2015-02-28 08:21:07 +5h (Heathrow)

The trip has been very smooth so far. I arrived at Pearson with ample time to
make my flight. Pearson has got Acer to install a great bunch of iPads to
create a novel browsing / dining experience. One can order food from the iPads
and have it delivered to the seating area. There was great sea of unused
screens while I was there.

The whole situation at airports is very confusing. They're clearly a case where
a bunch of conflicting interests come together, and bad optima abound.  For
example, airport arrival is one of the tricky games that no one wants to play,
and everyone loses every time. [Spending time in airports sucks, but you need
to do it. Everyone wants to make sure that they don't miss their flight, but
also want to avoid the airport.]

Flying British Air feels novel since everything is in English, and only in
English. In fact, the whole thing feels exceedingly English. Anglo-Canadians
generally have a strong intuition for what English-ness (British-ness) is, but
can't put it exactly in to words. There are visible stereotypes which one
plainly recognizes in the airport, but it's not easy to say what they are or
what they're like. "Hmm -- That's the kind of guy who'd really let loose at a
football game or rugby; I have no idea if those are different stereotypes."

When I got to Heathrow I made my first massive miscalculation of the conversion
rate between Euros and CAD. My breakfast was rather modest: a coffee, a
smoothie, and a burger but it cost 30 EUR. Don't eat at the airport; it's
crazily expensive. The airport was pleasantly cosmopolitan: my waitress was a
Latvian woman, and the multi-faith room was well stocked.  I went to spend a
couple minutes in silence, and was joined by a Muslim and a Christian. The
Muslim did his practices beside me, while facing Meccah. I sat on the floor,
pointed in the `wrong' direction. Later, the Christian came in a prayed aloud
that his flight, and the flights of all those flying today, may be safe and
peaceful. He said his prayers off in a corner, behind a curtain, and for
himself, but it was a very tender ministry. 

Flying is scary. Everything about getting in the air is bureaucratic and scary.
It's costly. It's hectic. It's cramped. Moreover, the food is a caricature of
food made by people who've never eaten. The coffee is worse. And yet, it's a
miracle. People fly. Parents even fly with babes. I'm very thankful that I live
at a time, and in such circumstances, that travel is easy. It's amazing that I
can go around the world for work. Few people have such a luxury. Moreover,
travel is much better than it used to be.  I can only imagine how long this
trip would have take, say, a hundred years ago. The food probably wouldn't have
been much better.

I feel like cheering when we take off and touch down. I'm not sure why everyone
doesn't cheer for joy at having made it. I'd guess that most crashes happen
during those two parts of the journey, so clearing them seems especially worthy
of celebration.

An alternative air line: Sketchy Air. There's no security and no ads. You
calmly check your bags, and shuffle on to the "air bus". All Sketchy Air fleet
planes will have a remote controlled self-destruct destruct sequence. If the
plane is taken off course in anyway that is not approved by Air Sketchy
officials, the plane's air circulation is shut off or replaced with some
noxious agent which kills or incapacitates all aboard. The plane then flies
itself home.

2015-03-01 16:21:03 +6h (Chernex)

I've arrived deep in the heart of the funky Swiss Quaker zone. I'm staying in
Chernex with Paul and Rorie Saunders-Nazareth. It is an idyllic place, nestled
between a Swiss mountain and a lake which borders a French mountain. All of my
idealizations about Switzerland are being confirmed; the place is awesome.

Firstly -- I should say a bit about how I got here. It was very easy to get
from the airport to the Chernex. I wandered out of the airport, exchanged my
currency (more on that later) at the train station, and hopped on the train.
The trains were direct, efficient, and comfortable. When I got on the train, I
asked the woman sitting beside me if she would help me get on the wireless. It
turns out that it's impossible to get on without a Swiss cell phone. I took the
train to Montreux and then Chernex. The train passed by the vineyards of
Lausanne, a living cemetery ancient rock walls holding up vinetards that have
been there for generations. Hopefully I'll have more to say about those later.
In any case, I hadn't been able to get on to the wireless at Heathrow or Geneva
and still hadn't contacted my hosts when I got to Chernex. It was getting dark
when I arrived at the train station. Almost no one was there. A lady who spoke
no English offered to help me out. She asked who my hosts were, and I told her.
They said that she doesn't know any Anglo people in Chernex and that she
wouldn't be much help to me. She lent me her cell phone to call Paul and Rorie.
They didn't pick up; the lady explained that Chernex is a very small town and
that there would be no way for me to get online and send out an email. The lady
had to catch her train. It was getting dark, and I was stranded in a small
Swiss village knowing almost nothing about my hosts. I (still) didn't even know
exactly where they live (that is, where I am writing to you from).

I noticed that there was a restaurent beside the train station and headed in
that direction. When I got to the restaurant, a man in a chef's clothes was
having a cigarette with another man in plain worker's clothes. I told them that
I had two problems: I needed a coffee and I was totally lost. They laughed.
It was clear that we were all living out the typical scene in a European movie
about a clueless tourist, and that they wanted to help me out. The man in
worker's clothes got out his cellphone and the chef read out the numbers to
him. No answer. "Putain!", exclaimed the slightly drunk Swiss worker. We go
inside and they make me a coffee. "C'est Rorie, ou Ronie? Putain! L'écriture,
c'est trop petite." I'm trying to make small talk in French, as I figure out my
next move. We try again. It works!  Paul and Rorie come and pick me up as I
finish my espresso. I've never felt so relieved while traveling. It was great
to feel lost for ten minutes, meet some nice fellows, and be found. Hopefully
this will teach me a lesson about setting up travel plans; I don't want to feel
lost for ten hour and meet some bad fellows. I was very lucky to meet up with
Paul and Rorie as quickly as I did.

