Two Days in Burgundy

So, Mother’s Day weekend rolls around and I’m pouting and mopey because my children are 5,000 miles away and Mr. Big is not about to bring me pancakes in bed.  Not because he’s not a nice person, but because there’s no such thing as Bisquick in Switzerland and he wouldn’t have the first clue how to make pancakes from scratch.

To console myself, I plan a last-minute trip over the Jura mountains into France to the region called Bourgogne, which is known as Burgundy, in English.  I book a room at Le Cep in the village of Beaune (pronounced Bonne) over the internet.  While searching for a hotel online, I stumble on a page called burgundyonaplate.com.  It turns out to be a British company that gives wine tours to vineyards that tourists don’t normally visit.  Here’s the website:

http://www.burgundyonaplate.com/

Ah, I think.  What fun!  Plus, it fits neatly in with my ultimate plans to retire on a vineyard in France.  I can use this tour to subtly begin steering Mr. Big in that direction, as in, “look, Mr. Big, how cool is this vineyard and don’t you want one, too?”  I exchange a few emails with the lady from burgundyonaplate, Susan, and, voila, we are slotted in to her all-day tour on Saturday.  Which begins at 9:30 a.m.  On or about the time when, I’m sure, my beloved had anticipated waking up in Lausanne, having a large quantity of coffee and mentally preparing himself for the 2.5 hour drive to Burgundy.

Oh, dear me.  Remember, this is spur-of-the-moment stuff going on here so it is already Thursday.  You know, there really is no easy way to tell some poor guy who has been away on business all week that, once he arrives home Friday night, he has about six hours of downtime to get over his jet lag before his wife will be dragging his ass out of bed at 5:30 on a Saturday morning, putting him behind a wheel and making him drive to another country so they can begin drinking wine at 9:30 in the morning.  No easy way.

Of course, I feel no qualms about bringing out the big gun, i.e. The Guilt Card, as in the I Am Not With My Children on Mother’s Day Because You Work In Switzerland Card.  Well, maybe a small qualm, but, whatever.  It worked.  And, since we were under such strict time limits, I did let him drive all the way there on the freeway, just like the Garmin lady recommended.  He was fine, really.  Y’all stop worrying about Mr. Big.

We zoom into Beaune at 9:20, which is impossibly quaint, as is the hotel, but there’s no time to explore because Susan has arrived in her mini-van and she is Ready To Go.  We stop at another hotel to pick up the other couple who are joining us.  They are not outside waiting so Susan goes to find them.  Apparently, they are still in bed!  This does not bode well for Susan’s tight schedule so she takes the bull by the horns, rouses the proprietor who rouses the couple who take the world’s fastest showers and arrive at the minivan 30 minutes late.

Meanwhile, all Mr. Big can think about is how he was SOOOO gypped out of 30 minutes of extra sleep time.  Luckily, the young couple from Adelaide, Australia, (Eye-de-lide, mate), were so cute and their backstory was so intriguing, Mr. Big quickly forgot about holding a grudge over his lost sleep opportunity.  Even after almost three years here, Mr. Big is still flabbergasted at people who go on holiday for five weeks or more.  Ozzie Couple was on a Euro-tour for seven weeks.  I could just hear the words being screamed inside my husband’s brain, HOW DO YOU LEAVE YOUR JOBS FOR SEVEN WEEKS AND STILL HAVE JOBS TO RETURN TO?  HOW?  HOW?  HOW?  HOW DOES YOUR COMPANY NOT CRUMBLE?  HOW DOES THE WORLD GO ON SPINNING?  Etc., etc., etc.

Fortunately, he bit his tongue and our little tour group went on its’ merry way.  First stop was a vineyard in Rully.  The great thing about having a tour guide was that Susan has a close relationship with the vintners that she brings clients to see, so we got an in-depth and personalized tour of places that we never would have found on our own.  I was thrilled to see Mr. Big asking a lot of questions.  I was not so thrilled that one of the questions was, “Monsieur, if you had it to do over again, would you own a vineyard?”  I was even less thrilled when the answer was, “No way in hell.  Would you like to buy this one?”

Susan was driving, so she was only allowed to swirl and spit, but the rest of us were swallowing, so by 11 a.m. we were having a good ol’ time and were all BFFs.  Turns out Susan had quite the interesting backstory, as well.  Apparently, she lives on a houseboat on the River Saone (rhymes with Bonne) which she drove? floated? over from England many moons ago when she fell in love with Burgundy on holiday.  Her tour business is very popular and she has registered the domain name “provenceonaplate.com” so I guess she will be setting sail over to Provence some time in the future.  Cool life, huh?

Anyway, this post is already too long and I haven’t even gotten to lunch, yet.  (Coq au Vin in a village called Volnay).  I’ll attach the link to the photo album from Bourgogne, Day One, here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1382785465418.40388.1705417515
Bottom line, if you don’t feel like dealing with the hordes of tourists overrunning Provence and want the same kind of experience, go to Burgundy.  All of the villages are very close together so you could bring or rent bicycles and just tool around sipping wine and eating your way through any number of completely charming, medieval villages.  Heaven, really.

