The Swiss Saga, Day 5: Blew a Glass Darkly

It was kind of a slow day today. We went to a glass factory in the town of Hergiswil, a 15-minute train ride away from Luzern. Before we could get to the wicked-cool molten glass and stuff, we walked through a goofy little interactive tour of the history of glass. Apparently, glass is very old and cultural. Also something about World War I. Anyhoo, the main show was the setup in which we could watch honest, hardworking craftsmen, like zoo animals, doing their jobs. We walked around on a balcony overlooking the factory floor, and there were a few other collections of glass art and things. The cool part was getting to blow my own glass...sphere...thing. I really don't know what the purpose of it is, but it looks dandy sitting on my shelf.

But why strain yourself with these letter-congeries when I can give you a thousand of them at a time?

This is what the glassworks looks like. Apparently this isn't the most cutting-edge setup available, mostly because it has actual humans doing the work, but it has historical cachet.

Apparently, I can use the word "cachet" without the slightest guilt.


This, of all the pictures I've taken on the trip, is the one that most resembles a heavy-metal album cover. Which, really, isn't saying all that much.


Here I am preparing to blow my own glass sphere object, a picture in which I could not look less interested in the prospect and may actually be asleep. My explanation is that as a tall person I have to be looking down at people all the time, hence my eyes are forever downcast. Look upon my works, ye mighty, and despair!


If they could, I'm sure the 19th-century Germans would have drunk all their liqueurs out of a dog's backside.

The Swiss Saga, Day 4: Rock, Paper, Rivers

Went to Basel (Motto: “Not the Freaking Spice, You Stupid Bastards”), and went on an extremely long and boring walking tour. However, I did learn that the town of Basel is the origin of the legend of the basilisk, even though, uh, the Wikipedia entry says its from Greek words. Well, c'mon, the Greeks have plenty of stuff to their credit, let's let this small Swiss village have a thing or two. Fortunately no one was turned to stone today. Then we went to a paper mill, and saw how the keys of a printing press are made (answer: wicked-awesome liquid metal). In the gift shop, I bought a signet thingy and some sealing wax. Oh, and for the record, pigs DON’T have wings. There. I just saved you the time. Walking back to take the bus back to Luzern, I walked along the side of the Rhine. It's...big.

And now, pictures! Pictures for looking!

A goofy fountain near the beginning of our tour. It would have maybe been more interesting if all the fountain parts weren't frozen solid. Seriously, look at 'em. That ought to tell you something about my receptiveness to a two-hour walking tour outdoors.

A basilisk appears! Fight/Magic/Item/Run?

Bernoulli is buried in Basel. So you better be on your best behavior, boys and babes. Fun fact: I was the only person on the tour who cared at all about Bernoulli or his grave. Ironically, everyone on the trip had flown on a fixed-wing airplane just to be in Switzerland in the first place. No respect, I tells ya.

SERIOUS BUSINESS

This is the inside of a paper mill, and not, as you may suspect, the inside of a giant piano. The six hammers are driven by a mill wheel, and are pounding a slurry of pulp into, uh, even pulpier pulp. They made an endless rhythmic "KLONK...KLONK-KLONK...KLONK...KLA-KLONK KLONK" sound that was either relaxing or madness-inducing depending on the subject.

The Swiss Saga, Day 3: A Clockwork Brown, Or: Relatively Interesting

We took the train to the city of Bern (Motto: “Berninating the countryside!”). Went on a walking tour, saw a Gothic cathedral, a view of the river, and a clock tower. Inside the clock tower, we saw the huge complicated mechanism that turns the clock, and watched it ring 12 noon. So you know, medieval clockwork consists of a fascinating series of metal gears and joints and flywheels, every last one of which could totally kill you or at least take off a couple fingers.

Afterwards, visited the apartment that Einstein lived in when he was working on the theory of relativity. It...well, it looked like a 20th-century apartment. We watched a little video on the life of Einstein, but it was really just one of those "go there so you can say you've been there" kind of things.

