Back In Switzerland

As our time in Ireland wound down, my mind began to return to the fact that I had 3 weeks to finish an Independent Research Project, which consists of 30 hours of interactive research (interviews and visiting International Organization), a 30 page paper, and a 30 minute presentation in front of my peers, Academic Directors and (supposedly) a ‘bus’ of faculty from the School for International Training. Must have been the luck of the Irish because, for me, it is all due on November 30. I hate to bore, but for those of you who might be interested, my project is focused on climate change and adaptation; capacity building in LDCs (Least Developed Countries), specifically Uganda and East Africa. I know that it must just sound riveting; however, I should add that I choose this topic and it is more interesting than it sounds. I won’t go any further than that, but if you want to know more, just ask me about it when I return. I’ve spent the last week traveling to Geneva, researching, reading, and frantically trying to reach and visit experts at organizations like the United Nations Development Program, International Institute for Sustainable Development, OXFAM, UNCTAD, the South Centre, and next week I’ll probably do the same thing all over again (hopefully going to speak with someone at the UN Mission to Uganda, not the religious kind). Let’s just say that the nervous breakdown has been a slow boil. (Teachers, feel free to use this as ammunition to your students experiencing Christmas fever).

On the bright side, the night I returned, it snowed in Prengins bringing dreams of powder and freedom. In addition, last night, one of the guys from the soccer team saw me on the bus and said that they were still training indoors at the school in Prengins and that he would call me with details. When I came home, Anita was making fondue to warm our frozen stomachs and had me cut up the bread. Just another example of how simple things like sitting down for dinner with your family or another family, having a glass of white wine (or not), can make the mountain of burdens and frustrations on your back seem light as a feather.

Once again, I miss and love you all and hope to hear from you and/or see you soon.

Peace, love, and don’t think it hasn’t been charming,

Max

Ireland

On the 7th of November, the three of us headed to Dublin for a long weekend of Irish music and beer. In the duty free, Pete bought a bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey and we headed to the train station to go directly to the west coast. Once again, we lucked out with the weather and had five days of partly cloudy skies, which by Irish standards is probably considered clear skies (especially in the fall). It was 9:00 pm, on a Wednesday, when we walked down the main street of town to our hostel and there were loads of people coming and going from the Pubs that occupied every other building. Later that night after walking through town, Pete and I went into one of the more mellow Pubs where they had Irish music and had our first Guinness in Ireland. The last time I had a Guinness was in Austria with Gabe when I was 16 and if I remember correctly, we had to rush out of the bar because I threw up on the dance floor. Though it was an experience to laugh about, the second time around was physically more enjoyable. There were three young guys on the stage; one sitting and drumming on a box, another playing an array of Irish flutes, and the last played an acoustic guitar. The bar was only full enough to fill all the tables, and the demographic consisted of families and young adults all just sitting and listening before they got up later to dance. I could have mistaken any of those people for someone from Friends of the Deming Library. The flute playing was amazing and I was just surprised that even on a Wednesday, not only was there live music, but people of all ages were in attendance. At some point throughout the night I caught my first bit of Gaelic from the older people in the room (at which time I realized, though English is most common, I was once again in a country where the locals can talk about me and I won’t understand a word, marvelous).

In and around Galway, we visited a couple tourist sites. We went on a hiking tour of the Burren (Gealic for barren), endless rolling hills of limestone. The young guy who took us around was an archeologist who grew up on the land we trekked so he provided us with a brief history lesson. For instance, their was one stone wall that stretched straight up and over a mountain seemingly providing no purpose; however, he explained that during the Potato Famine, the English had the Irish build the wall in return for soup. The English didn’t want them to build actual infrastructure because then the French would be tempted to take over the Island as a military base to launch attacks on England. In addition to the endless walls of rock, there were many old abbeys that no longer in service, but still stood strong. In addition, we visited the enormous Cliffs of Moher, but couldn’t go out to the edge because the winds were so strong, coming from the East and West, that at one moment we couldn’t even walk then instantly we’d get thrust forward and almost fall on our faces. A Japanese tourist stood at the top and played his oboe into the wind while his girlfriend filmed it. The second of many times during my stay in Ireland that I wished I played an instrument. Despite the tourists and the time limit of our bus schedule, it was a very spiritual place. At many points in those three days, whether we were on the bus or walking along the coast, the taunting dark rain clouds blocking the sun would allow just enough room for rays of light to pour out onto the barren landscape (an event that made me realize why so many Irish are Catholic and musical inspiration seems very easy to come by). I don’t know if you could hear me, but I yelled to all of you from what seemed like the closest point to America in Europe.