Trailing Spouse Meets Her Match in Israel

OK, let the Political Correctness begin.  When talking about the Middle East and/or Israel, it goes without saying that any non-Muslim, non-Arab, non-Jew needs to watch what they say.  Seriously.  This fact was really brought home when we arrived at the Tel Aviv airport and got in the line for customs.

Mr. Big calmly takes out a brand new passport.  Mint.  Never opened.  Now, I’ve seen Mr. Big’s passport and it is truly a thing of wonder.  He is THAT GUY who has to go to various consulates every other week to have full-page visas inserted into his passport.  He is THAT GUY who has to have 50 extra pages inserted into his passport every other year by the US consulate in Bern because all of his pages are full.  Mr. Big’s passport has an alphabetized index and a table of contents.  (Kidding, but it’s close).

Me:  Mr. Big, what the hell is that thing?  Are you a spy?  Do you have multiple identities now or what?  Are you really Jason Bourne, and, if you are, then I’ve been screwed because you are supposed to look like Matt Damon.

Mr. Big:  Hush, somebody is going to hear you.

Me:  Who?  God?  Big Brother?  That nice man behind me in the yarmulke?

Mr. Big:  The Mossad.

YIKES!!!  The Mossad is here watching me try and collect my luggage?  Hello, Mossad, I just want to go lay by the pool.  In whispers, Mr. Big tells me that because he has stamps and visas from Arab countries ALL OVER his regular passport.  He was, therefore, advised by Someone Important (who?  Obama?  Santa?  Seal Team 6?) that one must only arrive in Israel with a “clean” passport or one will never get beyond customs.  Serious shit, people.

Jason Bourne and I make it through customs without a hitch and are met by a driver who is going to take us to our hotel where, hopefully, I will be able to lay by the pool and get a tan on this Alpine-white body I’ve been living in all winter.  The landscape going to the hotel was very similar to Southern California.  Lots of citrus trees and suburbs filled with pastel-colored stucco houses.  The skyline of the city is even reminiscent of LA with clusters of high-rises scattered around:  some down at the waterfront, some off in the distance, some in the middle of the city, etc.  So far, so good.  From a distance.  Y’all know what is coming don’t you?

Just FYI, I normally consider myself a well-read, well-informed person.  I can usually just go with the flow, adapt, adjust or do whatever is necessary to make the best of any situation.  I thought that, because I knew something of Israel’s history (i.e. the infrastructure either dates from ancient times or from post-1960), I would know what to expect.  In Tel Aviv, I was expecting a completely modernized city on the Mediterranean filled with resort hotels, restaurants with interesting and exotic food and fabulous shopping.

Y’all, there is just no politically correct way to say this.  It was just appalling.  Actually, it went beyond appalling and loped right on into Scary Town.  OK, I have been in places where, just one or two blocks off of the beach or the main drag, it begins to get a little bit “iffy”.  (Miami and Las Vegas come to mind here!)  But when the main beachfront road and its’ corresponding hotels look like cement block prisons and none of the properties look like they’ve seen the least bit of updating since 1960, you’ve got a problem.  Very, very Third World, let alone Developed Nation.

For example, our concrete prison bloc, er, I mean, 4 STAR HOTEL, was a joke.  The laughs began in the elevator lobby.  There were four elevators.  But, two of them were Shabbat elevators.  Mr. Big and I are not Jewish so we don’t know Shabbat about Shabbat.  I know now that Shabbat means “this elevator will make you pull your hair out and gnash your teeth at old ladies and small children”.  When you pushed the down button, it would go up.  When you pushed the up button, it would go down.  It stopped on every odd-numbered floor.  It just went wherever it wanted to go, regardless of whatever Mr. Big was yelling at it.  Y’all, it was abso-frickin-lutely HILARIOUS to hear Mr. Big standing inside the elevator screaming at the top of his lungs, “BUT I’M ONLY TRYING TO GET TO FOUR!!!  FOUR, YOU MUTHA!!!! FOUR!!!.  Sorry, sir.  Just get out on five and walk down the stairs.  Now.  Just do it.  Thank you.

The pool, about which I had such high hopes, was a Howard Johnson’s 1965, side-of-the-interstate, concrete square hole filled with water.  Nary a cabana boy, swim-up bar nor palm tree in sight.  Not to beat a dead horse, but, really, if penitentiaries had swimming facilities, this pool would have been the prototype.  Plus, it was covered.  So, we can add NO SUN to that list.  OK, no tan available here, let’s move onto the beach.

The water and the view were lovely.  There is no way even Tel Aviv can screw with either the sun or the Mediterranean Sea.  But, the minute you got on the sand?  Apparently, the national past-time in Israel is paddle ball.  They played on the beach.  They played on the boardwalk.  They played UP AGAINST THE WALLS OF THE HOTELS, completely unaware of passersby ducking and diving for cover.  Thwack.  Thwack.  Thwack.  All day long.  Non-stop.  Thousands and thousands of them.  Thwack.  Thwack.  Thwack.  I would have had to have been in a coma to be able to lay out amidst that cacophony for more than nine minutes.

