Spring Has Come to Switzerland

Siesta Across Southern France - Episode II: Bourdeaux to Saou

We had taken a wrong turn. We realized this as we turned another corner on a slow, gruelling uphill stretch of path. After asking an elderly man for directions and the equivalent of performing two Buns of Steel tapes, we reached the town of Le Poet Celard, another perched village. The chalet was in ruins and the town had taken it upon itself over the past 20 years to refurbish it. The views were amazing.

We headed out of town towards the direction of our goal for the night: a small U-shaped turn in a highway a few kilometers outside of town. We were told that our bed and breakfast would be right off the highway. Walking past farms, roaming cattle, and chicken farms (read: stinky), we discovered too late that we had been making one too many left hand turns. Over the course of about 3 hours, we had managed to circumnavigate a small mountain that we had intended to traverse. Standing 50 meters from the place we were 3 hours previously, we took out our cell phones and wandered around like the Verizon guy looking for signal. Our French-speaking American made the call and attempted to sound as pitiful as possible - low and behold, the owner piled into her car and picked us up. On the drive back to Le Debat, we discovered that we were nowhere near where we needed to be.

The bed and breakfast was beautiful. Surrounded by a small stream, fields, and a whole lot of open space, we sat down at the dinner table and hungrily devoured the homemade meal of local (read: slaughtered less than 2 kilometers from where we sat) lamb, inhaled the potato/cauliflower/cheese casserole, and downed two bottles of red wine. Local strawberries, a cheese plate, and a lively debate about the French CPE issue finished us off and we headed straight for bed.

It was smooth sailing until sometime around 4am when my annoying habit of snoring awoke my American friend who was in the twin bed next to me. This wasn't an annoying gentle crescendo of a snore - rather a startling, sudden, and acute snore which emanated from the depths of my nasal cavity and caused my roommate to be roused out of a deep sleep, let out a huge, shocked "aaaaggh", get up on all fours in bed - staring at me. This, in turn, caused me to wake up and for a total of about 10 seconds, we shared a strange awkward moment staring at each other in the middle of the night. He would later tell me that it sounded to him like I had rolled out of bed and hit my head on the nightstand. Our Spanish siesta master stayed asleep through the entire ordeal. The next morning, we ate breakfast with our other B&B'ers, took a photo for the Drome Tourism Board a la Brokeback Mountain, and headed towards Francillon - our first stop of the day.

It wasn't that big of a dog. In fact it looked pretty cute. But the way the muscles were rippling off of this uncollared, unleashed boxer/pitbull was frightening. In our infinite wisdom, we had determined that dogs could smell fear and attempted to appear as a jovial, laughing group as we marched down the road to Francillon. It was at this moment that our Spanish friend showed his one true hate: country dogs. It followed us into Francillon. It followed us into town. It even picked a fight with another dog, then returned to us to continue wandering through the village. We managed to ditch it amongst a group of local children who seemed to be familiar with it. We didn't stick around to see the carnage that might have ensued.

Our hike got immensely more interesting on the road to Saou. We crossed scarred rock faces and followed paths built from the falling debris. We wandered into Saou fell in love with a restaurant called "Cherries and Vinaigrette". Don't let the name fool you - it doesn't suck. Established by a chef who worked and saved in Geneva for two years to buy the location, it looked like a converted gas station. It's large bay doors had gigantic curtain partitions to separate the outdoor patio from the indoor dining. The food was fantastic and cheap, although its marketing campaign could have used some work. You couldn't have asked for a better lunch or view.

We stumbled up from the table, wandered through fields for about 15 minutes, and found a suitable siesta location in the middle of a remote field and fell asleep on top of our bags. As the bright, hot sun pounded down on our sleepy-from-the-Rose bodies, I thought to myself, "this is what every Easter Sunday should be like". We had one more day in our vacation and we had intended to make the most of it.

Siesta Across Southern France - Episode I: Geneva to Bourdeaux

Two Americans and a Spaniard hiking and siesting around remote areas of the Drome valley in southern France. No, it's not the start to a bar joke, but my Easter holiday and I highly recommend it to everyone.

