"pick-nick"

Tonight I went to a picnic. Why didn't I bring my camera? It was dumb. I didn't know how nice it would be. You go behind the Bahnhof (train station) and through the neighborhood called Gundeli to Margarethenpark. There's a open green space surrounded by trees, and a playground and fountain on your right, and a path leading uphill. You go up, and keep going up, to the left, and all of a sudden you find yourself in the middle of fields of grass, and cultivated strawberries, and you're above the town and isolated from it by trees, and something else, like quiet.

In the group the following countries were represented: France, Brazil, Turkey, Spain, Germany, Colombia, and the US, of course. A generous mix of French, German, Spanish and English was spoken, and many delicious French cheeses were eaten. I even tried some hard salami made out of duck. I know. Since it is light so late, we didn't even meet until 8; we stayed in the field until 10:30, and it was only just getting too dark and cold to be out in the grass. Then another two hours were spent at the hostess' house, where some neighbor Argentinians joined the group. The South American contingent sang us songs and played skilled guitar while the rest of us drank red wine in admiration for their talents. What an international city I live in.

In other news, the river seems to have quieted down, and the weather has certainly heated up, so there may be some river-swimming in my future. We'll see.

To avoid a photo-less post I'm including this poppy from the botanical garden. A present for you.

technical difficulty

I've noticed that clicking on the movie opens up a large version of the picture of Maggie on the tram. So here is the video by itself, in all of its tropical, poopy glory.

such a nice time.

Dear Maggie,

Please come visit me all the time!

love,

Megan

head-lick

botanical garden,

complete with pooping bird

music instrument museum

tram ride

not pictured: 6 cups of brown rice we made, then slowly ate; weird cereal-filled chocolate balls we couldn't quite convince ourselves to enjoy; the many beers drunk while watching the World Cup; pretzels consumed under the same circumstances; the rain, which refused to let up the entire weekend; the waterlogged farmer's market; look of joy on my face as Maggie cooked yet another meal; the fake-grass-covered benches outside of Art Basel on which I waited to meet Maggie after we had each spent two hours looking around the giant expanse of art works; look of enthusiasm on Maggie's face after I managed to return her defective coffee maker to the department store, then exchange it for another, entirely in German (plus hand gestures); the absurdly swollen river, thanks to our absurd amount of rain; speed with which I ran after realizing (thanks to a call from Maggie's mom, her first ever international call!) that I had the date of her arrival wrong; delicious lentil soup we ate at my new favorite neighborhood cafe, ZaZaa; and some other things, too numerous to list. It was pretty nice.

found in idleness

some Robert Johnson

and

some early Mississippi John Hurt

this, and that

Not much going on here at the moment.  I have very little playing to do; my teacher is out of the country, teaching at Tafelmusik (where I met him), and I don't have any work, though I do have one concert this month, the Master's recital of one Marie Schneider, blockflote player of Alsace (France).  

I can't print, at the moment, because the building has been taken over by the giant art fair; yesterday I went to the opening of the show (and skipped the entry fee by sneaking in the back way, ha) and saw a couple decent things, along with a lot of really uninteresting paintings.  There were two publishing collectives from Germany, one from Berlin called AKV, and one from Leipzig, called Spector Books; I ended up talking for a while to the Spector guy, and in the end traded one of my we are eating breakfasts for a book set of theirs called Liner Notes.  The "set" includes the English translation of the text, and is pretty interesting: it's a record of four days of conversations about books, making books, organizing books, designing books.  One of the Spector people I talked to even suggested I come up to Leipzig and do some printing, or perhaps teach a workshop, as they're pretty interested in letterpress up there (as much as they can be; no one is as enthusiastic about the old technologies here as they are in the States).

So.  This makes it sounds like I've been doing things.  Maybe, although I also am getting into the habit of sleeping late, then taking a nap during the day, then... looking at the internet... and... uh...