My hosts are awesome. This is the happiest, most unified, family I've ever
seen. The whole family is a unit and they love each other very much. Paul and
Rorie are both from the USA. Rorie has a strong connection to her Filipino
roots, which she is passing on to her children. They have two daughters: Kemmet
is twelve and Parker is a couple years younger. Rorie is a full-time mother,
and has made a super-funky life for her daughters. They're both doing piano,
one does cello and the other does guitar, they both do Aikido.  It is amazing
how much these kids do, and yet they seem very chill. 

Note that the family just got back from vacation: they were in the Philippines
and LA.

Today we went for a hike up to Glion. There was a light misty rain and we
passed by beautiful streams coming down the mountains. There aren't words to
describe the sense of awe and wonder that came over me as we walked along the
road. Everything was coated in lichens, and the whole place felt alive. The air
was fresh and damp. The family explained to me that their Meeting is small, and
meets once a month. There are many Quakers around, so their family of four is
usually all that there is. It was a powerful topic to be discussing early on a
Sunday as we walked around in the living presence of Nature.

We walked along the road up to Glion. It was a nice winding road. Going both
ways you could feel the incline of mountain. It required some getting used to,
and it tuckered me out very quickly. The family likes to take long walks. Rorie
told me that she's taken the girls on walks that last two or three days, true
proper hikes. While we were walking we passed ancient buildings in the village,
and it made me feel how young Canada is compared to Switzerland. There are
houses from the 1700s here. People still live in them. The brick and mortar
piled up there makes one feel like the houses too are part of the landscape.

I finished reading the Stonemason. It's a tricky ready. I'll quote you what I
wrote in my notes about books:

	Stunning play. We've been on a McCarthy kick this year. I've already
	read his other novel-drama Sunset Limited. The Stonemason had a lot of good
	for thought, and beautiful thoughts about the significance of masonry.
	It made me even more curious about Freemasonry. It was a good read, but
	I would have preferred to see it on stage. It felt a little flat to me
	as I read it, but I could see it being very powerful on stage

In other words, "I didn't get it." Overall, I wanted to like it, but it didn't
hit me as hard as Sunset Limited did. Perhaps I didn't get much out of it
because I read it while in airports and over multiple sittings. Drama generally
doesn't hit me as hard as other people. It wasn't a bad read, or a waste of
time, but I wasn't as strongly moved as I was when I read some of his other
work.

2015-03-02 16:59:48 +6h (Chernex)

Today was a nice long day. In the morning I did my practices, which was
refreshing. The guest room here is excellent. It has a large book case full of
all kinds of funky books: architecture, politics, yoga, asian-american erotica,
one big shelf of sheet music and books on music theory. It's really fascinating
to scan the shelf, one finds all kinds of nice nuggets. There is a desk that I
haven't made much use of since it is covered with stuff. There is a fold-out
futon and a couple chairs. One of the chairs is a perfect leather chair:
comfy, but not soggy, firm, but not a brick. It also has a matching ottoman and
a perfectly pitched reading light. You can guess where I spend most of my time
when I'm not with the family.

Today I went on a very long walk. It was long even by my standards. It was a
very novel experience. There is no grid structure to the roads here, there
simply couldn't be since the region is so hilly. Everything is on a steep
incline. A typical road will flow precisely along the contour of the hills and
any road that doesn't will have multiple erratic switch-backs that pile up to
give you a slow tortuous ascent of the mountain. Moreover, the cities are
really old, they have formed organically and not according to some
pre-conceived notion of layout. This makes navigating by sight hopeless. If you
see something in the distance that you want to visit, it's often difficult to
discern any path to get there. You start off in one direction and then the road
itself will suddenly make a U-turn taking the hapless pedestrian tourist off in
the wrong direction.

I walked for about four hours, descending from the hamlet of Chernex down to
the small city of Montreux. Even descent is difficult when the hills are this
steep. My footing was unsure and my ankles felt like they were constantly being
tricked into doing something that they should not do. When I finally scrambled
my way down to the main part of Montreux I came to the water (Lake Geneva)
where I was greeted by a larger than life statue of Freddie Mercury. Apparently
he spent his latter years here, and the city erected a giant monument to him.
Who knew?

I wandered around Montreux trying to find the ideal place to get coffee and
read some papers. I came to a café in the middle of town, had some fries and
started to look at Lubotzky's paper. It's pretty heady stuff. Lots of
techniques from representation theory that I've never even heard of. I'm going
to keep looking at it, but it's a tough read. After Montreux, I went up to Old
Montreux and looked at a church there. It was very old. It had a sign from 1903
commemorating the 100th anniversary of Vaud becoming a canton. (Switzerland is
divided in to twenty six cantons, which are something like states in the USA.
They have a lot of legal autonomy and are responsible for their citizens. Also,
each canton thinks that it is the best canton.) As I was saying -- The old
place has an old sign commemorating something that happened a long time ago.

After the church, I began The Great Climb. The Swiss ought to be known for
building staircases in weird places. I wandered around near the church until I
found a staircase leading to something related to telegraphs. "Oh great!
Telegraphs!" Beside the stairs was a sign saying '1055 steps'. Turns out,
that's a lot of steps. Really a lot. I climbed up to the top, well above
several apartment buildings and far too close to a cliff edge. Did I mention it
was raining? Yeah -- It was raining, slippery, and really high up. When I got
to the top, I took off my rain jacket, my sweater, and let the steam wick off
my arms. 

I was still about an hour and a half from home. The Great Climb had taken me
over to another village, Glion. As I ate my sparse provisions, a granola bar
and some water, I saw some students from the university in Glion walk past in
their school's formal attire. This wasn't a good time to ask if the tiny
village of Glion might have room for another mathematician at their adorably
tiny university. I was sufficiently lost at this point that I thought it would
be a good idea to hop the fence to the automated train tracks (I knew where
they lead) but then I chickened out and didn't want to carry on. I re-traced
the steps of my walk yestertday until I was about two "blocks" from home.