From Geneva, we took a short train across the border to Lyon, France then continued on another to Valence. From Valence, our Fellowship ran to catch the last bus going to our next destination: Die ("dee"). We nicknamed our bus driver, who was apparently agitated that he had missed the auditions for Mad Max, "Mr. Die" out of sheer respect (or maybe fear). Perhaps it was the way he looked at us as we threw ourselves in front of his bus or maybe it was our Spanish friend's long, wavvy hair - either way, Mr. Die allowed us to board the bus and saved our butts from having to wait hours for the next bus.

Die is a picturesque village on the edge of the Drome river. It comes with the standard accoutrements of a small French town: narrow streets, a church, Saturday market. A leisurely Friday was spent discussing politics in a sunny restaurant courtyard, skipping stones across the river, debating the identification of Albanian hookers that we had seen in Valence, and taking the first of what would be our recurring theme for the trip: a siesta. We dined that night at a pizzeria (that did not serve pizza for lunch, oddly enough) and had our tongues seduced at the hands of homemade ravioli. We woke up the next day to rain and the dread of walking 20+ kilometers wore heavier on my shoulders.

After taking another siesta to wait out the storm, we ventured from our room at the Hôtel des Alpes and took a bus to Saillans, a village due north of our next destination, Bourdeaux. Here, our archnemesis Mr. Die had planted a son: Die Junior. Die Junior took French roundabouts at three-quarter the speed that his father did, but deadly nonetheless. Saillans was considerably more "perched" than Die and upped the ante on the degree of difficulty. After hitchhiking outside of Saillans for a half-hour, tucked under a single umbrella, we knew that we had a problem.

From a sheer logistical standpoint, the trip from Saillans to Die is a nightmare. Following paved roads, it's approximately 39 kilometers (24.2 miles). As the crow flies, it's more like 15k. This, however, would require traversing a mountain pass and navigating through mountain valleys that may or may not have marked paths.

In the midst of our indecision about whether to embark on our long hike or wait for another car, our boredom overcame us. We found a small, circular rock and played hackeysack. After the first few kicks, my brain had accessed those long-forgotten recesses of my mind that housed hack routines and began to execute moves that were only ever intended to be done to a 90s soundtrack of "You're Unbelieveable" and "Are You Gonna Go My Way". We were attempting a record of six consecutive hacks when it all went horribly wrong, or right, depending on who you ask.

In a moment that seemed to be played in slow motion, the downward-accelerating hackey (rock) sack made contact with my American friend's head (after attempting a head-hack) and he immediately recoiled. I can still hear the low-monotone scream played back in my mind. As I doubled-over, laughing hysterically, something miraculous happened. A car pulled over. A small car. With a hippie couple and their black lab puppy. As it turned out, they were rock climbers on their way to climb the Trois Becs. They could take us as far as the summit between Saillans and Bourdeaux. We jumped at the offer and piled into the car.

We got out of the 2-door hatchback near the summit and started our descent towards Bourdeaux through the valley on a marked trailhead. The scenery was fantastic. We neared the valley floor and the temperature rose. We broke for lunch at a stream and attempted our own renditions of the Charlie Rich song "The Most Beautiful Girl in the World" (check out the badass karoake version here), although the only part that any of us knew was the three-tone, one-word chorus beginning: "Hey". Bobby Vinton's "Blue Velvet" was also incorporated into the playlist, only as a follow-on to Charlie in the absence of any other memorable music from the Time-Life music series.

A few kilometers into our trek, we identified another hitchhiking opportunity: a giant, white, rumbling recreational vehicle being driven by a French couple on holiday. For the second time, we thanked our transporters and boarded the vehicle. As our American translator made smalltalk with them, the Spaniard and I investigated the 1970s interior, complete with the bed-over-the-cab. We were deposited in Bourdeaux and began to wander around the first example of a true French perched village. We burned off hundreds of calories walking up the ruins and paths until mid-afternoon, then followed a rough, narrow, unmarked path up another mountain towards our next destination: Le Poet Celard.

Little did we know, we had only begun to sweat.


