May 6 - June 6
Just a moment ago I was looking at the calendar hanging on our fridge and I noticed that it “runneth o’er” before May 12: stickers, notes, random scribbles exchanging dentist’s appointments with dinner dates . . . . The days afterwards are all but empty. And that’s the other thing I noticed: so has the house been. I came home after helping Amy, Christian and Henny to the gate and noticed how big our house is. Of course, it never seems bigger than when you’re a temporary bachelor and you have to figure out how to fire up the oven for the first time.
My loneliness wore off after about 30 minutes when I re-discovered my stash of canned lemon pie filling and my list-of-really-cool-movies-that-Amy-will-never-watch-with-me-because-they’re-not-chick-flicks. After another 30 minutes I became depressed again when I found Amy’s honey-do list. After drowning my roller-coaster of pregnancy-like emotions in lemon pie filling, I realized that our housemaid Shanti would be around for another week or so and she might be convinced to help me hide the honey-do list in exchange for a hefty pay raise. Then I realized we could never actually afford such a conspiracy. And I also realized that Amy had never left me the PIN code to our checking account. So, with the stark realization that I am broke, totally dependent on my wife, and that my face is covered in lemon pie filling, I sat down to watch “Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior.” (That’s—er, a foreign film, Amy.)
For those of you who do not know because you do not subscribe to our DAILY newsletter (and you thought this blog was annoyingly frequent!), Amy went back to the States on that fateful day: Black May 12th, as I shall call it. (Despite the connotation, please note that many cultures consider black the color of purity, whereas white represents absence or even disease.) So, I laughed one maniacal laugh when I realized I would be drafting this very blog entry without any supervision. The echo created by the marble floors was deafening, to say the least.
Well, the most important thing to avoid loneliness/boredom/putting on weight is to keep busy. So, first off I started planning a trip. I was a bit surprised when this visa officer was ironically refused a visa to Syria, so I started looking at more friendly nations to visit. I tried Sudan, Lybia, North Korea, Canada, and the People’s Republic of California. Unfortunately, socialism seems to have added quite an airfare tax to these destinations. Turns out Switzerland was the cheapest ticket around, so I took it.
Skip the next few paragraphs if you don’t want the travel log, and let me start the log with a declaration followed by a question: Switzerland has got to be the most beautiful country on earth. Why on earth did my grandfather’s grandfather leave there over two and a half centuries ago?!
I only had three and a half days, but I think I covered some good ground. I landed in Zurich, the least appealing of the cities I visited, and that’s saying a lot. From there, I took an eye-popping train ride to Lucerne and met up with some old friends (don’t think I didn’t notice the grey hairs, Matt) in Lucerne. We checked out the city, visited the transportation museum, and then drove to Italy. (Woops! Amy, remember I said I’d never go to Italy without you? I was forced! I didn’t know! I thought it was still Switzerland! . . . Now I’ll have to amend to I’ll never visit certain Italian cities like Milan, Florence, Rome, or Venice without you . . . .) After making it past a two-faced, East German hostel nazi, a drunk and bored Italian border guard who was on a power trip to try and protect his country from the threat of Americans, and a brief but poorly-timed power outage, we slept.
My friends Matt and Trish might also try and convince you that their little Claire’s pre-bedtime “meltdown” should have been included in my list of Scylla-and-Charibda trials, but I got news for ‘em. Claire ain’t got nothing on Henny. In a multi-national whine festival, Henry would get the big, blue, slobbery ribbon. (Point-in-case: Henry did not sleep a wink during the 20-hour flight home. Neither did Christian. And Amy even gave them both a spoonful of “help”! I don’t even ask about that day, and I think Amy has blocked it from memory anyway.) Anyway, Claire is a doll and it was interesting to see that kids really are quite similar and/or peek-a-boo is a global language for all ages.
Over gelato—real Italian gelato—Matt and I had a philosophical discussion about the particulars of working for the private sector versus government. Turns out they both suck. Good gelato, though.
We spent most of the next day in the Italian Alpine villages of Bellagio and Veranna. Both were quaint, centuries-old towns with tiny streets and great shops. After searching for a pizzeria which sells pizza by weight rather than slice (actually quite common in Italy), we settled on a little restaurant that served up a mean beef and parmesan sandwich. We topped it off with gelato from a gelaterist who spoke no English. No problem: gelato’s just as good when you point and grunt at which flavors you want.
I hopped a train back to Bern, going in and out of sleep until striking up a conversation with a family in the cabin, the wife translating my every word into Schwyzer Duetch, a dialect of German that sounds to Germans like a mixture of bad Dutch and bad English. “But,” she pointed out, “if you are sure to find three things in the world, it’s Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and obnoxious Germans.”
That night I stayed in a hostel near the Mormon Temple in Bern. Many of the guests were visiting the temple for the first (and for some, only) time in their lives. Consequently, they planned to use every minute they could and set their alarms for 5 AM. I languished with my face in my pillow for an hour or so longer, but then got started on the day.
After a quick ride on the tram, I was in Bern city center. That early in the morning, nobody was out and I had the entire town to myself. It had been raining earlier, so there was the smell of rain in this town that is still very medieval-looking.
