//Europa 2006//

And so...

Here we are in the streamlined ½ mall, ½ train station in Zürich, Switzerland. Not a particularly charming place, but we've been a bit spoiled of late.

Just a note: the internet situation on the continent is not lending itself to web publication. Even if it was, the days are so full here that such endeavors might be considered too time consuming.

But today we've got layovers again and plenty of time to sit and run the laptop battery down. I don't know when this'll get posted but hopefully sooner than later.

Picking up where we left off in a nutshell sort of way, we:

(of june) Imperial War Museum was quite enjoyable. Tanks, Guns, Planes, you name it, all with intriguing stories behind them. The British Museum was somewhat overpowering. They pretty much took all the priceless artifacts from the entire commonwealth and stuck them in this museum. Lots of the usual clay pots, idols, mummies, sarcophagi, etc. highlighted by Tiki men and the occasional Thunderbird. That evening, we got standing room at the edge of the stage of Shakespeare's Globe theater. This was quite an experience that I wish I could expound on further. An excellent,excellent thespian production. (I'd never heard of the play: Coroilanus [spl?])
We crossed the English channel by ferry to Calais and had an interesting time making it to beautiful Brugge, Belgium. Our stop in Lille, France was fun, I went out to find supper and stumbled into a middle eastern kebab shack with a ton of dark-skinned fellows watching the Tunisia v. Saudi Arabia game. Though they were very quiet (unlike most European fans), the tension in that room was unlike anything else. I thought it was going to explode. It didn't, and I left with some pretty amazing frites (fries, I guess. French Fries even.) We met a potential Olympic athelete (plays with Club Lyon) on the train and a refreshing Canadian porter. (conductor really, but I call them porters so I can sing that Johnny Cash song [Hey Porter!]) Eventually, (i.e. 23:00) we made it to our hostel and it was hoppin' even then. We stumbled into our room, trying not to wake our bunkmates, and slept, with muffled German punk music reverberating softly up through the floor.
A day in Brugge was great. Good town, good breakfast, good belfry, good Indian students to share the ear-splitting top-of-belfry-at-12 0'clock experience, good fries for lunch, more good fries for dinner, good free walking tour that evening, good game, good courtyard to play guitar, good kitchen facilities, good etc. All those goods must be great.
This day began like any other, but changed dramatically. We got to see Brussels, Amsterdam, Hanover, Berlin (nice new station), and by midnight, we were on a Cologne-bound train. Lots of traveling, sleeping, reading, and writing. No lodging costs.
We got into Koln in the early morning and saw a bit of the city and checked out the Rhine ferry situation. We took an amazing train down to Koblenz. (you'd be surprised how refreshed you can get with just a toiletry kit and a shaking WC. (that would be the bathroom) We were in the last car and you could look out the back and see the rails flying out from under the wheels and the Rhine valley taking shape on either side and the sun rising, hot, over the rolling hills and I for one was just caught up with how wonderful (wanderful?) it all was and how good God is to little guys like me and how the day was going to be absolutely amazing. Graham was feeling pretty much exactly opposite, but after that he really couldn't do much to get me out of my good mood. I convinced him look out the back of the car. He even brushed his teeth.) We found the river and waited for our free ferry trip (covered by eurailpass) I got some breakfast in the town (bread and an apple. One apple because Graham doesn't eat fruit.) and some sleep on the dock. We boarded the boat for our scenic Rhine cruise and Graham fell immediately to sleep. Poor fellow. It was then that I realized that some people actually need sleep to function and don't like to spend the nights on trains. Imagine! It became quite obvious that our traveling styles are quite different and that our little deviation from the flight plan had Graham more than just out of sorts. I don't mind so much (that we have to stick to a plan); I'll follow the plan. But I'm still sticking to my guns when I say that Graham travels like an old woman. (though perhaps people will say this just means he is a normal person. You decide. I, of course, already have.) The cruise was long and afforded rest and scenery. Lots of castles and towns and some huge eagles and an amphibious land rover. We found a rail station in Mainz and headed into nearby Frankfurt, where we found a huge station. Graham was by now admitting that he was ceasing to function so I knew it was getting bad. I convinced him to leave the station and eat dinner on the street nearby. Now Germany is currently overcome and overpopulated with legions of football fans what with the world cup going on so it was a great experience eating out with everybody under a tent with a tiny TV broadcasting the game. And it was US