In Switzerland - sort of

I did finally arrive in Switzerland after my layover in London. However my bag with all my climbing gear did not, which has changed our intinerary somewhat but what the hell, I'm not too worried about it. I'm trying not to think of the Thousands of dollars of climbing gear in that bag - gulp. Tom has said they have lost his luggage for weeks before and the bag always comes back.

We have been visiting Tom's friends and they've been very fun and kind hosts. They've felt responsible to give me the "Swiss" experience so I have had a fondue at one friends place, a raqlette at another. Tom was here before me and he had already had cheese 4 days in a row but he was game to eat more. The other bonus so far is in addition to cheeze Tom's friends love wine so I have been treated to some very good vino! Oh and lets not forget the coffee, the swiss take their coffee as seriously as their cheeze. Combine this with driving through the Alps and its a close to heaven as I can get!

We are now in Interlaken staying with Tom's friend Stephan Siegrist, he's a hot-shot climber here and has said we can stay at his place for as long as we like. When we told him that my climbing bag was lost, him and climbing guide - roomate opened up their gear room to me and said "take what you need"Climber hospitality at its finest! They are sponsored by Mammut so the gear, the gear.... grrrrrr oh baby, ya baby! LOL!

We toured the Mamut factory with Tom's good friend who works there. We got some lovely Mammut graft and Thomas gave me a very fun Mammut climbing hold for my climbing gym. Tom's friendships here in Switzerland have a long and obviously very warm and heart felt history. His friends would pull out photo albums of their adventures with Tom in California 10yrs ago. So funny to see them all in the early 80's even. Over the years they have visited each other and travelled to other countries together.

Thomas told Tom that he had booked a hut as a surprise for his girlfriend so invited us along. Tom told me that "hut" in Switzerland is somewhat different than Canada. He called ahead to book our raclette dinner, let just say that it sounds quite posh. He said the swiss get a rude awakening when they show up at a hut in the Canadian Rockies - no shit sherlock. :-) We'll stay there for Christmas Eve to hike with them. We hope to do some climbing on Christmas day - maybe. I really don't care too much if I climb ice or not, I'm having a blast being in different country, eating fabulous food and meeting fun people.

BTW, yes Switzy is expensive and it really, really helps to have people to stay with. Dinners in a resturant are an average of $20 Swiss francs for lunch, (equivalent to a dollar). Coffee is almost $4, bottled water could cost you $7 in the resturant. It is far more reasonable to buy food from the store. Chocolate, wine and cheeze are reasonably priced so Halleluia!

But when I think back on this trip I won't worry about the credit card bill, I'll think back on the warm hospitality and beautiful scenery.

We are off to a train trip up to this little tourist spot in the mountains. I told Tom that since he was with me, this gave him licence to be an unaplogetic tourist this whole trip. I'm not how I'll be able to reciprocate Tom's role as a co-adventurer and a tour guide. I suppose I can take him fishing to Frazer Lake and have my dad force him to drink moonshine and smoked fish?!

Until my next installment
adieu!

Switzerland as it happens

No Switzy yet dahlings... did I mention things go wrong when I travel? Oh yes, often horribly wrong. Fog descended thick and ominous in London where I landed to connect to Dusseldorf and ultimately Basel, Switzerland.

I waited 3hours in a que in the Heathrow Airport to be told my flight had been cancelled (I had already missed it anyhow) and I would have to go through immigration to get 'landed' so I could get my flight rebooked. SO another que for about half an hour. I make the long walk to another terminal to dantes inferno - also called the Lufthansa ticketing area, where hundreds of other people had to rebook their flight as well. I saw the new que for the ticketing agents, and my heart sunk. It was so, so, so long and looked so, so, so, slow.

Then a I noticed a quiet Lufthansa area, with a couple people behind the desk. I knew it wasn't the right area but what the fuck, the worst they could do is send me to the hellish other line where I had at least another 3 hour wait ahead of me.

The gal told me I was at the over-sized baggage area, but my look of sadness and despair must have been over-sized because she said "give me your ticket" and she proceeded to rebook my flight, get me a hotel, meal vouchers, and a pass to the shuttle. I think I was calling her a "saint" by this point and getting ready to lick her boots.