Shopping, maybe?  Let’s go walk around and find the “nice section” (because, clearly, we were not in it!).  We walked for miles in either direction, up and down the beach, as well as inland.  Nada.  More of the same.  More than 50% of the buildings look like they’ve been bombed and are awaiting renovation.  Exposed clumps of electrical wires hanging everywhere, multiple, multiple buildings with no windows, strip joints, mattresses laid out on sidewalks where people are obviously sleeping and/or living, etc.  Scary stuff.

At this point, we really needed a nice dinner to perk us up and give Tel Aviv one last chance for redemption.  Unfortunately, this was during Passover.  This is what I knew about Passover.  You can’t have any normal bread.  Flat bread, only, a.k.a. matzo.  Matzo are giant, saltine crackers without the salt.  Fine.  Whatever.  What I DIDN’T KNOW was that, during Passover, all the restaurants turn into big, family-style Kosher buffets.  We must have gone into five restaurants and been confronted with huge, Jewish family gatherings who all stopped eating when we walked in and stared at us.  Like nuns walking into a whorehouse, we were.  Sorry!  Just leaving!  Bye!

We ended up eating with the few remaining Non-Jewish tourists at a restaurant directly on the beach and the food was so bad that mine involved mold so I am not going to go into it here, just in case some of you are eating while you read this.  At this point, I just couldn’t take it anymore, let alone for four more days.

Back at Chez Penitentiary, we fire up our computers to see when the next available flight was heading back to Switzerland because I would rather donate a kidney than stay in Tel Aviv one more hour.  Much to Mr. Big’s horror, his computer has been hacked, murdered, fried and otherwise invaded by unseen forces through the hotel’s WiFi.  Can you say Icing On The Cake?  I thought he was going to fling himself off the concrete balcony down onto the asphalt parking lot.  The only other times (more than five but less than ten) I have seen him so mad were when one of the kids wrecked one of the cars.

Dude!  Here, take mine!  I can easily live without Facebook for four days!  Just get me out of this crazy place!  So, I left at 6 a.m. the next morning without my computer but with my sanity.  Mr. Big, unfortunately, had to stay four more days on business.  After he started meeting with the locals, he learned that Israel is one of those places where one does not just gallivant off to without guidance.  Guides are the way to go.  24/7.   One mustn’t just “wing it” or one winds up severely disappointed.  Nooooo.  Really?

By now you have figured out from the pictures, which have been swiped from the Internet, that I didn’t take any pictures of my own.  Not only was there nothing to see, I was worried that the Mossad would swoop down and arrest me for taking bad/funny photos, so I did not dare.  But, if you want to see some really funny/good photos from Copenhagen that I couldn’t fit on the blog, click on this:  http://www.facebook.com/#!/media/set/?set=a.200484549987847.42305.116830998353203

By the way, I didn’t give Copenhagen credit for the two wonderful dinners that we had there.  I HIGHLY recommend here:  http://www.pederoxe.dk/ and here:  http://www.tivoli.dk/composite-8833.htm
Two excellent, amazing meals with great atmosphere!  The Peder Oxe is a traditional, Danish meal, (very upscale, though), situated in the city in an open square and the Nimb Brasserie is located on the outside of Tivoli Gardens, (you don’t have to go into the amusement park to eat there), with a fabulous tasting menu of Nouveau Danish-type food.  Just delicious, both of them.  Go there.

Tel Aviv, ah Tel Aviv.  I had such high hopes but it was not meant to be.  Obviously, it was my fault because I was expecting WAAAAAAY too much.  Mr. Big tells me that when we go to Egypt I need to set my expectations at about zero on a 1-to-10 scale and then I won’t be so disappointed.  I’m like, Mr. Big, please.  Do I look like a girl who would like a place that rates a zero?   Don’t expect a blog post from Cairo any time soon, people.

Weird Easter Vacation

About six days before Easter, it occurred to me that there was a REASON why all my walking buddies were all going away for Easter break.  I had completely forgotten that Switzerland literally shuts down for four days.  I mean, it’s like four Sundays all in a row.  When Mr. Big got home from work that night, I started my subtle “I Want To Go Somewhere Next Week Campaign”.

Me:  Mr. Big, how many days off do you get for Easter?

Mr. Big:  When is Easter?

Me:  This coming Sunday.

Mr. Big:  Well, in the US, I used to have off on Good Friday, if I remember correctly.  Here, I don’t know, probably the entire month of April.  Why?

Me:  Because we will be the only two people left in Switzerland next weekend.  Everyone else, except for the farmers who are going to be busy releasing their cows into the spring fields, is going “en vacances”.

“En vacances” is a state of being in Europe.  You have to say it way up in your nose like this:   Ahhhhhh Vuhcahhhhhhns.  Les vacances are taken very seriously here and trivial things like work (unless that work involves cow maintenance) should never be allowed to interfere with something as important as leisure time.  That’s what Americans do and that is completely gauche and um, American.  (Isn’t it nice to be an adjective for a whole other continent?)  Seriously, Euros think Americans work ridiculously hard.  They find it amusing, but they are also glad SOMEBODY is working hard to keep the world’s economy going, just so long as it isn’t them.  It goes along with their whole perception of Americans.  They think we are adorable in the way that puppies are adorable.  We are annoying, loud, untrained and if you don’t keep your eye on us all the time, we just might go pee behind the sofa.  Yet, they love our spontaneity, our boisterousness and our unpretentiousness.  Like puppies.  See?