When I got close to home, I start to get a little confused. Everything looks
tiny and adorable, all the streets look kind of medieval, and I've only been in
the house from two different doors, and once was at night so it barely counts.
Anyway -- I'm standing at the corner, looking dazed, trying to figure out
whether I want to go up further or continue on, and Rorie drives by! She picks
me up, and drives me the last two "blocks". So close!

Fast-forward a whole bunch until dinner time. Rorie and Paul are having a
guest Daniel, and his daughter Alice, over for dinner. Rorie made an amazing
soup. We chatted in French and English as best we could. I've started to make
friends with their daughter Parker. She's quiet, but attentive. We sat beside
each other at dinner, and the cat Heidi came up and snuggled between us. We
both petted Heidi and Parker showed me where the cat had lost some hair. We
both had a moment of 'Oh, the poor thing' which felt nice since it connected us
a bit and made me feel more comfortable.

To my naive ear, the girls are very musically talented. While we were waiting
for dinner they sang a couple songs in a beautiful fragile harmony that only
young sisters can achieve. They did it totally spontaneously, and it amused all
the adults a great deal. What a party trick!

2015-03-04 02:21:46 +6h (Chernex)

Yesterday I mostly stayed at home, and hacked away at a script for generating a
photo gallery. My friend ~endorphant from ctrl-c.club wrote a simple script to
generate a static HTML photo-gallery from a directory of photos, and I played
around with it and made it do a couple extra things. Now I've got some of the
photos from the trip at pgadey.com. I talked with Patrick Robinson a lot while
I was hacking away at ~endorphant's code, and I warned him against the perils
of using Linux. You can spend a day in Switzerland staring at Perl code, trying
to write something that doesn't need writing. Absolute power corrupts
absolutely, etc.

(Mostly a meditation on anxiety, skip to next paragraph for more travel.)

I also had a chance to chat with Meg while I booked a hostel in Basel.
Initially my credit card was giving me some trouble, and I got very frustrated.
Anything involving money instantly makes me a hundred times more anxious, and I
get frustrated very quickly. In part, this is because most things inolving
money seem poorly designed. The whole credit card system is a sham. The rest of
anxiety comes from the vicious cycle of anxiety, every time I use money I get
anxious and so it makes me anxious when I use it. Anyway -- I was about to give
up on booking the hostel when I found a button on my online banking website
that seemed like it might be helpful. I clicked it, filled in some forms, and a
couple minutes later I was able to book the hostel. I'm really happy that I
managed to stick with it and figure out the banking issue. It looks like it
will be a lot easier to use my credit card online in the future. This is all
part of untying the knot of anxiety; learning to overcome things that would be
'bad' only for the reason that they used to cause me anxiety. 

So -- I've booked a hostel in Basel. I want to go and visit Riehen which is in
Basel-stadt (which, being paired with Basel-Landschaft, is one of the six
half-cantons). The plan is to go to Riehen, stay over nice in Basel, then head
to Bern for Thursday. Friday will be a heavy travel day, I suspect.
Rorie has laid out an ample route for me:

	Bern
	-> Interlaken Ost (Thun, Spiez?)
	-> Zweisimmen	(Gstaad, Chateau d'Oex?)
	-> Chernex

This morning I woke up pretty early, and had a lot of time to myself. Rorie,
Kemmet, and Paul all had to leave simultaneously but Parker stayed behind. We
sat together for a little while in the kitchen. I tried to chat with her while
she was doing her vocabulaire. Trying to talk to her was novel, I don't have
many oppertunities to interact with ten year girls. She was writing in fine
cursive handwriting using a fountain pen; I told her that she has nice
handwriting and that I like fountain pens. She explained why she had
highlighted certain parts of certain words. The conversation was a little
bumpy, but it was a nice oppertunity to interact with her one on one. Once the
coffee was done, I left the kitchen and sat in the living room, sipping the
fresh coffee. The living room is, like everything else in the house, pleasant
and funky. There are two couches, one facing the other, with a rough hewn
wooden coffee table in bewtween. There is a piano and a small living pine which
I assume is their perpetually maintained Christmas tree. The couches have
wooden frames which extend above the couch to form a small shelf which
encircles the couch, perfect for keeping a cup of coffee or a book on. On the
coffee table is a copy of David Macaulay's The Way Things Work, one of my
favourite books of all time. Eventually, when Parker had to leave, she came out
of the kitchen and announced that she was leaving for school. I wasn't sure
what to do about this announcement, was I supposed to walk her? Can a ten year
old just wander off? I don't even know where her school was. Turns out, this is
her standard routine and she always walks herself to school; she just wanted to
let me know that she was leaving. She is very mature and self-assured. I spent
the next couple minutes marvelling at how cool Rorie's kids are.

Last night it hit me that I should have travelled more when I was younger. I
feel like I am only starting to travel as the golden window on travelling comes
to a close. There is a lot of ambient hospitality in the world: people willing
to host and help travellers, but I didn't know this until recently. No use in
lamenting the past. I've got to get to Basel.

(Skip forward to avoid two paragraphs of vegan ranting.) 

I've made it to Lausanne, and now I'm waiting for the panoramic train to Basel.
I've got an hour and a half delay in Lausanne, and I've been wandering around
looking for lunch. I stopped at a really lovely pub / brasserie which looked
like the idea place to get a bite to eat before leaving the town. It has a real
old world feel, lots of wood everywhere, lovely place. When I looked at the
menu I found a leek and potato soup; but it had milk in it. They didn't have
french fries and everything they did have had milk products in it. They tried
to talk me in to rösti (potatoes and hot cheese) since milk is not cheese, of
course. I backtracked my way to a kebab place, and got a falafel sandwich.
After asking for no milk products, the sandwich came with garlic yoghurt sauce
on it. I should emphasize that the thing was a real sandwich on kaiser bun. It
seems that a falafel wrap is called a falafel dürüm, probably borrowed from the
Turkish for wrap. I'll have to investigate.