SO I am now in some hotel, and wondering how I'm going to reach Tom to let him know I won't be at the airport tonight. I sent him an email and I think I'll try and snag a phone card. The time here is 7pm, I have no idea what my body time is i.e: Calgary time.

When one gets lemons lets make lemonade shall we? After I get some food in me I think I'll try and find out what sort of trouble I can get into in London!

I dedicate this blog to Marie as she suggested I should do an "on the fly" type of blog whilst I'm travelling.

I'll keep you posted!

Trapeze, Wine and Shopping

I've come back from California with some new experiences under my belt yessiree. But before that I just want to say how incredibly wonderful it was to be walking along the street with a light jacket on and standing in the sun, feeling the warming rays shining down on me. After our Calgary deep-freeze weather, I appreciated it that much more.

Saturday morning in California, Albany to be precise. Which if you don't know Albany, it is adjacent to Berkley and across the bay from SanFrancisco. This was Circus School day so we grabbed a bagel and a coffee to powerup before heading out. I had been fretting about the whole trapeze thing internally and ok perhaps whining weakly to Michele about it as well. But I knew I would go, there was no way I was going to be a baby about it when Michele is almost a veteran. And I had this sense that if I wanted to be worthy enough to go wine tasting I better prove my courage by trapezing. Besides - there's a secret handshake involved and how could I miss out on that! But I must add that even though I love to climb I've never liked to jump off things. Even as a kid and it was customary to run and jump off the dock into the lake. It was more likely that I would put the brakes on just at the *end* of the dock as my friends careened over the edge.

We get to the building in Oakland, sort of a dodgy part of Oakland Michele says. Not too bad during the day but I wouldn't be walking around there in the evening that's for sure. The Trapeze Arts is in a warehouse and the outside of the building is brightly painted in the Circus Stripes - of course.

Michele is a regular and is greeted warmly. They know she's bringing along a climbing friend and neophyte trapeze artist. I think they kind of like us climber folk since we're usually fairly athletic and apparently we don't scream much, but yes, we do have an issue jumping off the platform. No shit sherlock.

On the ground Jake shows us first-timers what we'll be doing waaaay up there. Jump off the platform, get our knees over the bar, drop our arms, arch our back and sttrrretttch and then put our arms back on the bar drop our knees and drop to the net. This will all be done as per the commands of a person on the ground who is also managing our safety ropes.

Sounds fairly reasonable to do - on the GROUND and like, a really STUPID thing to do way up high. FUCK. There is no time given to freak-outs from the newbies. Everyone is behaving in a professional and matter-of-fact way that suggests that having a melt-down would be rather bad form, so I restrain the urge to act like a terrified idiot.

Sooner than I'd like, there I am hand-over-hand moving up the 25ft ladder to the platform. My heart is pounding so fast and adrenaline has created the shakey-shakey shake in my body. Jake doesn't give me time to get worse as he very calmly explains what will happen as he's attaching my saftey line to my belt and giving me directions. The main thing I have to do is listen, listen to him while I'm way up high on the podium and then listen to Simon once I'm flying in the air.

Next thing I know and much to my surprise, there I am SWINGING by my legs on a trapeze!! Who would have thunk? LOL! (well OK, I think Jake had to kick my feet out from under me to get me off the platform the first time!)

We are being videotaped and once I'm back on the ground another Trapeze artist is critiquing my technique and giving me something to work on for my next turn.

Eventually we work up to being caught by a catcher, which was relatively easy (he does most of the work) since in essence I'm doing what I was doing before but he's grabbing me by the arms on my upswing. The experience of flying through the air being held by someone else was truly exhilarating!!

I do have to admit to enjoying the experience and thankful that Michele gave me the opportunity to even try.

And I did learn the secret handshake. he! he!

The next day we toured the Livermore Valley to drink copious amounts of wine with some of Michele's science friends. It was relaxing and fun. I brought back more than allotted 2 bottles of wine and had to pay $15 in duty - woopie. The wine is hmmm hmm good.

My trip was exactly what I was looking for, some fun, adventure, good company with friends and a chance to feel the warm sun again!