Back to my pending vacances.  After blindfolding Mr. Big, spinning him around and pointing him toward a wall map of Europe, he picks Copenhagen.  Copenhagen is up there in those confusing countries/cities that I always get mixed up.  Is it in the Netherlands?  Sweden?  Denmark?  Holland?  Is Holland even a country?

Thanks to Wikipedia, I now know that Copenhagen is a city in Denmark.  The people are Danes or Danish.  Holland, on the other hand, is a mere region of the Netherlands, which is a country.  The city of Amsterdam is in the Holland region of the Netherlands.  All of those people are Dutch.  It’s very confusing.  Where does the “Dutch” come from?  Shouldn’t they be Netherlandians or Hollanders?  I have no answer to these questions.

Just to make me crazy (like I haven’t achieved that all on my own), Mr. Big tells me that he absolutely has to be in Tel Aviv, Israel no later than the Tuesday evening following Easter for work.  He is such a diligent American workerbee!  Well, I want to go to Tel Aviv also because I’ve never been there AND it would be my first trip to the middle east, albeit, the only non-Muslim country in the middle east, but it still counts in my book.

The plans evolve into a Laurel and Hardy comedy routine whereby we will fly to Copenhagen on Thursday.  We will fly back to Lausanne on Sunday (Easter) morning to REPACK, (remember, it is still chilly in Copenhagen but it is hot in Israel), fly out again the next day to Tel Aviv on Monday morning and stay all week, basking in the sun on the Mediterranean.  This was the plan.

OK.  Copenhagen.  Because this all happened so quickly, I didn’t do my homework.  I checked the weather and I checked exactly which country I was going to.  That was it.  So, operating only on my preconceived notions of Copenhagen/Denmark, we arrive.  I was expecting windmills, tulips, wooden shoes, dikes and canals.  I got a big, dirty city with lots of homeless people, tourists, graffiti and prostitutes.

I think somewhere about, oh, say, 1985, the government officials in Copenhagen threw in the towel.  I can just imagine the meeting in the bowels of City Hall.  “You know, Hans, we cannot keep up with the city maintenance.  It is just getting to be too much work.”  “OK, Sven, then let’s concentrate on the four or five main streets where the bulk of the tourists hang out and let the rest go to hell in a handbasket.”  “Gut idea, Hans!”

Those four or five streets are very picturesque, semi-clean and packed with throngs, and I mean throngs, of people.  Go one block over, however, and you won’t be able to take a picture because the graffiti covers every square inch of every building, park bench, sidewalk, etc.  Even the bronze statues have had their eyes filled in with red paint.  I’ve never seen so much graffiti, and I lived in Los Angeles for more than 10 years.  It’s really bad.

For example, Copenhagen is a city surrounded by water.  There are canals on both sides.  Hans and Sven obviously decided, back in 1985, that only the canals on the right side of the city were manageable.  Those on the left, well, uh, you people who live around there will just have to fend for yourselves and do the best you can. 

Unfortunately, if one is a tourist and is looking at a map, one cannot tell that Right Canals = good and Left Canals = bad, right?  Guess where we went strolling on Morning One looking for a coffee shop and bakery?  Of course, the left canals.

Y’all, there was a bloated DEAD DUCK peacefully decomposing in the water.  Disgusting!  The mama swan had made a nest out of TRASH.  Literally.  Her nest was composed of garbage bags and coke cans.  The water was only about 3 feet deep and you wouldn’t believe the mounds of debris you could see through the murk.  Bicycles, hub caps, car batteries, etc.  It was gross.  In Switzerland, in Lac Leman, if there was even a sick duck or maybe even a duck with just a slight head cold, let alone a dead duck, the coast guard would have been called to scoop that sucker up faster than you can say Not In My Lake You Don’t, Daffy.

Hans and Sven also must have been under strict orders to keep up on the maintenance around the palace.  Yes, just in case you haven’t overdosed on enough royalty this week what with the Grand Nuptials of Wills and Kate, I will post some pix here of the Danish royal residence in Copenhagen.

THAT front yard was pristinely clean and guarded by the Danish Royal Guard against, I don’t know, random marauders, wayward prostitutes and spray-paint wielding Picasso wannabees. 

By the way, their (the Danes’) royalty misbehaves just as much as the UK’s.  The headlines in the paper while we were there were commenting on the fact that the Crown Prince was spotted out clubbing with a woman who was NOT the Princess who also happens to be the loving mother of his four children all under the age of 8, two of whom are newborn twins.  I promise you, if Mr. Big would have left me alone with 4 kids, 2 of them barely out of the womb, to go out clubbing with some hootchie mamma, he would have had to have his crown surgically removed from his ass the next morning.

Don’t get me wrong.  Copenhagen is a GREAT city if you are single, in your early twenties and want to stay out partying all night.  If you are the kind of person who thinks dreadlocks look great on white guys, you should definitely book the next flight.

We arrived back in Switzerland on Easter Sunday and, of course, it was closed up as tight as a drum.  I’m surprised they got the air traffic controllers to work on Easter.  We scrounged up a baguette, some cheese and some sausage at the convenience store in the Geneva airport and went home to repack.  After a nice, long nap and a shower that helped us recuperate from the slightly scummy feeling left on our skin from Copenhagen, we caught up on our taped episodes of American Idol and got ready to go to Tel Aviv.  Which I will leave for the next blog post.  Ha!