Soundtrack of the Day:

• Charlie Rich, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World
• Bobby Vinton, Blue Velvet
• EMF, You're Unbelieveable
• Lenny Kravitz, Are You Gonna Go My Way
• Tina Turner, We Don't Need Another Hero
• Willie Nelson, On the Road Again

Calvin & the Reformists = Nazgul?

You decide:

Skiing in Klosters

The trip to Klosters represented the first long-distance experience I had with the Swiss rail system. I had expected the worst, but found that the rumor was true: it was easy to figure out and the trains were ALWAYS on time. I had taken the 7AM train out of Geneva on a weekday with the rest of the suit-and-tie Genevois and by mid-morning I found myself amongst the rest of the overstuffed backpack crowd with wallets in their front pockets.

After Lausanne, the train made short stops in Fribourg and Bern. I switched trains in Zurich and saw the smaller towns of Sargans and Landquardt, before finally taking the regional line (practically) uphill into Schiers, Jenaz, Saas, and Klosters. All of the towns had read the Quaint Village Instruction Manual thoroughly: wooden houses perched on the sides of hills with a 2-animal minimum grazing in front, check. Red tile roofs with smoke billowing out of chimneys, check. Church, check. Obscenely beautiful scenery, check. Equestrians riding their horses to the station to meet friends, check. Massive rock faces during an ascent into the mountains, check.

It was a busy first day. I was greeted at the station by my American friend and his wife who had just broken the land-speed record for a descent down the Klosters mountain. Their bloodied jackets were a testament to the hundreds of ski school children they had left in their wake. Within 45 minutes, I was changed, outfitted with boots and skis, and riding a gondola up to the summit. The first 100 feet was considered a warmup and we proceeded to get into some heavy-duty snow plowage. Although the snow that day wasn't fantastic, skiing in Klosters on a bad day beats skiing in the Poconos any day of the year. We finished the day on the slopes with an après-ski thirst quencher at the Grass-Dröchnie bar and my friend's wife almost failing to yield at a gorge crossing in the rented Peugeot.

The subsequent days were a blur of skiing, drinking, eating, more skiing, and karaoking to the local anthem at bars like the Rössli Bar: K.L.O.S.T.E.R.S.. Day 2 was akin to the mountain scene out of Lord of the Rings: nearly 0 visibility, wind coming at you sideways, cinch-up-your-jacket-drawstrings kind of cold. Think of it as a version of the movie K2, as produced by National Lampoon. The lower elevations provided more visibility and improved our spirits - we developed a PR / Marketing campaign for the Gotschna Bar called the Got Schnaut? kleenex campaign. Interested parties can send their proposals here. All proposals will be considered.

The evenings were idyllic in an Alexander-Calder-paints-Norman-Rockwell way: fireplace chats woven with shots of Koltiska and Swiss wine, 8-12 inch snow accumulation out the back door, dry sauna debates punctuated with plunges into frigid ice showers, tasteless going-straight-to-hell baby jokes, hearty Swiss meals of Rösti and Fleischkäse with touches of Thomy mayonnaise, topped off by falling asleep in warm-as-hell duvets. Traveling west back to Geneva, I looked longingly back towards Klosters, looked down, and realized the toilets in the train dump out onto the track. Well, I guess that's quaint in some strange way.

(Mellow As All Getout) Soundtrack of the Day:

• Emiliana Torrini, Sunny Road, Fisherman's Woman.
• Jack Johnson, Sing-A-Longs & Lullabies.
• Indigo Girls, 1200 Curfews (Live).
• Nick Drake, Pink Moon.
• Norah Jones, Come Away With Me.
• Iron and Wine, Such Great Heights, Garden State Soundtrack.
  

Random Comment on European Fashion Trends

Haute:
The Equestrian: Tucking one's jeans into one's boots.

Not So Haute:
Der Roxanne: The combination (during winter) of wearing capris and fishnet stockings to make one look like an East German hooker.