Being in Switzerland has got me questioning my veganism once again. Switzerland
is not a vegan-friendly country; almost all food has some kind of milk in it. I
have a strong interest in trying 'authentic Swiss food' while I'm here, but
there is simple nothing I can eat here. Why have I imposed this restriction on
myself? At the bottom of it, I have no answer. It's just something that I do
now. It used to be the case that I really felt for the animals, but that has
long since faded. How attached am I to the welfare of Swiss cows? Almost not at
all. I'm unsure if they're treated better here than in North America. I saw a
beautiful and happy looking brown cow on the stroll from Glion to Chernex.
That's a since example that says things might be better here for our bovine
brethren. What of it? The bottom line is that veganism has become a sort of
strong habit, it's a very strong preference, not a moral stance anymore. Why
should I avoid certain foods other than the vague feeling that they might upset
my stomach? I'm not even sure that a fondue would put me out of commission. 

I've caught the train to Basel. At the train station I managed to find an
african food shop, and bought some ginger beer and peanutbutter. In the event
that I get hungry I'll have a couple snacks. To kill a bit more time near the
train station, I stopped in at a Starbucks. It seems like the Starbucks
situation here is similar to in Russia. Everything is insanely expensive.
Everything was at least 4.50 CHF (5.70 $CAD). That's for a tall drip coffee,
nothing fancy. I grabbed a coffee in the basement of the train station instead,
which cost 3.40 CHF, not much better.

I'm unsure exactly where one can smoke in Switzerland. There were people
smoking downstairs, but not exactly 'inside'. There were people smoking on the
train platform. I'm sitting with a couple of biologists on the train, Jean and
Sarah, who've informed me that smoking in all enclosed spaces is forbidden.
They say that people smoke in the passages below the train platform, but that
this is not exactly correct and that it is usually done quickly.

Jean seems to have had a little bit of trouble with her ticket. She didn't get
the zoning correct on her ticket. The ticket taker came by and gave her a hard
time about it. He wiggled her ticket about in the air, right in from of my
face. It seemed like he wasn't aware that I was there. It was very strange.
When he left, I leaned over to the women and said: "Mon Dieu, il a les mains
gigantiques!" They both giggled. I was surprised how quickly we got to
Neuchâtel, I had a bit of a giggle since we really traversed a lot of the map.
They both got off at Neuchâtel.

I've continued on. The changing view is too rich to be described. I've come in
to the German part of the country, and it is noticably different here. One nice
moment from the ride was passing through a long tunnel in the mountain. After a
while a damp, thick, earthy smell snuck in to our car. It smelled exactly like
a mountain ought to smell on the inside.

I've got to Basel, and it's clear that I'm now in the German part of
Switzerland. All the train announcements are in German, and a lot of the
signage is too. It's a strange feeling; I'd just got used to all the French and
now it's all in German. It's amazing that these two languages thrive in such
close proximity. 

The sun is close to setting, and I'm worried I might not make it to Euler's house in
good time. I'm on the train to Riehen, so I'll be there soon enough.

I've finally managed to get in trouble with the SFF/SBB/CFF authorities. That's
not to say that I was trying or anything, but I've been wondering what it's
like since I saw the guy with the giant hands. I was using the bathroom and
didn't lock the door. The ticket checker needs to check the bathrooms to make
sure that no one is hiding in there, and he stumbled in on me. It wasn't a big
deal, but I when I slipped out of the bathroom he insisted on checking my
ticket. In a strong, stern voice he told me: "You didn't close the door." I was
pretty confused about what was going on and I offered to go back and close it.
It tooked me a couple more iterations of this bizzare dance to figure out that
he was angry that I hadn't locked the door, since this makes his ticket
checking more complicated since he has to follow me afterwards.

(Probability info dump. Skip to next paragraph for more Switzerland.)
I really like the system used by Swiss (and the YRT in Toronto) to keep
customers paying for tickets. It's an instance where doing things randomly is
much more efficient than doing them in the naive, brute force, manner. They
could hire a lot more ticket inspectors and check that every single person on
the train has a ticket and this would ensure that nobody gets a free ride. Or,
they can check some of the tickets randomly and fine people who don't have
tickets. By varying the probability that they check a passanger's ticket and
the size of the punishment for not having a ticket, they can ensure that
catching a free ride has negative expected value. If the punishment is really
bad, almost no one will cheat. 

This is the kind of thing in mathematics that simply makes me happy. When you
can see, clearly, how something like that fits together and is practical, it's
impossible not to smile. The trip to Euler's house was a similar thing. Even
though Euler's house is just a house, in a city, with no particularly magical
qualities, it was very nice to go there. I arrived in Riehen with enough time
to hike over to his house and snap some photos. Beside the plaque there was a
small church. I wandered in and snapped some photos. I imagined that this might
have been the church where Euler's dad preached. I could believe that little
Leonhard ran around in it, and slept in the back sometimes. I have no idea if
that's true, but it was fun to imagine at the time. The pews were unfinished
and worn down, the only treatment the wood had been given was hundreds of
years of light rubbing with pious Swiss German bottoms. 

After the church, I looked around briefly and came upon a bookshop. I couldn't
resist, even though all the books were in German. I got talking with the shop
clerk and I realized that I didn't have a copy of Der Kleine Prinz, which the
shop keep quickly produced. We got in to a discussion about whether it's better
to have the original German translation or the more modern one. I settled on
the more modern one since it has what I consider to be the 'usual' cover, which
is probably not the original cover.