Spring Has Sprung!

We just had 5 fabulous days of freakishly warm and sunny weather.  It’s such a riot to see the Swiss come out of winter hibernation.  They’re like pollen:  one day there’s none in sight;  the next day every outdoor surface is covered.  They literally go from down jackets and scarves to bikinis.  Now, normally, this occurs much later in the spring on the day that it finally reaches 70 F, but this year it happened last Wednesday.  It reached 80 F by the weekend, which is just unheard of in April.  (Eighty degrees Fahrenheit is hot even for the middle of July, so the Swiss were just delirious.  They were smiling and everything!  In public!)

I ate my packed lunch on a blanket in the park and listened to French tapes in the sunshine for three days in a row.  I stripped down a few layers to my camisole and even went so crazy as to roll up the legs of my jeans, worried that the Swiss would think I was being a brash American.  By one p.m., I was the most overdressed person in the park.  The chick on a blanket next to me was in a bikini.  Even I would not do a bikini in 70 degree weather.  Can you even get a tan in 70 degree weather?  Of course, today, we’re back to normal.  It’s 48 and cloudy.  But for those 5 days, the weather gods were smiling down on us.

Saturday, Mr. Big rolls out of the bed around 9.  He wants to know if I have a plan for the day, which in our old-married-folk code means “which antique fair am I schlepping off to today, Trailing Spouse?”   Actually, I had made no prior plans, but I knew if I told HIM that, he would sit around all day watching the Masters and we would waste all that glorious sunshine.

“We are going for a drive all around the Brienzerzee and the Thunerzee.  Get dressed.”

“What the hell is a Brienzerzee?”

“It’s a lake.  A lake is a “zee” in German.  Hurry up.  You’re making us late.”

“Late for what?”

Well, late for nothing, really, because I had just made all of this up on the spot but I bluffed my way through and got him up and out the door.  I will put a few of the pictures on here, but I will put a whole bunch more on the Facebook blog page so you can see the whole album.  Just click this!

These two Swiss lakes, the Brienzer and Thuner Zees, are shaped like a figure eight.  I mean, they butt right up against one another.  Directly in the middle, where they hinge together, is the town called Interlaken.  At the top of the figure eight is the town of Brienze and at the bottom of the eight is the town called Thun.  All along the edges are some impossibly cute towns and the Alps ring the lakes, rising up on all sides.  Most visitors to Switzerland only go to Interlaken, which is the train station connector hub which leads to the famous trio of mountains:  the Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau.

Of course, we are not allowed to drive on any freeways to get there, we are only allowed to go on tiny backroads.  My rule, not Mr. Big’s.  Obviously.  This is how it works in a long-time-marriage, people.  You have unwritten laws.  If you do not follow these arbitrary laws, you will have a pouty wife.  Duh.  One of these laws in our marriage is that ALL THE REALLY GOOD STUFF is found on backroads.  Now, before you think I am being unreasonable, the rest of the law says that, after dark, on the way home, when there is nothing left to see, Mr. Big can zoom about on the freeway to his little heart’s content.  Am I not the Queen of Compromise?

So, because we are on backroads and have driven through two, additional, unnecessary cantons, our two hour trip to our starting point, Interlaken, takes us four hours instead of two, but that is beside the point.  The point being that we got to see a bunch of lovely cows and drive over two mountain passes that we had never seen before.  We stopped in Gstaad at the grocery store to buy some sandwich fixins and had a picnic on the side of the road overlooking a creek somewhere near Schonreid.

Reaching Interlaken, we head off north around the Brienzerzee, (the upper part of the figure 8) and pull off in Iseltwald.  Ok, people of Iseltwald, I KNOW you posed those cows right at the entrance to the village where your “welcome” sign is!  Don’t lie!  Y’all, this town was just too cute.  Because we were gawking, we missed the “Pedestrian Streets Only” sign.  Mr. Big was driving on a forbidden road and the Swissies strolling all around us were dropping their jaws like marionette puppets.  Beat it, Mr. Big!  You are in a No Cars Allowed territory!  We screeched out of Iseltwald just ahead of, I’m sure, a hefty, hefty ticket from the local Polizei.

So, I can’t tell you anything more about Iseltwald, i.e. the shops or restaurants, because we were on the lam before we ever got one foot out of the car.  I did make him pull over for a brief moment when, yet again, I saw strategically placed animals, sheep this time, in front of a tiny sheep barn carved “1768”.  Those Iseltwald people really know how to pose their livestock for maximum picture-taking advantage.

At the tip of the lake, (the pinnacle of the 8), is the town of Brienze.  Two kilometers before you get to Brienze is the turn-off for the “Williamsburg of Switzerland”, i.e. a living history outdoor village “museum” called Ballenburg.  Alas, it was closed up as tight as a drum.  Even though it was 80 degrees outside, Ballenburg did not get the memo and had yet to open for the season.  We will return, though, as I am anxious to go.  Supposedly, they have collected 80 authentic houses from 18 different cantons and it explains Swiss history visually through architecture and homemade, regional crafts and food.  That’s my kind of museum!

