Interlaken

I have been here for almost two months now, the novelty hasn't worn off, but I couldn't help but think that I had, had the measure of the place = Efficient public transport, good education, wonderful architecture, cheese fixations, Mountains and the like. Infact most of these things are still true, but today we went to Interlaken and then Grindalwald, perhaps the epicentre of Swiss-ness. Interlaken lies two hours (by train) south east of Luzern, its a small tourist town full of Swiss army knife shops and "kiss me I'm Suisse" type T-shirt shops. The journey here requires you to push your face up against the glass and take in the wonder of the landscape. You can tell who is Swiss in your carriage, because they're are all sitting down immune to the effects of the countryside. We barely sit down the whole way to Interlaken, around every turn is a photo oppotunity (eventually my battery runs out before we reach Grindalwald, after 120 photos).
The town is fringed with overbearing cliff faces, almost sheer covered with Pine forests. We arrive around 11.00 and its already bustling with multinational tourists, I hear more english voices here than at any other time so far. We amble around the streets, yo-yoing in and out of shops, theres not a great deal to see shop-wise. The sky is blue and we sit in the shade watching around twenty paragliders sit on the thermals above the town, as we wait 4 or 5 descend intoa field next to our bench, sprialling down as a tandem or solo, their shadows dart across the few tall buildings here. We find a quite little Japanese restaurant and sample their excellent gyoza, and Hiromi enjoys the small talk of speaking in Japanese. The town sits between two ridges toweering hundres of meters above us, on one side this breaks in the middle, which gives view to a snow capped peak in the distance that lays in Grindalwald. Its snow is perenial, it looms ominously in the distance the sun glancing off its sides. Interlaken is a rich town full of hotels (expensive hotels) and a casino, the tourists look distinctly wealthy here. We however dine on kebabs.

More Interlaken

Some cute Photos of Hiromi, and thanks to Hiromi's photographic prowese, a Spaky Photo of me eating rice.

Grindelwald

What a great name, my favourite Swiss name, it just like a girls name from a brother Grimm tale. Pronounced Grin del vald.
Interlaken had some great scenery, but just a twenty minuute train journey away lies EVEN MORE POWERFUL views. Grindelwald is quite tiny, its more of a village than a town, but due to its unique location it is elevated to soaring heights of tourism, although it does have a great crazy golf course too, to be fare. Its a little scary being in Grindelwald, I felt as though I was going to be crushed by the mountains at any moment, never have I felt so small, the mountains look twice as tall as the ones in Luzern, perhaps because they are so sheer. They are big, they are snow capped, they are surrounding the village. We wander through the one main street and take in the same old shops, what we are looking for is the longest fernicular (mountain train) in europe, it is a two hour journey to the summit, its costs about 160 CHF= £65.00 to ride. We um and ah about the cost and then some shop keeper tells us its already closed for today, we'll have to come back tomorrow, which isn't an option really. There is however a fun size cable car that takes you up about 300 meters. The four of us hop on and we are away. Unlike the Pilatus cablecar this one starts ascending straight away and about half way up I decide that in the interests of science I should spit into a river some 150m below, it takes about 7-8 seconds to hit the ground, which when I report makes the other quite nervous, I just thought that was cool. I wasn't too bothered about riding up to see the view down but now we're climbing it is beautiful, the elevation describes the valley bellow and everything come into perspective. We reach the top in about 5 minutes, the view is spectacular, it really doesn't look real. The valley is dotted with Alpine huts and houses crawling over the hill sides, the ground looks crafted like a golf course, every tree thoughtfully placed. Its 9 CHF for the trip, which was well spent. Now we're here its time to sample the 750m Tabogan run, needless to say I didn't die, but there were some moments when I wasn't so sure, Hiromi shrieks here way around every corner and Ben goes first to let of some acceleration steam. Frolicking done we start to amble back down. We decide to walk down by one of the many paths, it take considerably longer than we expect. The Swiss have left the mountain au natral, which translates as no helath and safety. the path edge plunges drastically in places with death waiting at the bottom, we are rained on from above by water seeping out of the mountain, streams trickle across our path, helicopters fill the air buzzing back and forth. We pass through forest and meadows and then pass houses with steepled roofs and homely eaves the side of buildings are fortified with wood for the coming winter. All in all its an hour and a half beofre we reach civilization, we covera very insignificant portion of the hillside as we peer back up. You can watch paragliders lazily hover thousands of meters above, even higher than the mountain itself, barely moving, it must feel sublime. This is without a doubt the most majestic of places.