Finally, we took a trolley to the Paul Klee Center to have lunch. I didn't feel like eating any of the pretentious, expensive art gallery food they served, so I went and checked out the gallery before leaving to grab some food elsewhere. The art gallery was on the theme of weird bio-genesis-microcosm-squiggily-artsy-dealies. The captions and musings were in French and German. I can read (if not speak) French pretty well, but I got a headache trying to read a bunch of artistic nonsense like “la recherché artistique est reconstitutee par l’excellence de la tranche de fromage attaché aux pieds pendant qu’on se trouve la biogenisisme,” in the most artistically nonsensical language of them all. I was given money for lunch and dinner, and ended up eating cold bread and salami sandwiches for both. However, this method cost me only 20 of my 60 CHF for the two meals, so I’m gradually accumulating souvenir money, which I could say with a straight face until approximately six hours later, when I had blown it all on booze. Well, I don’t know about you, but I must have been traveling at nearly the speed of light, because it seems like the day just flew by! (Little astrophysics humor for ya. You can keep that one, it’s free.)

Note: What follows is a real-time account of the evening's debauchery, written at approximately 3:00 AM of the night it describes. It appears unaltered from the original transcript. The following contains graphic youthful stupidity. Viewer discretion is...well, since you've read this far, viewer discretion is obviously nonexistent to begin with. Enjoy!

In the evening, drank truly insane amount of vodka and went out clubbing until 2:00 AM. Not feeling so good. OooOooooggghhh. Some fun, but didn’t score with any of the chicks (I.E. totally rejected). Had to borrow clothes in order to be fashionable (who knew I needed to bring a button-down shirt on travel in order to be admitted to a club?) Blew nearly all my spending money. Oh well, you’re only young once. Drank half (or so) a bottle of Smirnoff lime vodka, went to a French restaurant at 10:00 PM and drank a screwdriver, went to a British pub and drank a “Archer’s and lemonade”, went to a club and drank one and a half more screwdrivers. One girl was a really weird drunk who wouldn’t listen to anyone when she was drunk. She wandered off and I hope she found her way home. Remember to ask her tomorrow if she got home okay, assuming she’s alive. I knew I should have gone with her. Now I’m worried that she froze to death trying to get back to the hotel and her death will hang over me like a pall for the rest of my days. Wow, I’m incredibly coherent when I’m drunk and it’s 3 AM. Death before grammar errors!

We apologize for the previous. But the truth had to be told.

And for some more truth, check these fantast-pics!

A carving of the Last Judgment over the door to a church in Bern.

The clock tower on the outside...

...and on the inside.


I went there! See?

The Swiss Saga, Day 1: Some Cheesy Pun

And so, in the grand tradition of bringing you the latest news, days or weeks after it actually happens, I begin my series of short day-by-day descriptions of my academic vacation in German Speaking Switzerland!

On the day of, I woke up at 6 AM, fretted for an hour, walked to the train station in the windy cold, sat at the train station for an hour, tried to buy breakfast with a credit card but they only took cash, and wandered around looking for an ATM for an embarrassingly long time. When everyone showed up I found out to my dismay that pretty much everyone but me seemed to smoke cigarettes, in the same sense a scuba diver smokes compressed air. I got on the train and chatted with people, but mostly I just hovered on the edge of wakefulness.

When we got to Luzern, we deposited our bags in the hotel and went to lunch. Lunch which was a sort of potato and macaroni and cheese casserole of truly monstrous proportions. Afterward, we got on another train (this will be, by the way, the most train-intensive set of posts I will ever make) to Schwyz (Motto: “Th Tywn Wythyt Vywyls”) and took a walking tour. We saw the original charter of the Swiss Confederation, from 1291. As the day waned, we went to where any weary traveler in a new land would go: the cheese factory. Really. It was there that I found out all about the cheesemaking process, and that it is as complicated as it is disgusting as it is delicious. I also learned from a tour guide, speaking shaky English, that full-fat cheese can be used as a replacement for Viagra. Really. I say his English was shaky, but then again, I sure as hell couldn't say something like "our cheese cures erectile dysfunction" in any of the foreign languages I'M familiar with...