Between Ballenburg and Brienze I see a sign for “Brockistube”.  STOP, MR. BIG!  I don’t know a lot, but I do know the words for flea markets, second-hand shops and antique stores in approximately 36 different languages.  Twenty minutes and one lamp and one planter richer, we continue on to Brienze.

The people of Brienze are known for their wood carvings.  Personally, I think they stole the idea from the Black Forest part of Germany, but what do I know.  If you see a “Swiss-made” cuckoo clock, it was made in Brienze.  Or one of those coat racks that looks like bears climbing up a tree?  Brienze.  As a matter of fact, when we were walking up and down the quaint streets, we saw a random local woman taking advantage of the early and rare sunshine sitting in her driveway carving a large mountain goat sculpture.  It was as big as she was.  I didn’t take her picture, sorry.  It felt sort of rude.  I mean, it was obviously her house and her driveway and she was not trying to put on a “show” or anything.  It sort of felt intrusive, like taking a picture of an Amish guy out plowing his own field, you know?

Ok, down the other side of the top of the 8.  Not too many villages, just lovely views.  As we reach the “hinge”, (again!) of the 8, Interlaken, we are on roads through this town that we have never been on, even though we have been to Interlaken train station any number of times.  It’s really cute!  Who knew?  We have only ever considered Interlaken as a hub and never actually walked around or eaten there.  My bad!  The “old village” of Interlaken is precious.

Just down the north side of the Thunerzee, out of Interlaken, direction Thun, we spy a beautiful waterfall.  There are a few parking spaces at its’ base, so we pull over.  There is a small sign, in German, saying that these are the caves of St. Beatus and that they are not available for people in wheelchairs or people with strollers.  Can you imagine, in America, a sign that says, “Wonderful tourist spot.  Sorry, no handicapped people or babies.”  Boggles the mind.  The entrance to caves is up, up, up a winding path that crisscrosses a waterfall any number of times to a dizzying height of about 800 meters or 2,500 feet above the lake.  We didn’t go all the way up the to cave entrance because the dinner bell was starting to ring in Mr. Big’s tummy and he had no intention of missing dinner just to see some stalagmites, but we did climb a fair bit.  Did I mention that I’m wearing ballerina slippers?  No?  Remember, when I left in the morning I thought we would just be taking a yummy drive around a couple of FLAT lakes.  Not hiking.

Y’all.  My ballerina shoes were not up to the descent.  My foot slipped right out from under me on the way down and I skinned my knee like a 3-year-old AND RIPPED MY NEW WHITE JEANS.  Note to self:  when going ANYWHERE in Switzerland and you are unfamiliar with the territory, don’t wear flats or heels.  Wear something “grippy”.  It’s the ALPS, Trailing Spouse!  Act like you know!

Now we have two things we have to go back and see:  The Ballenburg museum and the St. Beatus caves.  And we weren’t done yet!  The next town down the road is Hilterfingen.  We are cruising through the cute little village and, I spy, out of the corner of my right eye, a castle on the hill.  Ooooh, Mr. Big, is it a castle that we can go in?  (Lots of castles/chateaux here are still privately owned by the rich people who don’t appreciate us peons walking around peering in their windows.  Selfish bastards.)

“How the hell do I know, Trailing Spouse?”

“Well, maybe, it’s just a really big house, not a castle, AND, maybe it’s for sale, Mr. Big!  Turn around!  Turn around!”  (Do any of the rest of you do this to your husbands?  No?  Yes?  Make them do U-turns to indulge your spur-of-the-moment-whims?  This drives Mr. Big bug-out-eyeball-crazy, but he does it for the sake of peace in the family.  See above reference to pouty wife.)




Unfortunately, it was a castle, it was not for sale, nor was it open for the season as of yet.  This made THING THREE that we would have to come back to tour.  Schloss Honegg.  So breathtaking.  Sadly, owned by the canton of Bernese Oberlander and not for sale to mere mortals.  Ahh, me.

On into the city of Thun, at the bottom of the 8, and a lovely dinner on the water.  It’s asparagus season, so I’m including a picture of my plate with both green and white asparagus.   Thun (pronounced Toon,) is another Kodak-worthy village with a castle and cathedral on the hill, views of the Alps and two, old covered bridges spanning the rivers that run out of the Thunerzee.  All in all, a lovely day out in Switzerland, minus the ripped pants.  Enjoy the pix!

Facebook versus Blog

I know that there many of you who read this blog that are not friends with me on Facebook or who haven’t “liked” the Facebook site “Trailing Spouse Blog”, (which refers you right back to this blog), so I am going to catch you non-Facebook people up to date.

First, let me give a quick shout out to my new Favorite Couple and the United States Military.  Mr. Favorite Couple works with Mr. Big here in Switzerland.  Favorite Couple also reads this blog, hence, they are well aware that I need some bleach.  Well, yesterday, Monday, Mr. Big goes into the office and there, sitting on his desk, is a gallon bucket of Clorox.  Honest-to-God Clorox.  With a no-spill spout.  Like it just grew up out of his desktop by magic.

