/52/ A cup o’ kindness

That’s it for 2013 then, I guess.

I lived in three different places (1 2 3) in three different countries. I flew spontanteously to Parma with just a change of clothes, a camera and a toothbrush. I turned 21. I wrote roughly 46,000 words in 23 essays (the 24th would have been semantics, but I guess I never wrote it). I went temporarily insane from stress and realised it was time to tone it down.

I trekked through fields full of cows in my festival gear, trying to find a shop that sold milk for my tent-side cuppa, and realised the absurdity of 21st century living. I tracked down a dead poet in the Alps. I went for a night-time dip in Swiss lake and then ate a defrosted, uncooked pizza with one of my best friends in the world. I saw Europe’s biggest waterfall. I petted a goat.

I moved to Berlin and found it challenging. I plodded through autumnal Oslo. I got my first taste of Poland and liked it. I faced Germany’s dark history and responded with many words, even though I really know what to say… I sang karaoke in a gay bar. I started to feel at home in Berlin.

I went home to Bavaria. I went home to the UK. I went ice skating. I had a heart-to-heart with a painting of Mr Darcy in the women’s loos of my favourite pub back home. I had another heart-to-heart with a dear friend on an Oxfordshire bus. I had a third heart-to-heart in a cozy Oxford coffee shop with snowflakes whirling by. Consider my heart replenished.

 

And 2013 ended much like it began, in a house full of friends with a belly full of food and happy. 

I wrote about my year 52 times here – it wasn’t always easy, and I flagged at the end. Considerably. The date tag on this might read December, but as I write this it’s almost the following June. Nevertheless, the task is done. 22,000 words dissecting, documenting and reflecting on 2013. The verdict? It was good, as years go. One of the best I’ve had, in fact.

I’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet – for auld lang syne!

/37/ Autumn is Awesome

 

On our third day of travel in Switzerland, Shawnee and I left the green fields and rolling hills of the north of the country behind us, and headed towards the Alps. The further we went into the foothills, the more it started to look, feel and smell like Autumn.

Am dritten Tag unserer Schweizreise verliessen Shawnee und ich die grünen Wiesen und sanfte Hügellandschaft des Nordens, und nahmen Kurs auf das Alpenland. Je weiter wir in das Vorgebirge reisten, je mehr fing es an, wunderbar herbstlich zu sein.

 

Lucerne was our next stop. This used to be a resort town for the likes of Mark Twain and Queen Victoria, and I seriously could have stayed there for ever. It’s surrounded by mountains and embraces a clear, calm lake. The air was pure, and the atmosphere peaceful, festive and protected.

Unser nächster Zielort war Luzern. Diese Stadt war einst der Kurort für Gäste wie Mark Twain und Königin Viktoria, und ich wäre ganz glücklich einfach dort geblieben. Luzern ist von Bergen umgeben, und umarmt den klaren, ruhigen Vierwaldstättersee. Die Luft war rein, und die Stimmung festlich, friedlich und geborgen.

However, my favourite thing was the Autumnal feel of the place. I love this season, and in England you don’t really get a proper Autumn – instead, you get grey days, grey skies and, eventually, grey trees. If there are any crisp and golden days, then they’re seriously few and far between.

Aber am besten gefiel mir die herbstliche Atmosphäre. Ich liebe diese Jahreszeit, und in England kriegt man eigentlich keinen richtigen Herbst – man kriegt stattdessen graue Tage, graue Himel und am ende auch graue Bäume. Wenn est überhaupt mal einige frische, goldene Tage gibt, sind sie selten und dünn gesäht.

 

But here, where we went on our second boat trip of the holiday, I couldn’t stop myself from jabbering on and on (and on) about how much I loved the few yellow leaves on the shoreline, first to peek through the green.

Aber in diesem Platz, wo wir unsere zweite Bootsfahrt des Urlaubsmachten, konnte ich mein aufgeregtes Plappern über die paar gelben Blätter am Ufer, die ersten, die durch das grüne Laub hervorguckten, nicht verkneifen.

/36/ Fondue and Waterfalls

 
My internship wound down peacefully, and ended with my colleagues taking me out for lunch, where they presented me with some very Swiss parting gifts: a Swatch watch and a Swiss Army Knife. Throughout the four weeks I was at the IUCN, these people were supportive, encouraging and gracious, and I really appreciate them for that.