More Grindelwald

Photos courtesy of Mr Ben Hamilton.

Lausanne

Saturday the 5th of May.

Today we are heading for the town of Lausanne. Its a miserable day, the wind is blowing the rain is falling, we are running to the train station because we're running late. Six of us are going today, the three of us representing Baths pa, and the three Germans, Anne, Florian and Felix. We hop on the train, and it leaves exactly on time. We settle down for the two and half hour trip, I didn't think Switzerland was big enough to have such a train journey.
We dash through the countryside, through the gloomy weather through hills and mountains. There is an odd mist floating in patches everywhere, it gives the impression of great forest fires hissing in the rain. I take out my camera to immortalise the scene, it feels strangely light. Only then do I realise that in my joy of remembering to charge my camera battery, I have forgotten to put it back in my camera.
We are traveling today with purpose, we are going to see a gallelry, it celebrates a movement called 'Art Brut' or 'Outsider art'. This basically means rough art, or art outside the official norms of society. The majority of the artists we view are obsessive in nature, often detached from society or have experienced mental illness or traumatic upbringings. These people made art because they 'had to', they usually feature one theme, which is repeated until they died, much of the work was only discovered after their deaths. This work wasn't made for an audience or made to measure, in its purist form its an act of self expression with no other aim.
The largest collection they had was of a Russian deaf and mute man named Lobanov. Lobanov had an intensefixation with guns. Hundreds of his drawings feature fire arms, people hunting, in heoric positions, in type faces. He was often the centre of these images, he worked in collage too, staging elaborate facias, and cardboard guns painstakingly crafted in order to be photographed. After viewing 30 or 40 sketches you reach a saturation point and they begin to blur. Henry Darger was another prominent feature, he constructed an illustrated novel over three volumes and 50,000 pages. His work chronicled a race of strange children (all female), naked, some with Horns and tails, and their struggle aginast soldiers, cowboys and other adult male figures of aggression. Bizarre imagery using collage, copying, paint and pencils, over large formats. very intense and innocent/dark. There were perhaps 20 artists represented, all of them with a story and fascination, all a little sad but pure.
We also visited the Museum of deisgn and applied arts. They were hosting an exhibition celebrating Swiss design and innovation. From your typical Swiss army knife, Freitag bags, and time pieces to industrial design. It seems they hav eplayed a significant role in the evolution of most areas of design. The exhibition wasn't so big, but they had a great collection of design journals and a cute shop.
Laussane itself is a hilly town, everywhere we went was uphill and down dale, the architecture differed from Luzern and you could tell you were in aFrench speaking Kanton. We ran into a wine festival too, it featured all the kantons of Switzerland, Hirromi was able to get her face airbrushed (no, not all of it), after queueing up with the other children she asked for a small design for her check, she received a sizable shooting star in white pink and purple.
The shitty weather prevailed and we found ourselves dashing form shop to shop we took ina cafe and a bavarian pub before running for the last train home.
As we visit various institutes, we seem to gather an impressive collection of fliers and posters, here are some we picked up from Lausanne.

Five things on my way to and from school

These are some of the things I see every day on my 10 minute walk to university.