After some astute detective work, Mr. Big works out that Mr. Favorite Couple was visiting his brother-in-law at his (the brother’s) US military base in Germany this past weekend.  Favorite Couple went on a frenzied shopping spree at the base PX on their family visit.  Um, sorry, Bro, it’s nice to see you an’ all, but can we go to the grocery store now?

Running giddily through the aisles, Favorite Couple were tossing things in their basket willy-nilly like kids in a candy store.  US PX’s are like Wal-Marts.  They have everything.  Favorite Couple were salivating over the Kraft Mac N Cheese, the Domino brown sugar (both light and dark!), the Lucky Charms, the Oscar Meyer wieners, the Armour bacon, the individually wrapped Kraft singles.  Lawd, it boggles the mind.  They loaded up the van, floor to ceiling, sent the 2.2 kids home on a plane and drove home to Switzerland.

Oh, wait, no, that is what I would have done.  My children would have been immediately displaced by cases of Quaker Instant Grits and Swanson’s Chicken Broth.  Favorite Couple actually let their kids ride home (i.e. take up valuable space) in the van.  Favorite Couple are much nicer than I.  But, they did bequeath me one gallon of treasured bleach and, for that, I am forever in their debt.

Let’s return to Facebook.  Last weekend, Mr. Big and I went to Barcelona.  We have been to Spain many, many times, but never Barcelona.  This is a very popular tourist spot so I’m sure many of you have been there.  I will try to link here the picture album on FB so you can see the pix, which were fabulous.  I really don’t know how to do this, so I will probably have to enlist the help of my sister and, hopefully, she will be able to figure out this link stuff.   Barcelona is a large, large city (4 million people!) on the Mediterranean with really good shopping and stunning architecture by a man named Antoni Gaudi.  Everywhere you turn is another Kodak moment.  But, it is full of tourists and all that that entails, so beware.

We stayed at a very nice hotel, the ME Barcelona (which stands for the hotel chain, Melia) http://www.me-barcelona.com/.  It was nice.  No complaints.  It certainly wasn’t jaw-dropping, but, remember, this was a work-related trip, so I was just glad it was not attached to the airport, which is where Mr. Big usually stays on work-related trips.

It’s about 15 minutes outside the city center, but only two minutes from the Metro, so, it was cool.  As long as I have public transport, I am good.  While we were there we did all of the typical touristy things like walking up and down La Rambla (an ultra-tacky street filled with African vendors and “painted” mimes), La Saguarda Familia church which you should not miss, Gaudi’s Parc  Guell which was just breathtaking (and healthy, because it’s a lot of walking), and the marina/seaport.

Let’s talk about the marina.  Most tourists walk down to the marina because there is an aquarium, restaurants, and, let’s face it, the Mediterranean Sea, a mall WHICH IS OPEN ON SUNDAYS, etc.  Us, no.  We walked down to the marina because Mr. Big thought he spied, from MANY, MANY blocks away, a really big yacht.  OK.  I don’t know squat about yachts.  To me, they are just really big boats.  As a matter of fact, I really didn’t know that Mr. Big knew anything about yachts until last weekend.  Y’know, you can be married to someone for 25 years and still not know the little things that are swirling around inside their crazy heads.

Anyway, we walk down to the marina and we get a half-bottle of wine and two glasses and go outside on the terrace so that, you guessed it, Mr. Big can sit and stare at this stupid boat.  I’m not even looking at the boat, mind you, I’m looking out over the city and admiring the view and soaking up the sun.  Meanwhile, Mr. Big whips out his Blackberry and is Googling on THE LIST OF THE BIGGEST YACHTS IN THE WORLD, this particular yacht.  Ten nanoseconds later, he knows everything there is to know about this boat.  Do I care?  No.  I do not.  Does he care?  Well, apparently so.

This is the 44th biggest yacht in the world, previously owned by some Russian Mafia dude and now owned by some Indian guy.  Go ahead, Google it.  It is called the Anastasia.  Apparently, me, being just a dumb Trailing Spouse, I was not aware that the top 200 yachts built in the world are ranked by size and all this information is available to the general public and that SOME PEOPLE actually care about it. Y’all, he was fascinated by this stupid boat.  He even called Domestic Son and Small Son right there from the marina to, I don’t know, I guess, enlighten them that he was basking in the shadow of this yacht.  Of course, Domestic Son answered his phone like a good boy and yammered on with his dad about this tremendous boat and Small Son’s phone went right to voice mail, which is par for the course.

Anastasia

Reluctantly, we left the marina when the sun went down and it got cold without spying a single soul on this boat.  It was locked up tighter than a drum.  But, truthfully?  I don’t think Mr. Big cared.  He just wanted to stare at the boat.  Weird, I tell you.  Weird.  I did ask him, as we were walking back to the Metro stop, if Tiger Woods had a big yacht.  Mr. Big looked at me like I had just stripped naked on the street.  “Honey.  Tiger Wood’s yacht is one-tenth the size of that boat.  Tiger Woods’ yacht could fit inside one of the restrooms of that yacht.”

I said, well maybe that is why Tiger can only pick up hookers.  His yacht is tiny.  Mr. Big said, “Girl, you know the only difference between men and boys. . .”