Riehen and Basel were a something of a culture shock after Chernex. Firstly,
the language is completely unintelligable, the people look different, they act
different, and the towns' outskirts are a little run down. After Chernex, I had
the impression that everything in Switzerland is run by hyper-local communes
which decide how houses should look and what should go on. This may be the case
in Vaud, but in Basel-stadt things look different. There are normal looking
townhouses with crummy swingsets in back. There are heaps of junk behind
houses. It was a little refreshing since it was difficult to imagine an entire
country as pristine as Chernex. 

I'm just going to say it: tough looking German motherfuckers. I didn't see many
big heavy set guys with shaved heads near Lake Geneva, but I sure saw some near
Riehen. They weren't intimidating; they just looked tough and drank beer after
beer on trains. I could have fit in with some of them a week ago when I shaved
my head. I also drank the two cans of ginger beer. 

Thus far, I've only met one person who didn't speak any English. Somewhere on
the trip back from Riehen we needed to change cars on the train, and the guy
whose job consists of telling people that doesn't speak English. I explained
that I don't speak German, and he just waved me along. I followed him, and it
all worked out. Thus far, out of the dozens of people I've interacted with, one
person doesn't speak English. Bastards...

After the Riehen trip, I headed back to Basel and checked in to the hostel. The
Basel Youth Hostel (Jugendherberge) is awesome. Generally, my impression of
Basel is that it is a city of amazingly high quality design. It seems
impossible that people live in Basel, cool shapes live in Basel and the people
just muck around and get in their way. Everything feels really polished and
sleek in the hostel. Lots of poured concrete, and moulded plywood. The hostel
is off of St. Alban Kirchrain, a street that starts at a beautiful old tower.
One wanders down the cobble stone street, and past a small re-directed stream,
up a small bridge and then you're inside a modern design magazine. 

(Skip two paragraphs to avoid gushing about a particular lamp.)
I'm going to be a weird position when I get back to Canada. People will ask
what my favourite part of Switzerland was, or what the best part was, and I'll
have to answer: "The cool lamp / bookshelf thing in the Basel Youth Hostel
where I stayed for a night." It was an object perfectly adapted to its function
and place in the world. I couldn't even take it home, since it wouldn't make
sense outside of the context of the hostel. It's a (the?) perfect object.

I'll post pictures online, but allow me to try and write what this thing is:
It's a tiny shelf, more like a pocket with one side missing, that can hold two
thin paper backs, together with a lamp mounted underneath the shelf. The lamp
is set up so that it doesn't shine anywhere other than on your bunch, and the
shelf-pocket thing is set up so that it's not clear what its holding: you could
put a wallet in it, and no one would know. It's genius. It's exactly the kind
of 'pocket / shelf / lamp thing' that you'd want in a hostel. I love lamp.

Okay -- Now the bad side of the hostel. 
	(I) As soon as I walked in to my room, I saw a fat man's naked ass. 
	(II) That guy has a terrible snoring problem that could wake the dead. 

If you'd have told me that snoring could get that loud, I wouldn't have
believed you. It was awful. When I woke him up at 4am to see if there was
anything I could do, he fell back asleep and started up the infernal death howl
that was his sinuses post haste. Luckily, the hostel had a free room and I was
able to make the move at 4:10am.


2015-03-05 16:21:41 +6h (Bern)

I made it to Bern alright. I met up with my contacts Art and Esther Funkhouser
and went for a quick trip around Bern. We went for lunch at a tucked away
cafeteria, and had leek soup. They told me a little bit about they came to
where they are in the world. They've had interesting lives. Art is an American
ex-physicist who has since become a Jungian analsyt specializing in dream work.
Esther is a Swiss German, who married and lived in the United States, lost her
husband, and moved back to her homeland a couple decades later. She's retired
but worked in the municipal government of Thun.

Art walks at an incredible pace. He's a really fast walker, and quickly
outpaced Esther and me. I hung back with Esther, while Art ran ahead and then
retreated to encourage us to greater speeds. We eventually got my luggage
secured in a locker, and headed off to lunch. Art took us to a small cafeteria
called Spetsi. The food was good, and the leek soup was very salty. A pleasant
surprise for someone who rarely salts things.

Art took me on a whirlwind tour of the city at his amazing clip. We briefly saw
a whole bunch of things, a change from the kind of light ambling tourism that
I'm used to doing alone. We went down one of the main streets of medieval Bern,
and looked at all the old guild halls' signs. We saw the old standards used for
defining meters in Bern in the middle ages (more on that later). We brushed
passed Einstein's apartment which now has a tiny museum and a bar below it
(more on that later).  We went to the great Bern Minster (Cathedral), where Art
showed me an amazing stained glass of Death (a guise of the Plague) taking off
all kinds of people and a dynamic organ with a continuous range of pitches.
Then we went up to the Rose Garden (roses aren't in season, don't worry) for
the canonical view of the city. Then we went for a quick 'dessert' at a hip bar
operated by a relative of Art's wife, where they gave me a free espresso. Then
we ran to see the special clock tower chime 3:00pm. It was very cool, in a
'medieval special effects are neat'-kind of way. We past the Kornhaus
Bibliotheken. We skipped in to what used to be part of a monastery and were
surprised when a children's choir serenaded us; Art showed me where they had a
brief Quaker Meeting inside a beautifully plain part of the church. Then we ran
over the the city hall, where a bunch of kids were simulating the functioning
of the government. Then Art had an appointment, and he had to leave. And,
that's how you do tourism quickly.

Once Art left, I wandered around Bern somewhat mindlessly. I was feeling tired,
and a little worn out. Eventually I got something of an n'th wind, but the pace
was really quite slow. I went to a shop called 'Secret Natures' which primarily
sells absinthe but also sells bongs and a gold plated set for doing cocaine.
The shop keeper, and the lady standing around, weren't much help in elucidating
the peculiarities of Swiss drug laws and culture since they'd been drinking
absinthe samples with customers all day. I bought an absinthe spoon with a
square cross for Patrick, and left.