At the car rental agency, I asked the sales rep if she had heard of a tiny village nearby called Bangerten. She said she had not and looked even more confused when I pulled out a map of the town’s location. (Are Americans the only ones who get maps?) While I still had no idea where I was headed, this ploy was useful in guaranteeing I got a car with a satellite navigation unit. When she handed over the keys to a Peugeot that did not have a navigation system, I did not have to say a word. The look on my face said everything: “It’s my first time in your country and I’m trying to find a tiny village that no one has heard of. Besides, that car is French.” She put me in a nice Mercedes-Benz with a navigation device. I smiled big and drove to the parking lot across the street.
You can imagine my surprise when I punched in “B-A-N-G-E” and the computer came up with not one, but two Bangertens! Having done a bit of research, I knew that my ancestral hometown is the first of the two and proudly clicked on the correct one. A rather sultry female voice gently guided me to turn left here, right there, or to “please turn around and start over, you idiot.” Fifteen minutes later I had to pull over. I got quite choked up when I saw street signs pointing me to Bangerten. I can’t explain why exactly I became so emotional—I didn’t even have Amy around as an excuse to claim sympathetic hormonal mood swings. I can say, that I truly felt like I was coming home.
When I got to Bangerten town center (a town hall, a restaurant, and a workshop attached to an old farmhouse), I realized that Saturday was not the first day of the workweek as it is in Dubai and that I might have trouble tracking anyone down. I wandered into the workshop and sure enough: the town carpenter gave me a good Swiss-German stare. Two minutes after explaining why I had come to visit the town, he was introducing me to the mayor (his best friend). The introduction began with our walking into the attached farmhouse, the carpenter pounding the ceiling with a broomstick, and yelling “Hey, Tom! Tom! Wake up! You gotta come down here!” in Swiss-German, of course. Mayor Tom came down and had a cup of coffee while I pored over a copy of the town’s history which had just been published a few years ago. We chatted about life in America versus life in Switzerland, life in the city versus life in the country, and about life.
Those of you who know your European history know that crests are very important to a group’s identity. Each family, town, canton, and country has a crest. Bangerten’s crest is a green tree on a red field bearing seven pieces of golden fruit, a golden fence in the foreground. I had seen this crest before, hanging on my grandfather’s wall and then saw it again on the front door of the old farmhouse Mayor Tom lives in. I asked the carpenter if a wooden Bangerten crest is available, but he didn’t pick up the hint. We all traipsed over to the town hall and Tom gave me a bit more history of the town. The town hall was several decades old, but the farmhouse he lives in had been passed down generation to generation for over 200 years. I asked Kuschi (the carpenter) if the restaurant was any good. He explained that since it’s on a farm and the cook uses fresh produce, it’s one of the best.
I returned to the temple near Bern to worship and to re-energize my spirit and then spent a few hours in Bern proper, but not before grabbing lunch at a local baeckerei. The waitress didn’t speak English, but I somehow communicated that I wanted whatever’s good. She brought a tenderized beef steak that was wrapped in bacon and covered in a mushroom sauce. I topped it all off with a slice of zitroenetart (a citrus tart) and prided myself in knowing enough German to explain that I didn’t want to drink.
Since it was the weekend and the weather was absolutely gorgeous, a makeshift market popped up in the middle of Bern which was quite crowded, actually. It was fun to check out the shops and churches with the small city business happening all around. Promptly at 4 PM you would have thought the entire town spotted a political activist: everyone closed up shop and returned to their homes. By 4:20 Bern was empty. For fear that I would be put in the stocks for public vagrancy if I remained, I too left town. I checked out a couple of villages surrounding Bangertern: Rapperswil, Iffwil, Muenchenbuchsee, all absolutely wonderful. Then I went back to Bangerten to check out the restaurant.
Kuschi was still in his workshop and happily explained that his wife had nearly killed him for not introducing me when I had come earlier that day. He showed me his home, and we chatted for a few minutes before heading over to Wirtschaft Loewen (the Lion Restaurant) for not only Swiss cuisine, not only Swiss country cuisine—Swiss country cuisine, Bangerten style: fresh asparagus with herbed mayonnaise, veal steak, and roesti. Roesti is a Swiss specialty, something like homemade hashbrowns, but Bangerten makes them different (and better) than anywhere else. They throw in bacon AND ham, onion, and cheese, and then top it off with a fried egg. Wow. “Schmeckt zehr guet” was all I could say.
Kuschi and Sandra are incredibly kind people. And good parents, too. Kuschi knew early on that his 11-year old son Joel was not good with his hands and would not make a good carpenter. His mom and dad encourage him to play soccer and dream up business ideas. Kuschi and Joel are going to the Iron Maiden concert together next month. I smiled and looked forward to attending rock concerts with my boys.
On the last morning, I had a few more moments in Bern. The shops were still closed, but churches started to fill up. By the time I was making my way to the train station, church bells were ringing practically everywhere. Sitting on the 9:28 intercity train, I reflected on what I the few days I had spent. The trip had reminded me of two things: Swiss women are some of the most attractive on earth and how lucky I am to have lured one into marrying me.