Well.  In other news, alas:

I'll have to buy a new bass wheel when I go home this summer.  I can't complain too much, I did buy this when I was at USC (1998).  I've definitely gotten my money's worth.

And, I did have the chance to print one thing before Art Basel started:

look at these fatties!

When do I get to eat them?!?

In other good news, I got a bed.  It's the first mattress I've called my own since the mid-nineties; since then, it's been an unending parade of futons.  I kind of feel like I'm sleeping in someone's guest bedroom.  I'm confident, however, that I'll adjust. 

Alpine Adventure

On Tuesday, with the calls of mountain marmots (Murmeltier!) ringing in the air, Eva and I had a vigorous hike through the Alps, by the famous "top of Europe" -- the Jungfrau, Mönch, and Eiger peaks were visible above us nearly the entire time, and below us, little towns, ski chalets, and farms. 

The mountain region we went to is in the Berner Oberland (giving the railway, the Berner Oberland Bahn, the initials BOB); you can take the regular train to Interlaken and go from there on an assortment of funiculars, buses, and cable cars up to various high places, from which you can do quite a lot of up-and-down between transportation points.  (On the way up you pass many a dairy farm, where you can hear the clanging of cowbells.  O Switzerland.)  After some low-key sightseeing, we took a hiking path (Wanderweg) that runs roughly from Kleine Scheidegg to Männlichen (map), with an exceptional stretch of "up" right at the end.  The map I link to shows how high we were, in feet as well as meters; I thought we were high at Kleine Scheidegg, at 6762 feet, 

(Eiger and Mönch here)

but it was quite a push to get us up and into Männlichen (because there had been quite a bit of down) which sits at 7317 feet.  Crap, that's high.  

(Skilift Tschuggen, about 45 minutes down from Männlichen)

Fortunately, summer seems to have finally arrived, because we could hike with bare arms most of the time.  As we got close to Männlichen and took a food break (or, more accurately, collapsed in a heap by the side of the trail to stuff bread and cheese into our hungry, tired mouths) the wind picked up and it got a bit cold.  But all in all, it was just what I was hoping for: incredibly high mountains, some sweat and hard work, and then something unexpected at the end.  Once you reach the top, you get to ride in these little gondola cars that dangle from a cable, all the way down to the town of Grindelwald, which turns out to be the longest ride of its type in the world.  6 km, just about.  

We shared our gondola with this very nice old couple from the Canton of Bern (so, not the city, but the state, so to speak); the husband spoke decent English, and I could understand much of their slow, charming Swiss-German as they spoke with Eva.  They told us about the line, and its length, and a number of other things I couldn't quite follow; then the husband explained that Switzerland has a constitution modeled somewhat after that of the States', with a Congress and a House of Representatives, and elected officials coming from each of the Cantons in the same system as ours.  Also, we saw a few sleek, fat marmots peering out from their large holes in the ground and chirping their extraordinarily loud call.  I think they must just like to hear the echo (I enjoyed it too).

I realize I've left out the more "touristic" part of our day: Trümmelbachfälle - you can see it on the right hand side of the map.  We took a bus up from Lauterbrunnen, then shuffled in line with some Americans, British, and plenty of Japanese tourists through the entry gate, past the white-cold glacier stream, and up to an elevator that would take us to the middle of the mountain, where we could see the chutes of the falls.  Icy blue water rushing through tunnels in the mountain.  Noisy, even thunderous.  With mist everywhere.  The chutes have been nicely framed by walkways, steps, and little viewing chambers carved into the mountain.

The rock is worn smooth.  I was mildly embarrassed that it reminded me of the water park of my youth, Schlitterbahn (you Texas people know the wonders of that place), but about 500x scarier, more beautiful, more powerful. And outside the mountain, exactly what you might hope for in Alpine scenery; fields of wildflowers, singing birds, all surrounded by dramatic cliffs, dotted by waterfalls made tiny by distance, though their drops are epic in height.

 Hey, it's pretty nice here.  You should come visit.