Back in Dublin, we spent our days wondering the city and our nights drinking, singing and dancing in the popular Temple Bar District. At Trinity College, Pete and I viewed the most celebrated piece of art from the Dark Ages, the Books of Kells (elaborately decorated Gospels created by Irish monks). It is clear after seeing just one of the pages, which was almost all we saw, why Celtic knots are so revered by people the world over. We also visited Kilmainham Gaol, the historic jail used by the British to imprison and execute many Irish political revolutionists from the late 18th century on. An additional British occupation was in the Temple Bar District where boisterous English tourists fill the streets and Pubs for hen and stag parties. A popular song that I heard numerous times, and contributed to myself, was “Take Me Home Country Roads” by John Denver (even the tradition Irish musicians played it). At 12 pm on Saturday night, I surpassed all legal barriers by turning 21 years old. The nicest part about it was that I didn’t have to pay for anything all night.

It was a ‘grand’ initial experience in Ireland; however, when I return, I would like to be there for longer in the summer when everything is green and blooming, rent a car, and be with the people I love who love the Irish. Therefore, please inform me if you have the same intentions.
One day I will play the squeeze box just like that guy (please hold me to it).

Jungfrau Region

After turning in our exams on the first of November, Pete (from Maine), Paul (from Duke), and myself decided to finally get a closer view of the Swiss Alps. So we took a train to Interlaken, extreme sports capital of the world and birthplace of tourism in the 19th century. We arrived at night and checked into a hostel buzzing with numerous groups of American study abroad students from Florence and Madrid signing up for expensive skydiving and yelling as they played flip cup (college drinking game) in the lounge. Though Paul, from Kappa Alpha, took some prodding by, whom he would consider, two mountain hippies, we decided to skip out on the party and wake up at 5:00 am, leave commercial Interlaken behind, and enter the Jungfrau (translated from German by Paul: “young virgin”). According to lonely planet, “If the Berner Oberland is Switzerland’s Alpine heartland, the Jungfrau Region within it is the holiest of holy.” It is pretty much two huge valleys that branch off from Interlaken and connect by a train that loops around the region. Five enormous glacier peaks dominate the entire surrounding boarder leaving any mountain enthusiast speechless.

Our goal was to see the sun rise at Jungfraujoch or the “Top of Europe” (11,333ft, highest train station in Europe. We passed through the wispy falls of Lauterbrunnen with fogged windows, zigzagged up steep foothills covered by orange, red, and green pines and cedar. November brought traces of snow, yet the skies were crystal clear for the entire weekend. We reached Jungfaujoch and stood out on the deck of the Meteorological station with a 360-degree view of what seemed like all of Switzerland (supposedly, on a truly clear day you can see the Black Forest in Germany). We descended to the lower train station and had rosti (Swiss German dish which is pretty much a hardy breakfast served in a skillet) and liters of Rugenbrau (Berner Oberland beer). Because it was the off-season, none of the gondolas were running, which meant that if you hike above the villages, you wouldn’t run into anyone. We took a stroll above Kleine Scheidgg with the face of Eiger staring us down. On the south face of the foothill, we sat in the sun and watch crows dance in the wind, I built a cairn on an outcropping of stone, and Paul napped. It seemed surreal to experience such solitude and tranquility in such a popular destination. However, it almost turned out to be too tranquil because we lost track of time and almost missed the last train. We got off the train at Grindelwald, a small traditional Swiss ski town at the bottom of one of the valleys, bought as many different micro beers as we could find, checked into our hostel and drank at a local hockey match.

Saturday, we woke up, bought food at the Coop, and planned to hike to Bachalpsee Lake from the top of a Gondola (this was before we knew the gondolas had closed). So at 8:00am, we made our ascent from Grindelwald at 3,393 ft to the lake at 8,600 ft. In retrospect, it all turned out for the best even though at the time my body would have preferred an alternative form of transport. We hiked up the narrow mountain roads through farms and groupings of traditional Swiss cottages. We passed an old Swiss man sitting on his stoop smoking his pipe. After many changes in scenery, we reached the lake, which reflected Wetterhorn and Schreckhorn like mirror images, and ate our lunches at its shore. On our descent, we passed through a deserted village on the edge of a cliff overlooking Grindelwald far below. By that time, it was starting to get dark and Paul was beginning to make comments such as, “I didn’t know we were leading a National Geographic photography tour.” So I appeased him by initiating extreme descending which consists of racing down the trail and jumping off of things. At 5:00pm, we passed the same old man on his stoop smoking his pipe as we enter Grindelwald and began a desperate search for rosti.