Lausanne and Mt. Saleve

We (a Spaniard and an American) started a sunny Saturday taking the bus south out of Geneva to Mt. Saleve in France. From there, we took a cable car to the top and had some fantastic views of Geneva and the valley. We arrived early enough in the morning to have the entire summit to just ourselves and the tram operator for a good two hours. The "half-hour" trail loop to the east of the summit was deceiving - the "trail" was even more so. If you ever decide to go "off piste" and walk around the summit, just realize it takes you twice as long to ascend as it does to descend. We learned this the hard way. We glimpsed a vision of our early deaths at the slope where hanggliders conduct lessons and decided to take the tram back down.

We were looking to get into some more trouble and decided to hop back into Geneva and take the train 50 minutes east, along Lake Geneva, to Lausanne. We had a quick lunch on the lakefront (which I would say kicks the Geneva lakefront's butt) and a siesta on the cement retaining wall, surrounded by rollerbladers and skateboarders. We woke up an hour and a half later hungry and slightly sunburned.

We stumbled towards the bus to catch towards the old town and in 5 minutes found ourselves overlooking the entire city from the Cathedral of Notre Dame - by far the nicest example of a cathedral I've seen thus far. The expected narrow, cobble-stoned streets adorned the old town area and were a pain in the gluteus to walk around. Definitely more of a vertically-challenged city than Geneva. Before catching the night train back, we topped off the day with a waffle smeared with Nutella at the local kiosk that was blaring Bob Marley. Perfect end to a perfect day.

Just returned from a ski trip to Klosters - working on post. Leaving tomorrow for Easter holiday in southern France (Die, Bourdeaux, Crest).

Reflections on Renting a Flat in Geneva

So after an exhaustive (and exhausting) search, I've relocated to a new flat in the Champel region of Geneva. Like every town, Geneva's boroughs have a reputation of their own. A sampling by postcode:

• 1201: Paquis. Red-light district. Urban Geneva with hip places to go to. Not dangerous, but kinda sketchy after dark. If you're lucky, you can score some great places along the lakefront.
• 1202: United Nations-land. Where all of the NGO staff want to live (if they're workaholics). Prime real estate along any of the major bus lines that feed into the "Nations" bus stop.
• 1204: Jonction. This area includes Old Town (Vieille-ville). The place to be. Hella-high rents and hella-small rooms. Be willing to drop dime on places up in this J.
• 1205: Plainpalais. The "hip" folk who don't want to live in Carouge. Good nightlife and restaurants.
• 1206: Champel. Where people who cannot live in old town live. Associated with the upper middle class DINKs who don't want to live in suburbia.
• 1207: Eaux-Vives. The folks looking for proximity to Jet d'Eau. If you're lucky enough to score a place along the lake, this is a great place to be.
• 1209: Petit-Saconnex. In certain areas, "like living in the French countryside, but in Geneva." Fabulous single family houses with yards alongside 10-floor megacondos.
• 1227: Carouge. Mini-me Geneva. It old town was modeled after Nice and has proud. Urban-esque living in the suburbs.

Reflections on getting an apartment in Geneva:

• It sucks. Prepare yourself mentally for it. Some people spend months doing this.
• Know what you want. The Geneva rental market is no place for the hesitant. If you can't articulate your requirements, your dream rental may be gone.
• Know what your resources are. Don't rely solely on uber-aggregators like Immopool, Immostreet, or Homegate/Swissimmo. Oftentimes, the listings they have are identical. Desperate owners will post on multiple sites (and often multiple times on the same site) to increase traffic to their post. Don't fall for it. Use the aggregators (together) to find listings that have been around for too long or are listed mutliple times. It may be an indication that there's something wrong with the flat and that the owners are very motivated to get it rented. Instead, go directly to the websites of the agences or régies. The listings are more updated and more reliable than the aggregators. A good listing of regies with a web presence is here.
• Scour the listings. Pound each individual site and get listings that you're interested in. Call immediately.
• Be relentless. Don't let the fact that someone else snagged your "perfect" flat get you down. You will, in fact, face more rejection than acceptance in this game.
• Move quickly. Once you've found a listing, set up an appointment to see it ASAP. If you like it enough, move on it right then and have papers in order and money available to secure the deposit. If your gut is telling you something is wrong, it probably is. Walk away.