I went back to Einstein's apartment for a second look, and was pleasantly
surprised to find that there was a cigar smoking room above the café. I ordered
a super cheap cigar (La Fuente Bonita - 3CHF), an orange juice, an espresso,
which I consumed concurrently and with great pleasure. I felt happy as a clam.
There aren't many exciting tastes on this trip. The food and alcohol situation
has really skewed my perspective on Switzerland, and this was a place where the
country could really earn some points. It was great, I smoked the itty-bitty
cigar, drank the espresso, sipped the orange juice and really enjoyed the
strange mix of powerful flavours and mild drugs. I was in Einstein's
neighbourhood, things were tasty, and I was happy.

"Voici tout simplement le cercle officiel de la grande société des fumeurs
informels."

In the evening I went to Art's aparment. It is a lovely space, very sparse and
open. All the decorations are simple, and tasteful. Nothing feels over burdened
or cramped. Most of the art has a religious or mystic dimension to it and taken
together it describes a particular way of viewing the world. The dining table
is in front of a floor to ceiling window that takes up most of a wall. At the
foot of the window is a collection of orchids and small plants. The orchids
look very healthy and one is sporting an impressive show of eight white
flowers.

Over dinner, we talked about various things. We mostly talked about Art's work
with dreams. He thinks that there is value in exploring one's dreams, but that
dreams shouldn't be 'analyzed' by someone else. He thinks that this kills the
dream and makes it too static. He told me that often, when people ask what he
does he lies and tells them that he's a nuclear physicist. This way people
don't ask him to dissect their dreams on the spot. We talked about the urge
that people have to discuss their dreams. Everyone is curious about dreams. Yet
there is a taboo of discussing dreams; we don't do it much without provocation.

Earlier in the day Art had explained that people tend to open up when they're
around him. Over dinner, I got a little personal as well. I realized that his
job is to listen to other people 'opening up' and tried to tone it down a bit.

In the evening, when we were all headed off to bed, Art wished me "Sweet
dreams!" And I've got to say that it worked: I had very good clear dreams
during the night and I was able to remember them in the morning. 

2015-03-06 13:23:58 +6h (Bern)

Today was a very quiet, relaxed, sort of day. I went to the Paul Klee Museum
and spent a long time staring at art. I've never done that before but today I
made a concentrated effort to try and get in to it. I slowly looked at each
painting, trying to see what it brought up in me. Sometimes nothing came up,
and other times I would get a vague sense of several things. Eventually this
became tiresome, and I had to retreat to my locker to get some snacks. Coming
back to the art, I was able to see it with refreshed eyes. 

The other exhibit showing at the Paul Klee museum was a collection of Henry
Moore's statues. He is a fascinating artist. I hope to get a chance to read
some of his essays when I've got the time. He was heavily inspired by natural
forms: rocks, bone, wood. He said, in the short film about him that was playing
in the gallery, that he was trying to penetrate into nature by creating these
abstract representations of natural forms. This makes me think of the delight
I've had in looking at denuded trees while working on the trees project. In
some sense I feel that that project was guided by nature.

After the time at the Klee Centre, I headed on a random walk towards Bern. I
wasn't exactly sure how to get to downtown, so I just started off in a
direction and kept wandering until I found it. The walk was lovely. There was a
path that dipped right down to the river that runs through Berne and eventually
connects to the Rhine. Bern was founded in the middle of a very noticable bend
in the river, it's heart is a very tight bend. I'm curious what other cities
have started in such pockets, since it seems like it would be very helpful to
have water on all three sides.

I'm amazed at the degree to which the Swiss want to preserve the woodsy nature.
I was minutes from the main core of the (old part of) city, and a there were
many paths that split off to head down the banks of the Aare. All of them felt
like true nature hikes, things which one might be lucky to find in High Park.
It is amazing. This evening, while telling Art about how much I like
Switzerland's natural feel he suggested that Banff is a lot like Switzerland. I
retorted that all of Switzerland feels like Banff.

Once I emerged from my alpine expedition in downtown Bern, I came upon a large
building decorated with Tibetan prayer flags. I've seen them a couple places in
Switzerland, signs that there are Buddhist hippies near by. When I came around
to the other side of building I saw a whole bunch of extremely hip looking
youth. Everyone had a punchy style, a notebook, and a cool pen. They were
talking and lounging on the steps of the building. I was drawn inside by the
magnetic (physical?) attraction of the youth. The building turned out the be
the Bern Kunsthalle (art hall) which was holding some kind of workshop. There
was a great Himalayan themed mural being erected, which explained the prayer
flags. The exhibit had some lovely art, several lovely geometric pieces, which
I felt were tied to Moore in a sense. It seemed like he made possible what I
saw in the Kunsthalle after seeing his work. 

When I left the Kunsthalle, I saw some folks my age talking intensely amongst
themselves. One was saying that language is fluid, dynamic, and yet fragile. If
we repeat a word too much, it loses its meaning. She then said the word 'car' a
lot. I wanted to sit and talk with them, but I didn't feel up to socializing.
As I crossed the bridge in to Bern, I saw a pro-vegan sticker on the bridge but
unfortunately it was of the "Let's gross people out until they like us."-brand.

In the afternoon I toured around Bern, climbed up the Cathedral, smoked a cigar
at Einstein's where I also did my daily readings. 

Later, I came home and cooked Art and Esther dinner. We had roasted beets,
steamed aspargus (from Mexico), and my usual apple/beet/almond salad. Esther
had made us some guacamole earlier in the day. They were very pleased since it
was very different from what they usually eat. It was a lovely meal together
and I felt really good to have done something for them. Afterwards, Art and I
watched a film from Watsford Monthly Meeting. We also watched a documentary on
Taizé, a movement which he really likes. If there are Taizé events in Toronto,
then I'd like to go out to one with Sam sometime.