v. Italy so we had some personal stock in the outcome. I was amazed that everybody there was decidedly pro US football. There was even an Iranian family in the front who couldn't get enough and argued with the official in the tube about all those red cards. Talking to many, uhh, open-minded Americans, I'd thought that everyone else in the world had some unbelievable grudge against the US but I'm finding out that it's just not true. As hard as it is to believe, people actually see you as a person around here. (unless they see you as a tourist, in which case it doesn't matter where you're from) Any sort of American stigma is easily smoothed by a simple attempt to be polite. A “danke” here, a “merci” there, a helping hand, an open door, throw in a “howdy” or two for good measure and, perhaps unbelievably, you can be both American and respected. But anyway...
Let's see, at 0:00, the beginning of the day, we we're in the Frankfurt station waiting for a 2:22 train. Graham was almost asleep, draped over our luggage, and I was playing guitar. I wrote most of a song before the train came and stopped me. We headed into Switzerland and, in the morning we changed trains for Interlaken, a rather touristic town in a beautiful valley between two lakes and in the arms of the Alps. A good Sunday morning train ride put us on the sleepy streets and we found our hostel. We checked our bags and had brunch on a little bench. Graham went back to the hostel and slept. I opted for another bench in a field. As I drifted off to sleep, I watched paragliders drift down from the mountains and touch down lightly on the far side of the grass. I awoke and did a little exploring and looked for a church but the services were over so I kept wandering and looking at the mountains and I thought “Man, with these absolutely majestic peaks to remind me so much of God's glory and power, a sermon just seems superfluous right now, especially since the sermon would be delivered in Swiss-German.” A mountain is one of those entities that needs no translation. So I walked a little further and came around to a knife store and was compelled to purchase a beautiful Swiss Army knife whose name “Tomahawk” I had engraved on the hilt. (This investment has already paid for itself 22 times since its purchase.) I checked back in at the hostel. Graham was asleep. Surprise, surprise. I asked him if he wanted to hike to the west lake (a good couple miles) but ended up going alone, Graham opting for sleep. 'Twas a priceless hike with a priceless view of the lake from atop a lonesome 13th century fortress. The rivers and lakes are amazing, glacial water features, intensely pure and intensely cold.
We fetched a wholesome bread and milk breakfast and hopped aboard a mountain train bound for a mountain bus stop bound for a crowded cable car bound for a tiny, Swiss-Alpine village. Gimmelwald. The hostel there was reserved for a group of 56 Arizona prep-school kids so we signed up to sleep in a barn owned by a lady named Esther. In the summer she moves the cows out and moves adventurous people in. We threw our stuff into a stall and sought a hiking map of the region. While we were seeking, we met a man at the lift station (cable car station) who'd received 3 free passes to the network of cable cars and trains in the area. He only needed two so he gladly offered one to us. Valued at 125 swiss francs, the card was unlimited and good 'til June 22. We took turns taking the lift to Shilthorn, a high peak above Gimmelwald and the neighboring village of Murren and home to a revolving restaurant that James Bond blew up somewhere along the line. The observation deck afforded views of countless Alps. Mountain goats and Ibex frolicked on the sheer cliffs below. We returned to Gimmelwald and had a nice dinner on an alpine bench and headed to the empty hostel. I sat there writing in the pool room with Johnny Cash playing on the stereo and the windows open, snow-capped mountains crowding in. I then proceeded to beat an Irish kid in a best-of-3 pool match and talked to a guy about Morocco and suddenly a flood of human beings came barging through the door and we retired to the barn. It was much less crowded. We met a Canadian fellow and some Singaporeans and ended up not hiking into Murren to see the game. Instead we played some music. The Canadian played guitar and an Irishman across the narrow street brought another guitar and some Dylan from his repertoire and we had a grand time swapping songs. Graham sang and played the spoons. A heavy-drinking Washingtonian with a Zoolanderesque voice came by and spouted intelligent theories on why 97% or rich girls are good looking. Somehow, we all got to bed (“hit the hay”). The hay was amazingly comfortable and only the hot Alpine sun was able to rouse me from slumber.


Now, this is not the end, but this much shall be published today. Let it be known that Will is now with us, safe and sound, and we are currently in Salzburg, Austria and are leaving on a night train for Venice.

We dearly love you all and hope to find communication much easier down south.
Until the next unscheduled check-in, Caleb