Annecy Ici

Annecy, France was my first exposure to French "quaintness". A town set on canals at the edge of a lake, it's picturesque views were not lost on this Rocky Mountain kid.

After a 70-minute bus ride and performing a comedic inquisition of one guy in our party who is studying to be a Lutheran Minister (excerpt: "So are there any strange things they make you do before you become a minister? Like, do they haze you?"), we arrived in Annecy. The old town is a mazework of passages and cobblestone streets that shelters dying boulangeries next to fashionable clothing stores. It is a town where you can run up a mountain for a jog, jump into the lake on the way back, dry off outside at a cafe, eat lunch along the canal, and listen to accordion music until you fall asleep. Although the weather was shi-tay when we there, rumor has it that it's a ridiculously beautiful place in the summer.

We attempted to hike up a nearby mountain, got caught in an afternoon rainstorm, handmade a few sandwiches from a baguette, slices of salami, and wheel of cheese under a rain-sheltering rock, and decided to walk back into town forty minutes later. The only thing that seemed to get us through the hour-long walk back into town was yelling American 80's lyrics from Culture Club, Nelson, and Warrant in crackling, pre-pubescent tones. We somehow married this with Swiss French radio commercials for Carrefour and SBB (the railway system).


Drenched and defeated, we sat at a local cafe to dry next to dry, smoking locals who were laughing (on the inside) at the wet tourists ordering lemon tea. Afterwards, we wandered around a more modern-looking mall to gaze at chocolate creations that apprentices had entered. Some of these kids were only teenagers - amazing.

Towards the end of the day, a large protest walked through the streets of the city, counter-protesting against the student-led CPE protests happening across France. While a majority of the protestors were older (not shocking), a notable few were under the age of 26. The law, if passed, would make it easier for French companies to hire and fire people under the age of 26.

From The San Jose Mercury News: "...the striking feature of the latest protest movement is that this time the rebellious forces are on the side of the status quo. Unlike the rioting youths in the impoverished suburbs, or banlieues, the objective of the students and public-sector trade unions is to prevent change, and to keep France -- with its worker protections and generous social-safety net -- the way it is. Indeed, according to one astonishing poll, three-quarters of young French people today would like to become civil servants, and mostly because that would mean ``a job for life.''"

The shitty pics are thanks to the wonderful disposable Kodak camera. Digital on its way soon! Other people's pics of Annecy are here.

Went to Mt. Salève (France) and Lausanne yesterday. Working on post.

Pre-Post: Annecy, France

With the loss of the digital camera, I'm having to resort to disposable camera film development for the time being. Until the pictures are developed and I can get over my writer's block on how to string the events in Annecy into a witty dialogue, enjoy a YouTube posting of Annecy in summertime - just to whet your appetite. WARNING: If you have an aversion towards whiny-white-guy acoustic (a.k.a. Damien Rice) turn your speakers down.

I'd stop drinking the coffee, but I'm no quitter.

Over the past six weeks, I've been going through my own personal, liquid, Reformation while in Switzerland - rebelling against the strict doctrines of Starbucks or Dunkin Donuts. The coffee in Switzerland is outrageously good. Even the DIY (do-it-yourself) coffee is good. The leaders in this sector, from what I can see, are Cafe Trottet or Nespresso, both of which have machines where you can make your own espresso from tiny little caps of coffee or little pillows of coffee. Against this, Safeway Select French Roast just has no game. Even Nestle's Nespresso site seems inject the sex back into coffee, with the sultry mp3 background and the smooth flash animation. To add to the seduction, the Swiss like to provide an option of either cold milk or HOT milk. I can hear the customer feedback cards at Starbucks writing themselves now.

Soundtrack of the Day:

Temperature. Sean Paul, The Trinity.
You're Beautiful. James Blunt, Back to Bedlam.
Jazz (We've Got). Tribe Called Quest, Anthology.
Hurts So Good. John Mellencamp, The Best That I Could Do, 1978-1988.
I'll Rise. Ben Harper, Welcome to the Cruel World.

Went to Annecy, France yesterday. Working on post.