And so, my time as a bicycle-commuter, a deadline-meeter, a 9-to-6-er came to its conclusion just as my friend Shawnee was touching down in Geneva airport, ready for a week of interailing.

Mein Praktikum kam langsam zum Schluss und am letzten Tag luden mich meine Mitarbeiter zum Mittagessen ein. Da haben sie mich mit zwei super Abschiedsgeschenken überrascht: einer Swatch Armbanduhr, und einem Schweizer Taschenmesser. Während meiner Arbeit an der IUCN wahren diese Leute meine Unterstützung und meine Rückenstärkung, und dafür bin ich ihnen sehr dankbar.

Und so endete meine Zeit als Fahrradpendlerin, als Termineinhälterin, als Ganztagsbüromensch genau in dem Moment, dass eine meiner Freundinnen (Shawnee) in Genf landete, bereit für eine wochenlange Bahnreise.

Our first, unplanned, stop was Freiburg, one of only three bilingual towns in Switzerland. We just got off the train and wandered down the hill, overlooking the charming medieval alleyways cutting through clusters of red-roofed townhouses. We walked until we came across a blackboard reading “Fondue”, where we stopped. This was to be the only time that I ate fondue while in Switzerland, and it was Shawnee’s first time with the concept of dunking bread into a massive pot of melted cheese. Needless to say, we both enjoyed it very much.

I think Shawnee and I both felt that though Swiss towns are undoubtedly clean, engaging and nice, nobody in their right mind travels to Switzerland to see Zurich, or Bern, or Geneva. Mountains, vinyards, waterfalls, lush valleys, sparkling lakes – that is what we wanted to see. So the next day, after spending a night in Zurich (we barely left the hostel so I have absolutely no idea what the town is like), we headed off for the north of the little country, to a town called Schaffhausen. Though Schaffhausen itself is said to be a very attractive, German-style town, the reason we were going there was to see the Rheinfall.

Unser erster, ungeplanter, Halt war in Freiburg, eine von nur drei zweischprächigen Städten in der Schweiz. Wir stiegen einfach aus dem Zug und schlenderten den Hügel hinab, mit einer perfekten Aussicht über die reizenden, mittelalterlichen Gassen, die durch die Sammlung roter Dächer schnitten. Wir liefen weiter, bis wir zu einem Restaurant mit einem riesen “Fondue” Schild kamen. Da hielten wir an. Shawnee hatte nie von fondue gehört, und ich hatte seit Wochen in der Schweiz einen Heisshunger auf ein Fass voller geschmolzenem Käse. Selbstverständlich haben wir beide das Mahl sehr genossen.

Ich glaube, dass Shawnee und ich der selben Meinung wahren, indem wir, obwohl schweizer Städte ohne Zweifel sauber, interessant und angenehm sind, unsere Zeit lieber damit verbringen wollten, die Landschaft kennen zu lernen da niemand wirklich in die Schweiz reist, nur um Zürich, Genf oder Bern zu besuchen. Also ging es, nach einer Nacht in Zürich (in der wir kaum die Jugendherberge verlassen haben, also habe ich ehrlich gesagt überhaupt keine Ahnung, wie die Stadt eigentlich ist), am nächsten Tag in den Norden des kleinen Landes, in Richtung einer kleine Stadt namens Schaffhausen. Obwohl Schaffhausen selber sehr hübsch sein soll, war der Grund unseres Ausflugs eher der Wunsch, den Rheinfall zu sehen.

 
This broad and impressive waterfall thunders by underneath an imposing castle. It had been the inspiration for many great writers of the 18th and 19th centuries, and frankly, waterfalls are always cool. Especially when you take a boat that takes you essentially into the spray, which Shawnee and I enthusiastically did. Shawnee loves boats, and after going whale-watching in Iceland with her last year, I am a convert. Not only did we practically drive underneath the waterfall, but the tour guide also took us down the Rhein a bit, just over the border to Germany and back.

