Yesterday Emil and I returned from a trip to the mountains in Wallace. It's been a fantastic weekend, complete with tunnels, mountains, remote hotels, drinking and cheese... oh the cheese. This weekend has shown me what it truly means to be Swiss, and I hope to share this insight with you. Lend me your ears (well, your eyes really), and I'll tell you.

We packed on Friday night and left early on Saturday morning. I had foolishly agreed to spend time with some friends on Friday afternoon, which ended up being Friday night, and I caught all of five hours sleep. I managed to rise at 6am, but slept through most of the drive to Kandersteg, and also slept through the railway tunnel through the mountains to Goppenstein. The railway tunnel is a good example of Swiss engineering. You drive aboard a train on one side of the mountain, and after a 15min transit through the mountain you disembark on the other side. If you wish (or if you board the wrong train) you can continue all the way to Italy.

We drove on to Brig at which point we turned into a small valley and parked the car at a quaint mountain village. Quaint, I believe, being the perfect adjective for describing this village. It was so... Swiss. Many of the houses are log cabins (see above-right photo) with stone tiled roofs which have been raised above the ground on stilts. Even the more contemporary looking houses sport a similar feel, flowers bloom from window sills and balconies without exception. The second photo I took (adjacent) was from higher up, and shows how the quaintness of the village is mirrored by the land it is nestled in.

My idea of a trip to the mountains involves several days hard walking, crude accommodation (a bunk if you're lucky), and trail rations. My illusions were dispelled when I learned that I would not be requiring my sleeping bag, and that my day pack was big enough to carry everything we would need. We brought sandwiches and bottled water, stayed in a (surprisingly flash) hotel, and ate in the restaurant. In fact, the only reason we walked there is because we chose to. We could have just taken the gondola. Despite being superfluous, the walk made for some good views of the glacier, and I earned some blisters so was happy.

At the top of the steep climb the terrain leveled out to rolling grassy slopes, a small station, and the hotel (here on the map). We quaffed liquid refreshments, checked in, and went for an explore around the settlement. Emil has been here several times in the past, and knows several of the locals. A few hundred metres from the hotel along a dirt track is a Kiosk (basically a dairy). It supplies chocolates, ice creams, beverages, locally made alpine cheeses, and other various sundries. There is a bench and some sun umbrellas, and it serves as a social meeting ground for locals and tourists alike. This particular Kiosk also provided a platter consisting of cheese (Höbel or Alp), pickles, salami and a dark, heavy bread. Emil knew the woman running the Kiosk from a previous visit, and we stopped for a good part of the afternoon busily converting several cheese platters into methane (really, Höbelkase plays hell with my guts, and I definately wasn't alone), and drinking several bottles of red wine (around a litre each). One of the locals, stumbled by (yes, he was already drunk when he arrived), stopped to drink with us and introduced himself as Ivan (the terrible). And it was from Ivan that I first experienced a true Walliser dialect. Now, my Swiss German isn't that bad, and I can hold a rough conversation or at least understand what is being said, but not with Ivan. He had a rich, deep voice that seemed to eminate from his throat, and when he spoke his words sort of ran into each other in a head-on fashion killing all occupants. That, mingled with a drunken slur, and you end up with a very one-sided conversation. Emil seemed to manage okay, but I got the distinct impression he was concentrating.
Eventually the sun began to sink and Ivan had to depart, so we stumbled with him to the Gondola (stopping at the pub for a beer), visited some other friends of Emil's, drank some more wine (by which point exhaustion, hunger, sunburn and wine had worked together to convert the world I knew into one gigantic carousel), and then stumbled back to the hotel. I crashed and burned, sleeping for an hour or two before waking, still drunk, for dinner. The meal was great, though I felt a little out of place being the only person wearing tramping clothes and boots (Emil had brought good clothes and two extra pairs of shoes). I slept lightly, but well enough, and woke the next morning to the sounds of bells tinkling as a heard of goats grazed on the meadow below (evidently, they were wearing the bells). We ate a breakfast of fruits, muesli, cereal, breads, crossoints, cheeses, meats, and boiled eggs, and checked out.

We headed along a track leading up the mountain to the nearest peak, and the journey took maybe two hours or so. There was lots of fog and high cloud obscuring the view, but it was great when it cleared. We took some photos, had lunch, and headed back down to the Kiosk where we ate some more cheese, drank only one (500ml) bottle of wine, and bought two kilos of cheese to take home. We took an alternate route to the carpark, and I drove back the way we came to Fulenbach.

In other news, work starts next Monday. Flights have been arranged for me to go to Austria for the next two weeks (returning for the weekends). Very exciting.

Also, tonight I went to look at the Kung-fu club in Olten, and was... disappointed. It seems that the training I did at Chans in NZ has completely biased my opinion of what a martial art should be. What I saw was really glorified fitness training. When I arrived they were skipping (with skipping ropes) to music, and when I left they were... skipping to music. They did do some shadow boxing (to music), but I saw no technique in it. I may be wrong, but I doubt that anyone there knew how to correctly execute a palm strike (emphasis on correctly). However what they lacked (as I saw it) in technique and execution, they made up for in speed and vigour, and there's no doubt that they were fit.

I've made some additions to the blog template. I've added a link to a map of Fulenbach (centered on my house), and a calendar so people can see what I'm up to. (I have a haircut tomorrow... exciting, huh?) I also added some google ads just for shits and giggles. I don't expect to earn anything, but as a set of links that update themselves, it's interesting.

Well, that's been an unusually long dribble from me. I'll write more when I'm able and have more to write about.