UPDATE, CHALET GOO GAW:  We have another showing this coming Saturday.  We have specified that we must be able to see ALL rooms, all the way around the entire building, and that Madame will not be in attendance.  We’ll see how this goes.  I’m not holding my breath.

Chalet Goo Gaw

There are no words to describe the chalet we looked at yesterday.  Even the realtor was speechless and realtors have pretty much seen everything.  I’m at a loss where to begin so I will just start with the owner.

Picture a Hoarding, Crazy-Cat-Lady who looks exactly like Zsa Zsa Gabor in a velour track suit.  Her hair was tall.  Her makeup was thick.  And she was VERY, VERY proud of her decorating skills.  She fancied herself to be quite the “artiste”, which explained the craziness that we encountered at every turn.







http://dai.ly/eNCJ2m  
My ZSA ZSA on a hunger strike on TV!

First, I have to explain that there are really only two normal ways to go when decorating a chalet:  contemporary/modern or traditional.  By traditional, I mean chunky wood furniture, comfy sofas, mountain-type accents, etc.  Well, Zsa Zsa was having none of that.  This place was decorated like it was Versailles and the Sun King himself was expected for tea.  I’m sure she thought our mouths were hanging open because we were in awe of the majesty we were beholding all around us.   Y’all, we couldn’t even look at one another for fear of collapsing into helpless laughter.

Crazy began in the driveway.  Yes, that structure you see to your right is indeed a two-car garage but, sorry, no one is allowed to go in because it is my “studio” and it is full of my things.  Little did we know that this was only Room Number One which we wouldn’t be allowed to see.  On top of the garage, (remember, this is March), was perched a life-sized sled and a 4-foot wire reindeer.

The outdoor patio wall was covered with one of her handpainted murals.  We were ushered into the kitchen door because the front door AND ALL OTHER DOORS AND WINDOWS in the chalet were barricaded with giant, custom-made iron gates.  To keep out the massive hordes of burglars and rapists just waiting to come attack Zsa Zsa.  This is where my eyebrows went up into my forehead where they remained for the duration.  This is a very rural chalet.  The neighbors on either side are farmers.  The village itself, I’m sure, has never experienced Crime One, but this place was prepared should Hannibal decide to return to the French Alps for a rematch.

So, into the kitchen we troop after Madame.  My eye is immediately drawn to the La Cornue stove which almost makes me swoon.  After having a moment of severe oven-envy, my gaze broadens to include the rest of the room.   Every cabinet door, every backsplash and every wall was covered with more of her artwork.  You know those old oil paintings of dead rabbits and pheasants hanging upside down?  That was her motif of choice in the kitchen.  A different dead animal painted directly on each individual cabinet door.  Scary!

  In the middle of the kitchen was a huge glass-topped dining table completely set up with service for 8.  Oh, I thought, this house must not have a dining room.  Why else would she pack this mammoth table into the kitchen?  We had to turn sideways to skirt around it to get to the next room.

Did I say the next room?  I meant the next room that Zsa Zsa would allow us to go in.  She would point out a door and say “and that is a pantry. . .and that leads to the cave. . .and this is another bedroom. . .BUT YOU CAN”T GO IN THERE because it is either a) my studio or b) full of my things.  After the fourth mystery room, Mr. Big had had enough of Zsa Zsa’s censorship.  He was 4th in the single file line after Zsa Zsa, the realtor and me.  I heard him behind me crack open a forbidden door.  Y’all.

It wouldn’t open more than six inches.  I quickly ran back to peer inside.  You could just make out a stone fireplace on the far wall and ANOTHER door leading somewhere beyond that but there was so much CRAP piled up in the space, it was impossible to tell where it lead to.

Later, over coffee at a café downtown, we estimated that there were at least 5 rooms that we weren’t allowed to see.  Hence the reason Zsa Zsa’s chalet has been on the market for over 18 months and while the others in the area sell in a matter of days.  On a brighter note, I had, by this time, christened the funhouse “Chalet Goo Gaw” and even the realtor, who hails from the UK and didn’t even know what a “goo gaw” was,  was calling it that.

I was so scared of Zsa Zsa that I didn’t even take any photos because I thought she might bite me or something.  You will have to be content with pictures from the realtor’s website which have blocked out most of the craziness, unfortunately.  You do get a feel for the over-the-top decorating, however.  There were places where she had three, four and five rugs laid out one on top of the other.  And there IS an official dining room, again set for a complete dinner service.  Perhaps for her imaginary friends, I don’t know.

Yet, in spite of the craziness, we were intrigued by the bones of the chalet.  It would sort of be like buying one of those “mystery grab bags” where you just make a leap of faith and take your chances.  Even the landscaping was adding to the mysterious allure.  It was overgrown to the point where you could only see the peak of part of the roofline from the street, so I really don’t even know what the outside looks like.  The hedge along the front was at least 10 feet tall and there was a massive pine tree dead center in front of the house blocking over 50% of the view.

Perhaps we will make an offer contingent upon actually being able to see the WHOLE house, (imagine her horror!), and then I will be brave enough to take pictures right in front of her to send to y’all.  I will get her to pose next to the 6-foot leopard painting she did in the living room.  Anyway, little does she know, that she had me at the La Cornue.  Mr. Big, however, is another kettle of fish entirely.  Leap of faith is not even in his vocabulary.