Dieser breite und eindrucksvolle Wasserfall tost unter einem imposanten Schloss vorbei. Er war mal die Inspirationsquelle vieler grossen Dichtern und Denkern der 18 und 19 Jahrhunderte, und ganz ehrlich, finde ich Wasserfälle einfach cool. Besonders wenn man, wie Shawnee und ich, eine Bootsfahrt machen kann, in der man praktisch in das Spritzwasser fährt. Shawnee liebt Boote, und nachdem wir letztes Jahr in Island eine Wahlbeobachtungsbootsfahrt gemacht haben, bin ich auch eine Liebhaberin. Wir konnten nicht nur fast in den Wasserfall hinein fahren, sondern brachte uns der Führer auch den Rhein entlang, gerade über die deutsche Grenze und zurück.

 
On the way, he told us about a water purification initiative gone awry: the Swiss authorities had done such a good job of expelling excess protein from the water, that larger fish species were now struggling to survive, as the river was now “too clean”. I couldn’t help but think that this was a problem which was, without a doubt, typically Swiss.

Er erzählte von einer Wasserreinigungsinitiative, die aus den Fugen geraten ist: die schweizer Behörden hatten den Fluss so gründlich gerreiningt, dass Edelfische dort nicht mehr überleben können, da der Rhein jetzt “zu sauber” ist. So was gibt es nur in der Schweiz.

/35/ The Family Poet (Der Familiendichter)

Rainer Maria Rilke is a famous and well-known name in the German-speaking world, but most non-Germans won’t recognise it. Rilke was an exceptionally inspired poet and author, a prolific pen pal to many, and one of the fathers of modernism. He is best known for a poem about a panther. Though he moved a lot in his life (from his hometown of Prague to Worpswede in the north of Germany, to Paris, Spain, and Italy), Rilke finally settled in the region of Valais in southern Switzerland, in the French-German town of Sierre (Siders in German). This is where I went on Sunday.

Rainer Maria Rilke ist ein berühmter und ein bekannter Name in dem deutschen Sprachraum, aber ausserhalb Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz würden nicht viele Leute ihn wieder erkennen. Rilke war ein besonders inspirierter Dichter und Autor, ein eifriger Brieffreund zu vielen, und einer der Väter der Moderne. Die meisten Leute kennen ihn wegen einem Gedicht über einen Panther. Obwohl er in seinem leben in einer Vielfalt an Plätzen in Europa gewohnt hat (von der Geburt in Prag nach Worpswede im Norden Deutschlands, nach Paris, Spanien und Italien), verbrachte Rilke seine letzten Lebensjahre in der südschweizerischen, französischß-deutschen Stadt Siders (Siere auf französisch). Dorthin bin ich am Sonntag gegangen.
 
The town, attractive and full of charming rustic houses, nestles in a sun-drenched valley overgrown with wine plantations and orchards. Straight off the train, I began to walk up the foothills of the mountains, in search of the house where Rilke wrote his Sonnets to Orpheus and most of the Duino Elegies. I was rewarded with beautiful views on the way, but it was baking so I reached the hamlet of Muzot with sweat dripping down my face.

Die Stadt ist hübsch und voller reizender bäuerlicher Häuser, und liegt in einem sonnigen Tal, überwachsen mit Wein- und Obstgärten. So bald ich aus dem Zug gestiegen bin, fing ich an, die Hügel hoch zu wandern, auf der Suche nach dem Haus, in dem Rilke seine Sonetten an Orpheus und den grössten Teil seiner Duineser Elegien von sich gebracht hat. Wunderschöne Ausblicke haben meine kleine Wanderung belohnt, aber es war so glühend Heiss, dass ich das Dörfchen Muzot mit einer schweisstriefender Stirn erreichte.


I knew only that the house was called “Chateau de Muzot” and had not been able to find it on a map before I went, so I arrived in the village without a clue of where to turn. I walked up a little further, past a churchyard where I picked an apple for my lunch, and when I turned around, there it was. I had walked right past it.

Ich wusste nur, dass das Haus “Chateau de Muzot” hieß, und konnte es am Abend davor nicht auf der Karte finden, also kam ich in dem Dorf ohne irgend einer Ahnung, wo es sein könnte, an. Ich ging etwas weiter, an einem Kirchhof vorbei, wo ich einen Apfel für mein Mittagessen gefunden habe, und als ich mich umdrehte, sah ich endlich das Haus. Ich wäre beinahe vorbei gegangen, ohne es zu bemerken!
 
