get too cynical too soon though, I should say the stupendous level of France's finely cultured disdain for foreigners is really an exhibition to be awed by. So ignoring then also the bakery people who squash all crosoints sold to foreigners into the bottom of your bag, Chamonix is quite a wonderful place. We had a week of wine, walking around Mont. Blanc, cheese, wine, mountain biking, wine, excellent rock climbing, and super food, ...and ...wine. Full credit to the French for their cheese and bread. The cheese (if not stolen) is as good as the Swiss stuff just not as many holes in it and some of the bread (if not squashed) is even better with big juicy olives and herbs and yummy stuff everywhere. Snails I don't really rate though, I just felt sorry for the poor little buggers; and I didn't even think about eating frogs. |
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Sam, I met on a river in Nepal, and as an eight year British Army veteran he provided some interesting insights to navigation in the French Alps. Although not perfect, despite (or in spite of) his new precision wrist altimeter, Sam's navigation did supply us with a good bit of adventure. A mere two hundred metres extra altitude and we were treated to a scree run down wet rotten slab rock through drifting cloud white-outs above treacherous bluffs over streams and snow to the best campsite in the world. Not completely out of sight of the small human dots traipsing the main trail like ants, but we felt as remote from civilisation as we could be. On our own little island of beauty nestled high in the head of the valley with a superb view to the White Mountain. Two small cosy tents supplied by Sam's sponsors kept us safe from cold fingers feeling their way down from the high bluffs around us. |
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Claudia, who I also met on a river in Nepal, and Beatrice, who Sam met somewhere else, provided a perfect compliment for this adventure and also provided perfect eggs for breakfast at 2300m altitude. Quite a treat and quite a feat considering their stumbling, falling and crashing travels in our packs the day before. |
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With our short-cut turned long, the second days walking was big which subsequently commanded a brief taxi ride from trails end to campsite, and that concluded two days of super scenery and a brilliant wee adventure. We even saw two snails shagging on a rock, which really was as fascinating as David Attenbourogh's finest television hour. You wouldn't imagine how passionate and perfect the love making of two large snails could be. They must be masters of, and have been the inspiration for, many Tantric practices. We didn't even get a photo but I guess that would have been rude anyway. Made me feel all the worse for eating a few and I can't claim there was any discernible increase in my sexual prowess either, but then it takes miracles to achieve the impossible! There were other wildlife photo opportunities, however, which we did not miss, such as a big mountain goat with horns bigger than a horny thing, and who was surprisingly indifferent to our cameras or our presence. |
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Only on our last day in Chamonix did we indulge in a day of climbing at a spot just 10 minuets from our campground that could only be described as a rock climbing paradise. Excellent rock, heaps of climbs and clear water springs feeding a series of small lakes among a stand of mature trees. This late discovery was not as big a loss as it at first seemed as we have since begun to discover a number of comparable venues in Schweiz, all a little closer to home. It's a bit of a play ground Switzerland, all conveniently packaged by the superb public transport system that gets us everywhere. |
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Actually coming home on the train I noticed a small village called VARNKDORF. Not spelt like that but by way of explanation, the Swiss experience some difficulty in pronouncing their letters like proper English speaking people (and everyone knows we have it right). They have trouble with their V's and W's, so to achieve the correct pronunciation they have to spell it WANKDORF. Now 'dorf' means village so I can only assume the locals are all referred to as Wankers! Most unfortunate. And last night Claudia asked me "Why do they ring the bells?" A frequent and sometimes a seemingly random occurrence here in Switzerland, but it usually has something to do with clocks or Jesus. Still, a magnificent question for a Swiss girl I thought, and one which demonstrates quite superbly, that like all good traditions, this one has lost its origin in time. Enough Swiss bashing, really I quite like the place. Although having a Swiss bank account hasn't cracked up to be so special. Anything less than 6 figures in the account means you get a smile at the counter but not much else that makes you feel good. But then I'd rather count smiles than money anyway J. |
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A quick sojourn back to the South where I filled in for a missing soldier left me pondering the state of this nation. Travelling through some of the mountain villages I drew possible parallels with various parts of India one or two thousand years ago. Prosperity flourishing, stone sculptures, ornate gardens, artistic decoration on buildings, community life rich with culture and religion. Construction is prolific but rather than the slave labour and exploitation of India, building sites are marked by a plethora of busy machines including the ubiquitous cranes which litter most of the Swiss horizons. Heavy development restrictions have instigated the practice of taking disused stone buildings roofed with a tree branch lattice frame supporting classic Italian style half-pipe tiles, and turning them into luxury villas. Often retaining the original exterior character, even replacing the patchworked roof tiles, the insides will now reflect the pages of a 'wonderful houses' magazine or will make new photo fodder for one. |
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A four star golf hotel happened to be the most conveniently located for our working week so four Swiss stars it was, including a toilet that sucks away bad smells, tries to squirt water up your bum when you're finished then blow-dries your cheeks with warm air. Incredible! |
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There are many other stories I would like to write but rather I will part with some profundity derived from my own mental meanderings. As we possibly all know but may sometimes forget, the most advanced form of sophistication is simplicity. But it would seem this insight can only be derived from knowing both. And that's enough sententious waffle from me. Mr Custard |