Looking back on my photos now, I feel that I avoid taking photos with people or
having photos taken of myself with people. Almost all of the photos that I've
got in my album have no people in them. The few photos that have me in them are
mostly 'trophy shots' of some kind. To show me in a particular environment that
I managed to get to. I'm not sure what that says about me. Thinking about it a
bit makes me feel that it's somehow wrong to take a photo of my hosts: I would
much rather remember them than cling to a photograph of them and say, "Look
these are my friends!"

2015-03-07 05:54:11 +6h

(Thun) I'm on my way to Geneva, via Thun->Spiez->Zweisimmen->Chernex.
Last night I realized that the only way I could get to a Meeting while in
Switzerland is to catch a train to Geneva and stay with Hannelore Schmidt and
her family. This required some quick re-jigging of my plans. I'm especially
good at planning ahead and travel seems to be governed by long term planning.
In any case, I've got it sorted now. Last night Hannelore sent me a beautifully
hand drawn map of her neighbourhood, with gorgeous calligraphic lettering and
directions on how to get to her place.

This morning I woke up around 9:00am and got a chance to say good bye to my
hosts in Bern. Art and Esther were headed off to choir practice and needed to
leave quickly in the morning. We said many good-byes, Esther made me a coffee,
and they were off. I had some time to myself to repack my bags and enjoy a slow
breakfast. I've been having 'tea müesli' almost every morning. I sliced up a
banana, some apples, and made some fruit tea. It was lovely to sit at their
large blond wood table and enjoy my breakfast in a great open space, simply
decorated, with some orchids and a cup of coffee. I also checked out Art's
copy of the Collected Works of Jung in English, there is exactly on reference
to the Tarot in it, which I find very surprising.

(Spiez) I'm hopping from train to train, and managed to catch a train to
Zweisimmen almost immediately after getting off the train in Spiez. In this
part of Switzerland the train announcements are in English, Italian, and
German. It's a bizzare mix of sounds, but the automated train voice manages to
pull it off flawlessly. I won't have time to spend in the Rumansche or Italian
speaking parts of the country, but that's all the more reason to come back.

Riding the train in Switzerland is like catching the subway in Manhatten.
Initially I found it big, complicated, and overwhelming. Now I've got a good
feel for it, and I'm no longer intimidated by jumping on and off different
trains. I've got a bit map showing the major routes, and it's no more
intimidating than a complicated metro system. I'm very excited to play the
Swiss edition of Ticket to Ride when I home.

(Zweisimmen) I've arrived at my next way point and it is very nice here. The
way up really looked like an idyllic country side dream. There was snow on one
side of the train, and green grass on the other. Small cottages populated the
hills, and there was a quiet peacefullness to the place. There were few ads or
billboards. 

When we got to the rail station in Zweisimmen a bunch of skiiers in full gear
got on the train. I'm not sure where they're headed, but they intend to ski
there. It's excellent, everyone has full gear and looks ready to go. I managed
to hop from train to train easily. So far I'm making good time. I managed to
get a very comfortable forward facing seat. All the trains I've been on thus
far have ample room for my legs, an nothing has been uncomfortable. Most of the
seats are parts of groups of four. Often times they're occupied by only one or
two people, and so there is a lot of space for tall leggy people.

Oops! I turns out the seats were too comfortable. I was in first class, and
when they checked my ticket I was politely asked to move back to second class.
It's not much worse back here, the tables and chairs are a little bit older and
the chairs aren't as comfortable, but they're no worse than an old couch.
Riding in second class is perfectly reasonable.

As we roll through the Alps, I keep re-hearsing how I'm going to try and
explain Switzerland when I get back home. Essentially it's been everything I
imagined that it might be: Epic mountains, check. Placid lakes, check. Alpine
paradise, check. Medieval German cities, check. Funky linguistic landscape,
check. Nice people, check. I expect the food is also excellent. It's a little
anti-climactic; everything I though would be here really is here. Oh -- There
aren't a lot of beautiful laughing cows, but it's not their season anyway. I'm
going to have to say to people when I get back: "Yup -- It's pretty much just
what you'd expect. I'm sure that if you look up pictures of Switzerland,
they'll be pretty much what the place looks like. Those aren't Photoshopped,
idealized, well selected shots. A lot of it does really look like that."
This feeling is partly because I've taken the main tourist routes, and stuck to
the well beaten trail; but it's also partly true that the place is really well
maintained and has a strong consistent uniform feel."

(We're in Schöried and all the skiiers are clunking off the train. It seems
like this is the place to ski.)

(Everyone has told me that Gstaad is the canonical tourist destination for
alpine tourism. Seen from the train, i looks that way. Lots of broad wide
chalets with ornately carved balconies. It's beautiful, but it seems like there
is too much.)

(Chernex) I got to Chernex and interrupted Parker's birthday party just as they
were getting ready to leave for Laser Tag. I managed to say good-bye to my
hosts, Rorie and Paul, and to the kids, Parker and Kemmet. I'm excited to come
back and see them again in a couple years. The girls are unbelievable cool, and
it will be neat to see them in a couple of years. Kemmet pointed point that my
hair had grown, and I pointed out that she had grown. I wished Parker a happy
birthday, and she seemed pleased. Paul was downstairs working on getting a
running Minecraft server, wearing Bluetooth headphones and paint covered
overalls. He was a sight to be seen. We chatted a bit, and I got on my way.
As I was waiting for the train I realized that I didn't have the map saved, and
had to run back to Paul and Rorie's with only a couple minutes before the train
arrived. Luckily I was able to connect to their wifi ('wee-fee' in Switzerland)
and download the map that Hannelore sent me.

The hippy who was flashing a rocking a peace sign got on my train in Lausanne!
I felt like I was meeting some kind of secret celebrity when he got on the
train. He strolled slowly down the train, looking at each seat. There were a
couple open seats that he didn't take; he was looking for something other than
a seat. He was wearing a velvet jacket and had tied scarves around his arms.