“Chateau” is generous. In those days (90 years ago, ish), perhaps it would have counted as a castle, but in my books that is just a big stone house. It’s a very nice big stone house though, with its own vinyard as a front garden, and picturesque views over the town. I was so pleased I had managed to find it despite the heat, the climb, and the not knowing where I was going, that I took a photo of myself with the house. It’s the only photo of me since I arrived in Switzerland three and a half weeks ago.

“Chateau” ist eine grosszügige Wortwahl. In der Zeit (so vor 90 Jahren), hätte es vielleicht als Schloss, mindestens als Turm, gezählt, aber wenn du mich fragst, ist das einfach ein grosses Steinhaus. Es ist aber ein sehr imposantes Steinhauas, mit seinem eigenen Weingarten, und eine nbildhaften Blick auf die Stadt und das Tal. Ich war so aufgeregt, dass ich trotz der Hitze, trotz des Mini-Wanderung und trotz der Unklarheit meines Ziels, angekommen bin, dass ich ein Foto von mir und dem Haus gemacht habe – das einzige Foto von mir, seitdem ich vor dreianhalb Wochen in der Schweiz angekommen bin.
  
On the way back down the hill, I passed this quaint little hut. It is utterly idyllic, with a small vegetable garden, a fruit tree, and a wealth of grapes surrounding the outcrop.

Auf dem Weg zurück zur Stadt ging ich an dieser niedlichen kleinen Hütte vorbei. Sie is absolut idzllisch, mit einem kleinen Gemüsegarten, einem Fruchtbaum, und viele Trauben in der Nähe.
  
So, why did I trek half way across Switzerland to find a building on a hill? When I was a teenager, my beloved grandmother gave me a copy of one of Rilke’s earlier works. I don’t like all his poetry – the Duino Elegies, his most ambitious and obscure work, baffles me to the extent I have to struggle to engage with it – but I love the imagery he uses and the existential crises registered by most of his works are still relatable. His fascination with perception, truth and beauty is also mine.

Aber wieso habe ich die Schweiz durchquert, nur um ein Haus auf einem Hügel zu finden? Als ich ein Teenager war, hat mir meine geliebte Oma eine Kopie einer Rilkes Büchern geschenkt. Mir gefällt wirklich nicht alles von ihm – zum Beispiel sind die Duinese Elegien für mich so obskur, dass ich wirklich kämpfen muss, etwas damit anfangen zu können – aber ich liebe die Bildersprache, die er benutzt, und die existentielle Krise, die in der Mehrzahl seiner Wercke auftaucht, sind beide immer noch heute sehr relevant. Seine Faszination mit Wahrnehmung, Wahrheit und Schönheit ist auch die Meine.
    
That, and I’m currently writing a long essay about him,I love long train journeys, and all the guidebooks said Sierre was pretty (how right they were)!

And Rilke makes me think of my grandmother, who I love a lot and who I will hopefully see a lot in the coming year.

Dazu gehören natürlich die Tatsachen, dass ich momentan dabei bin, einen langen Aufsatz über Rilke zu rescherchieren, dass ich lange Bahnfarten liebe, und dass es in meinem Reiseführer steht, das Siders sehr hübsch ist (Recht hatte er!).

Und Rilke erinnert mich an meine Oma, die ich sehr liebe, und die ich im kommenden Jahr hoffentlich oft sehen werde.

/34/ The Book Palace

The second I saw a photo of the St Gallen library online, I knew I had to go there. A relatively small room, it is nevertheless a feast for the eyes: exquisitely crafted out of organic curves of polished wood, and stamped with the UNESCO seal of approval, this baroque library is really more of a palace for books. It is a place where the learned could  study their craft in the presence of true craftsmanship, where physical beauty embraces metaphysics, it is a shrine to knowledge. Also, it’s really pretty. You’re not allowed to take photos, so I bought postcards and took photos of those instead.

When I stepped inside, it felt unreal. Like meeting a celebrity who you admire, or seeing a band live whose album you have listened to on endless repeat. I wasn’t in there long enough to take it all in, and when I was there it was filled with tourists (I guess I was one, but I’m not sure we were all there for the same reason).
My basking was rushed and instead of listening to the tour guide, I gaped at the ceiling and the woodwork.  It was absolutely worth the nine-hour (oh yes) return train journey. Baroque isn’t really my style, but there’s something magical about this library and I’m so happy I went.

