Be Careful What You Wish For

It’s all coming back to me now… The Importance of Research

Be Careful What You Wish For

The alpine experience I thought I was getting (from the train en route)

As a part of this research trip through Europe, we are also visiting friends and family and we have spent the last 3 days visiting Wayne’s cousin who lives in Biel, Switzerland. We need to move on to Rome where I intend to do more research, but we ran up against Easter weekend. Easter is not a time to be in Rome. But it’s spring, right? So I suggested that we might visit some place up in the Alps – you know, I was thinking Julia Andrews and The Sound of Music. In my life since the age of 5 I have only lived in California, Hawaii, the US Virgin Islands and Florida. So when Wayne asked me if I wanted a real alpine experience, I assured him yes, that’s what I wanted. So we asked Wayne’s cousin Lynda to suggest a real Swiss location. This is how I now find myself in Engstligenalp — a place that resembles the North Pole complete with igloo but without jolly Santa or elves.

I know, be careful what you wish for. See, I thought April 18, Easter weekend would mean green pastures, brow spotted cows, and distant snow-covered mountains. Noooooooo. Not in the Alps it seems.

So we took two trains, two buses and a cable car and we arrived at this place where it is actually snowing! There is white stuff falling from the sky and my nose and ears feel like they are about to fall off. And Wayne is laughing at me.

We are staying at the Berghaus Bärtschi, a little place with bunk beds and the bathroom down the hall. In the shoe room where you change out of your boots, there is an entire rack full of helmets from the skiers. And there is not a brown spotted cow in sight.

I had very intention today of writing a blog about the incredible Swiss transportation system and making this clever comparison between connections in writing and transportation, but now my fingers are frozen, there is no Internet – only a weak cellular data connection – and I intend to head for the bar as soon as I finish this blog.

I had been thinking about the beauty of the Alaskan inland passage and how great it might be to sail the fjords of Scandinavia. I now think I am going to adopt Wayne’s rule – we only sail between 20 degrees north and 20 degrees south. It’s much easier to type with thawed fingers.