It was a far better time to go to the Alps than I expected it would be; clear, warm in the sun, cold in the shade, snow scattered everywhere the light didn’t shine, barely any tourists on the trail, and the autumn leaves covering all the trees. In addition, one week later the weather changed from freezing and windy with snow covering even the foothills behind my house in Prengins. It was a weekend well spent.

I hate to boast; however, the Jungfrau Region was eerily reminiscent of a region many of us are quite familiar with, the North Cascades, a familiarity I would never complain about. I plan on returning to both regions for winter sports very soon.

Back In Switzerland

It has been one month since I returned from France. No surprise to all of you accustomed to my procrastination, I’ve finally come out of hibernation from the quiet Swiss Alps to say hello once again. I could just tell you about the last two journeys I took outside of the Canton of Vaud; however, since I spend so much of my time here I think Nyon, Prengins, and their humble surroundings, I think they deserve some praise. After my return, I had two weeks of school until the ominous INDEPENDENT STUDY PERIOD (I’ll get to that later). This included an anthropological study of Swiss Energy Use and Climate Change Awareness (kind of a joke), two French finals, and a final for the International Studies Seminar. In turn, as you can imagine, my mom had the pleasure of receiving numerous whinny calls that consisted of “I really just don’t want to talk about it” and “thank god I didn’t go to Uganda first.” I should add, the mood swings were and still are just a result of my laziness and in no way reflect restlessness or discontent to the order and predictability of Swiss life (common complaint of many foreigners).

To the contrary, Switzerland and the Swiss are great, kind of the opposite of what I’m used to in San Francisco and even Washington, but still great. I still contend that I got placed with the best family possible. Though I feel like my French hit a plateau about two weeks into the program, my host mom is still as patient and enthusiastic as ever. “Commet dit on…” (how does one say…) is probably the most common phrase out of my mouth. She is unrelenting in the kitchen. I’m not sure which foods I mentioned before, but we’ve had fondue and rocklett (both traditional Swiss, consisting of lots of cheese), horse, deer, escargot, every type of fish, rabbit, Mongolian fondue, and endless other things I’ve forgotten or don’t know what they are in English. In return and to the surprise of everyone, I baked my mom’s chocolate zucchini cake and they all loved it.

In addition, when I came back from Paris, I finally took initiative and asked my host mom to take me to the Prengins soccer fields to ask the coach if I could practice with the team. I was fairly, actually very, intimidated by the thought of training with a bunch of French speaking Europeans when I hadn’t played in a year and can’t speak French, but once she pulled into the parking lot, I had no choice. They practice at 7:30 under the lights on a really nice field, but when we arrived, there was no one there. In all honestly, I was content with the fact that at least I tried, but then about 20 huge guys came running out of the locker room and start practicing. I only had to see them shoot about five times to realize that the hesitation was indeed warranted. My host mom walked up to the coach said a couple of phrases in French and he instantly agreed. Fortunately, they have two teams, the second of which wasn’t practicing that day. I practiced with the second team for about three weeks. The coach was a guy from somewhere in Africa who didn’t speak any English and they all call him Pops. The guys on the team ranged from 20 to 25 years old and they joke around the whole practice. The first day, the coach didn’t even need to introduce me; they all just acted like I had already been playing with them. Most of the guys who didn’t speak English found it very entertaining to have somebody playing with them that didn’t speak French, so they said every word they knew of English at every opportunity. One Italian guy always called me Freddie Adu (youngest US national team player in history). It was really nice just to bullshit with a bunch of locals my own age; it slightly felt like high school soccer practice again. But I should add, even though their number one priority was to have a good time, they played very hard, they were definitely above my skill level, and they constantly said “bon joue” (good play) even if it wasn’t. I’m glad that I finally followed through.

Another note worthy experience was when my family took me to the mountain village of St. Cergue, at the end of September, for the local cow festival. Each of the dairy family farms paraded their dressed up cows from the mountain pastures, down to the village, around a loop, and down to the fields at lower elevation for the winter. The least appealing aspect of the whole thing was dodging the projectile cow feces. Other than that, it was quite the cultural experience. The Swiss truly respect their cattle for the cheese, meat, and milk that they provide; and in turn, they throw a huge festival and cheer has the bells around the cows’ necks signal their approach (the other US students that attended were dumbfounded). There were yodelers and people playing Alphorns. But I thought the elder farmers were the best part. All the heads of the farms were dressed in the same Swiss outfit, with pipe and wooden walking stick in hand. They would wait together at the beginning of the loop for the cows to pass and then stoically stroll behind each pack like Swiss noblemen. It was potentially the most “Swiss” event I’ve witnesses yet.