For dinner we were treated to fondue, made with homemade cheese. Of course, "homemade" in this instance means "made with various giant stainless-steel tubes and vats," but you get the idea. When we finally returned to the hotel, I went straight up to my room and passed out, possibly from some kind of cheese-related hemorrhaging. Interestingly, I would have been sharing the room, but my roommate, who is passionately (excessively) in love with his girlfriend who is also the trip, slept in her room that night and every night subsequently. It was mixed blessing, in that I got the room to myself, but that I was constantly reminded that I am alone...so very alone.

And now, time to inflict-a-pic or two from day 1 of my exodus into the hoary Teutonic foothills! They will be culturally enlightening and highly informative (or just immature pictures of funny German words)!

The square in Luzern outside the hotel. Some of the buildings date back to the 1400s, but most of them are younger than that, because apparently Luzern has fires ALL THE TIME. Seriously, I cannot count the number of times we were told, "...but then it burned down" over the course of our stay.


The store next to our hotel: Mephisto Footwear. The devil really DOES wear Prada!


Now THERE'S the money shot.

Carnevale '08: Countdown to Carnevalemageddon!

So, that whole thing where I told you, my trusting readers, that the Internet was fixed and everything was back to normal? Yeah, not so much. It died immediately after that post, and now it's still gone. I asked the IT department to come fix it and they said they would this morning. It's 6 PM now. Hmm.

But that won't stop me from bringing you the sexotic phantasmagoria of this year's Carnevale festivale, held in beautiful Bellinzona, Switzerland, and attended by yours truly, and also me.

Carnevale, for those not "in the know," or even anywhere near the know, is basically the non-union equivalent of Mardi Gras. Mardi Gras (from the French words for "drunk flashers") is the celebration of Shrove Tuesday, which is the day before Ash Wednesday, five days after Flange Thursday, and 200 years away from any religious significance. The practice, dating back, I dunno, a really long time, is a bacchanalian revel celebrating the last day before Lent. I suppose the idea is that you will wake up at the beginning of Lent so hung over that you swear off something manageable like bright light or loud noises, instead of a more rigorous challenge like avarice or envy.

The Carnevale near Franklin College, in Bellinzona, is a tradition among students here. In actuality, the festivities last for about five days BEFORE the actual day it's meant to celebrate, but who am I to judge? Maybe the scriptures actually say it's supposed to be Shrove Fivesday.

The elements of Carnevale are loud music, costumes, and being phenomenally drunk, not necessarily in that order. I'm proud to say that I at least attempted all of these three elements.

The adventure began at 7 PM, when I met with Christina, the girl who asked me to come with her.


Her costume is, according to her, the character of Death, from the Pardoner's Tale. My guess, "A nerd with a paper plate on her chest," is also a legitimate answer. I opted for the classic Halloween standby of "whatever I can find at the last minute," and went as:


The CEO of UnderpantsOnHeadCo., Inc. Shame? I have none.

Accompanying us was a diverse group of...three more lovely young ladies.

So YEAH. I considered myself a gentleman escort, although in reality if they weren't there to lead me around I'd no doubt have ended up hopelessly lost and freezing to death and vomited upon. Still, I think they appreciated having a male presence, considering that most other males at Carnevale were drunk Italian strangers.

Naturally, the drinking commenced at around 8, about an hour before we actually got to Carnevale. Considering that while inside the gates of Carnevale, 12 Swiss francs buys you approximately a Dixie cup full of beer, it's a must that you pre-party before entering. So really, the whole Carenvale experience boils down to getting drunk, getting on a train, going somewhere, getting MORE drunk, and then trying to find your way back. Needless to say, it's staggeringly popular.