It actually happens quite often that I’ll become fixated on something when I’m travelling – I used to think that this was just another negative symptom of my obsessive nature, but a stranger taught me something today (don’t they always?) when he told me that it’s actually a great way to travel. You have a goal, and with that purpose in mind, your travelling becomes more focussed and thereby everything you see becomes more vibrant – you’re on your way to somewhere, full of anticipation, and that’s far more exciting than going on a ticking-off-the-tourist-sites round trip.

Other places like that for me are a lighthouse in Nina in Estonia (aesthetically fascinating in a very different way); Lake Inari in Finland; Svaneti in Georgia; the lavender fields of Hokkaido, Japan; the Serra da Leba Pass in Angola; the Amazonian Manaus; and Socotra/سقطرى‎. Take five minutes and get googling.

/33/ Lac Léman

The water of Lake Geneva (pardon me, Lac Léman) is clear, calm and cool – and dipping your feet in is exactly the right thing to wrap up a week of early mornings, long office days, and sweaty uphill struggles. That actually makes it sound a lot worse than it is – in fact, my first week in Switzerland actually ran like clockwork (pun intended). The early mornings aren't actually that early, unless you (like me) consider 7.30 AM to be an ungodly hour. It would be fine if I could just get to bed before midnight, but I don’t think Being Erica (whose trailer doesn't do it justice at all) or The Newsroom (two words: Aaron Sorkin) plan on letting me do that any time soon.

At my internship, the work itself is exactly my kind of thing (editing articles and designing a layout on InDesign) but there’s not enough of it to fill the day, so for the last hour or so, I find myself browsing through the news, budgeting my weekly spending, catching up on Linguistics reading I should have done a year ago, and researching Masters degrees – all while intermittently checking Outlook in the vain hope that someone has replied to my e-mails. After work I cycle home 10.5 km to the tune of a 170m increase in altitude. My borrowed bike is electric, which is a godsend on the days that I just don’t wanna, but on the days where I want to push myself and do it sans battery, I become very quickly aware of how heavy electric bikes are.

So when, on Sunday morning, my hosts, V (who is back from holiday, and with whom I get on with very well) and the aforementioned W, suggested a trip to the beach, I was in the car faster than you can say “relax”. I decided not to wear my swimsuit, mainly because I knew we weren’t going for very long, but also so I knew I wouldn’t be tempted to hop in the water and abandon my book. I’m currently reading Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. I have been “currently reading” it for four months. I love what Mark Twain has to say about German and someone told me this was the "ultimate" American novel... but it’s not as good as I’d anticipated. Yet. I hold out hope.

I lay in the Sun with my Kindle and contemplated Switzerland. [A/N: I felt this a little more strongly when I wrote it than I do now, a week and a half later, but in essence it is the same.]

This is an odd place. It’s pristine and affluent, but has a seriously poor reputation regarding immigrants. I feel a little uncomfortable here, like everything imperfect is to be scoured off the surface. Then, it’s multilingual and multicultural, yes, but oddly so: the German, French and Italian regions are divided not only geographically, but also culturally, linguistically and – what seems most interesting of all to me – intentionally. None of the French-Swiss people I have met have any interest in learning German, never mind learning about the German-Swiss people, region or culture. As for Italian, the only indication that this is a quatro-lingual country is to be found the backs of cereal boxes and shampoo bottles. You can forget Romansh.

Finally, I became quickly aware of the fact that despite being surrounded by Europe, European politics and current affairs are hardly discussed - not surprisingly, really, considering Switzerland is known for neutrality - and when they are it is with the tone of a father tutting about his children playing. The country and its inhabitants feel very remote somehow, despite being renowned for hosting dozens of international organizations. The IUCN is just the start, with WWF literally just down the street, and the UN, the WHO, the WTO, the Red Cross and CERN headquartered not much further away. Acronyms abound, as do good intentions and undoubtedly good actions too, but it really feels like a nation playing God to the rest of the world – or rather, playing Matron.

Of course, I’ve only been here a week, and I’m sure any Swiss person will valiantly refute my observations, but I can’t help but feel that there is nothing but trees and dirt in the forest, nothing but blood and bone in the people, and nothing but clear, cool water in the lake. It's not unpleasant at all (quite the opposite in fact), but as Gertrude Stein once said so eloquently, “There is no there there” - or if there is, I fail to see it.