(Geneva) Well, where to start? I managed to make it to my new hosts' apartment.
It is extremely nice here, and I feel very welcomed. There is more to how I got
here however. Firstly, the train ride from Chernex to Geneva was pleasant. Once
again, it was without any kind of problem. Secondly, when I was on the bus to
Hannelore and Michel's place there was a baby roaring and crying a terrible
cry. The woman beside me was watching the baby cry, and I said to her (in
French) "Oh, how terrible it must be to be a baby!" and we both giggled a bit.
Only a sentence or two later I had to blow my cover, and show myself for the
real Anglophone that I am, but for a moment it was rather nice. She is a German
doing missionary work for the LDS in the French part of Switzerland. We both
connected over religion immediately. We got chatting, and I told her a little
bit about Quakers. She had heard of us before, but didn't know anything
concrete. I told her a little bit about my Swiss adventure. In a fascinating
turn of events, the two missionaries got off at my tram stop! (The Swiss, and
American anglophones who've lived in Switzerland, tend to use 'tram' or 'tram
way' where Canadian anglophones would say 'street car'.) 

The other LDS missionary wasn't conversational in English, and so we maintained
a half-French half-English dialogue as we walked along. I eventually have to
leave les belles sœurs to get to Hannelore's place, but it was nice to chat
with them. The first one even gave me her number! I might call on her tomorrow
to get some company or guided tourism after Meeting.

Hannelore and Michel are a lovely couple. Hannelore is a German, and Michel is
a native Genevese. He is very proud of his ancestry, and knows a lot about the
history and culture of Geneva. He's especially interested in the history of
Geneva Meeting and maintains a database of members and 'friends of Friends'. He
is also interested in Cérésole and showed me his collection of books by or
about him. It was nice to meet someone interested in Cérésole. When I asked
about Kathleen Hertzberg, Michel was surprised to learn that she is still
living. In fact, he found it amazing that I'm from the same Meeting as
Kathleen. Michel is an archivist, who knows a great deal about Geneva Meeting
and consequently Kathleen is part of what he believes is the legendary past. In
fact, he has been corresponding with someone who studies Kathleen and Fritz.
I'm sure that we'll have a lot to talk about tomorrow.

(Further vegan ranting. Please skip.)
My hosts prepared a lovely vegan meal for me. They didn't fuss about the
veganism, ask me why I eat such strange food. They didn't apologize for the
fact that they're not used to cooking 'this stuff'. Nope -- They made a simple
meal, one that was fitting, and we all enjoyed it together. We had boiled black
beans as a dish, a lovely dish of barley and tofu with tomato sauce, and a
salad. It is common here to serve everything with sumptuous bread which we had
in both white and whole wheat varities. There was tahini, margarine, and a
mysterious wild herb spread that's hard to describe. We spoke a mix of French
and English, and continued on our way. I'm much better at understanding French
than speaking it, so sometimes I'd listen to a question in French and answer it
in English. It was a great meal, shared with great hosts. I look forward to
breakfast tomorrow morning.

2015-03-08 04:32:03 +6h (Geneva)

We had a lovely breakfast in the office-bedroom-dining room. My hosts prepared
a full feast of meusli and bread. Hannelore warned me that the coffee has been
called by others 'jus des chausettes'; it wasn't that bad. Everything in Michel
and Hannelore's apartment is very simple, and well used. They seem concerned
with utility and practicality over looks.

Michel did a degree in mathematics (diplom) and he has a strong interest in
logic and topology. After he finished his studies he became a computer
programmer and has been working on the same project for many years. I didn't
catch what exactly his company does, but he's worked with C for a very long
time. When I told him that Linux is one of my 'hobbies' he said tht it takes a
certain kind of person to play with Linux. I'm not sure what he meant by
that.his company does, but he's worked with C for a very long time. When I told
him that Linux is one of my 'hobbies' he said tht it takes a certain kind of
person to play with Linux. I'm not sure what he meant by that.his company does,
but he's worked with C for a very long time. When I told him that Linux is one
of my 'hobbies' he said tht it takes a certain kind of person to play with
Linux. I'm not sure what he meant by that.his company does, but he's worked
with C for a very long time. When I told him that Linux is one of my 'hobbies'
he said tht it takes a certain kind of person to play with Linux. I'm not sure
what he meant by that.

Hannelore works as a secretary at the World Council of Churches. She said that
they organize a lot of worship events and retreats. 

13:14:05 +6h

I had a great day in Geneva. Michel told me how to get down to Meeting house, I
wandered down and made it in time. It was a small group, at most fifteen
people, and a good silent Meeting. The Geneva Meeting House is also home to
QUNO the Quaker United Nations Office, a NGO that tries to sway diplomats
working at the UN in a more "Quakerly" direction. The top two floors of the
Meeting House are dedicated to this noble mission, and the partially
underground first floor is used as a library and Meeting room. On one side of
the room is a library, another is a bare, two are bare, and the last wall is a
large window that opens on to a lawn and garden. Since the floor is a couple
feel below ground level, one has the sense of being part of the garden as it
appears at eye level; the effect was lovely today since the sun was shining and
the wild flowers were making their first appearence of this spring.


General ideas about travelling:
	-- Don't pack too much. 
		- How much do you want to carry around?
		- Will you have space for things you'll pick up?
		- Consider the experiment of carrying your baggage around for a
		  day before you depart. Stay at a friend's place, haul it up
		  stairs and then down, etc. to get a sense of how annoying it
		  will be.
	-- Reading material.
		- Bring only disposable books.
	-- Get food when you arrive, and keep it with you.
		Pack something simple to prepare.
	-- Bring more t-shirts than long sleeve shirts.
	-- Underwear are pygamas.
	-- Get small, detailed, schematic maps of transit systems.