So we departed, already well on the road to inebriation, and made our way to the train station and took off to Bellinzona. It was a half-hour train ride on a train packed with drunk teenagers, each of whom seemed to be taking each breath through a lit cigarette. Can't say I particularly enjoyed it, but the girls and I chatted and passed the time kicking empty wine bottles back and forth.

We got to Bellinzona, passed through the gates:

And got frisked, not to make sure we weren't bringing in bombs, but to make sure we weren't bringing in our own liquor. Right.

And so, we went off and danced. Yes. We danced, because we wanted to. We left our friends behind. 'Cause our friends didn't dance, and because they didn't dance, well, they're no friends of mine.


The blurriness in this photograph is a representation of the vision of most of the partygoers. Or maybe they watched the tape from The Ring. Or maybe one of them is a ghost. Look, I don't know.

Anyway, we had a lovely time dancing, wandering around, eating gyros, and more dancing. Oh, and we met Spock:

So a good time was had by all. I actually ended the evening disappointingly sober. I don't know why. I mean, I literally drank all my liquor and spent all my money on more liquor, but I still wasn't drunk. I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing, but at least it meant I had the presence of mind to take precious memory photos such as this:

If you look closely, you can identify a couple of humanoid figures as well as what seems to be a giant potato with a nose looming in the right half of the frame.

So in spite of my nontoxication, I had the time of my life. I mean, one man arm-in-arm with four beautiful, young, fairly drunk young women?

That's hard to beat.

Unfocused Rambling: Snow!

Well, when it rains, it pours. Or rather, snows.


On the off chance that you have ever waded ankle-deep in beef stew, imagine it. Then imagine the beef stew was freezing cold, and instead of hearty chunks of beef and carrots there was naught but chunks of ice, and it was slowly killing you.

That was basically the situation here the other day. It actually started the day before, with a day-long thunderstorm. And then that thunderstorm turned into a blizzard as night fell and the temperature dropped. That blizzard continued into the next day's afternoon, when the temperature rose again, and it turned back to thunderstorm.

So yeah, someone up there likes us.

When I wasn't slogging through the unflavored Slushee that was the roads and sidewalks, I was partaking of a few rounds of good-natured downhill plastic lunch tray sledding. I wish I had gotten pictures, although in some ways I'm glad I didn't, because if I had that would mean I would have had to bring my camera, which would subsequently have gotten soaking wet.

I was, however, accosted by the stone-throwing devils of LDV residence (stands for Leonardo da Vinci, and it's where I live, which is something I probably should have already mentioned), who from their perch on the second-floor balcony rained icy death on random passersby.


None escape their imperious gaze!

Naturally, I deflected their attacks with kung-fu ninja skills, but soon I tired of the game and went into the door beneath them. They thought themselves the victors...


But then I was among them, like a tiger falling upon the helpless flock! Blood flowed like a silken carpet! Each in their turn fell to the mighty sword of the Cimmerian!

Oops, got myself mixed up with Conan for a bit there. Never mind.

So anyway, in the end it turned out fine, except for a car accident that caused one of my classes to be canceled. Only now I've made myself really hungry for beef stew.

Photo Dump: Bellinzona Castle

Hey!


Pictures for you!


My lovely dorm. Note my pile-based organizational system. And my awesome hobo pillow, made of a towel and a semi-inflated beach ball. In a pillowcase. I'm a regular goddamn MacGuyver.

The view out the window is...a wall. An ivy-covered wall, but still a wall.

And here's what I could be seeing out my window. But don't.

Bellinzona Castle. Not the biggest castle I've seen, but it had its charms.

To the top of the porch! To the top of the wall!

The rest of the orientation group. We're at a kebab restaurant, being served by a man who is either thrilled or horrified at the prospect of feeding all of us.

And finally:

Three giant knees. See, kids? Cartilage is powder blue. Science!

And that's it for this (belated) photo session! Yeah...this was actually three days ago. Sorry. But never fear, blogging will commence unabated!