HGK (Har Gay Kar)

Hocheschule fur Gestaltung und Kunst
Thats where we're studying. The main building is situated in the shadow of Gutsch, next to the river, duel carriage way and train lines. Its a largish hollow square shape with a central courtyard. Inside is quiet and spacious, nobody shouts and students are happy to work in their own time in studios together. There is a community feel to the space, people gather together and talk about work and music. The cafeteria makes great, healthy food and the seating area is reminiscent of a minimal Japanese restaurant. There is all the usual facilties you would expect except that they are larger and better equiped than the ones that I'm use to. Despitet he size, there seems to be relatively few students here, typically classes are only 15-20 people strong. Before arriving here our school pitched the idea of English speaking classes, I'm not sure how I came to believe this, but there not. Yes 95% of people speak good conversational English, but lessons are conducted in German, and this is obvious now we're here. Provisions are made for us and things are explained, but when you sit through a 2 hour lecture and recieve a 2 minute summary, its a little frustrating. But we empathize also. This aside, the people are friendly and very helpful, its a very positive atmosphere.

Our house

I realise I have tantalized you with descriptions of my palatial living conditions here in Switzerland, so I thought I had better deliver some photographic evidence to substanciate these claims.
In the first image you will see our frontroom, yes it looks more like a classroom but its large and spacious and a fantastic collection of local posters. The second image is of my bedroom , which is situated on the top floor of the building to the centre, it isn't the larget room in the house but perhaps the quietist, and I also have a view of Guttsch castle from my bed.
The next image is the legendary roof terrace. This is where I often sit in my more mellancholy moods and sing 'somewhere out there' like Billy Mousecovics from Fievle goes west, to the moon in hope of someone across the globe dueting.
Just in the background you can spot that old favourite, mount Pilatus all rugged and inpenetrable.
Perhaps palacial was an exaggeration, but why not.

Mullah!

I thought it might be interesting to feature the Swiss currency. This is the only money I have seen that uses portrait images. As there have been no monarchs of Switzerland, it features other famous Swiss individuals. Including Giacometti, Le Corbusier, Arthur Honegger, and Sophie Taeuber-Arp. I have no idea who those last people are but Giacometti was a fine artist sculptor and painter, and Le Corbusier was an Architect. On a flakier note they are also beautiful colours.

A walk around town 2

Here are a few snapshots of more places around town.
The first is the remains of the old train station, a giant archway. This now sits in front of the new station, which is all glass and metal. The second is of a local bakery that has an abnormally big doorway flourish.
The third is of the Luzern museum, which as you may guess, houses artifacts concerning Luzern.
The fourth is the natural history museum where I have drawing classes on mondays, its not that big but has an extensive collection of insects and even a drawing by a young child which casualy declares "Ich bin eine Homo". Yes its childish and somewhat backward thtinkingof me to mention it, butthe sheer innocence tickled my fancy.
The last photo is of the river near the hydro electric turbine, around this time the rivers height increases and they open the flood gates to allow the water through. Here it forms wonderful shapes as it surges through.

Design Savvy

I would like to take a moment to irradicate a stereotype. We tend to form opinions of countries and the peoples within them.
The Germans are cruel, without humour and infatuated with sausages, the Italians love their coffee and involuntarily shout "Bella Bella" at all passing women, while sitting on Vespas. The Swiss are design centred, produce high quality wooden time pieces and like to eat melted cheese as a main meal. I'm glad to say that my time here has dissoloved these simple and easily formed prejudices.
The following Postcards are my evidence. They speak for themselves, not only are they hideously beautiful they feature some of the most poorly conceived design ideals I have ever seen. It isn't just Torquay, Felixstowe and Blackpool that stoop to this level of correspondance, I'm happy to embrace Switzerland in kinship on behalf of the British people.
Apologies to future recipients.

A walk around town.

For want of anything better to write about I decided to featurea a few of the local architectural attractions to be had on off, in and around Luzern. It would take hundreds of photographs to give a true interpretation of the city, such is the rich splendor of my new digs. But if you were that interested then you should really just use your eyes and come here.
The city of Luzern is split by a river, the river Ruesse (I think), its not like london and both sides are safe at night time. In the centre the river is crossed by 5 bridges. One sits over the hydro electric generator thats powers part of the city. Two of these bridges are wooden and in their rafters are renaissance paintings of death killing various people, somewhere around 50ish paintings in total originaly, until a fire burnt down most of the bigger bridge.
We live in the old town, its distinctive because of its cobble streets and numerous squares, the architecture here is especially beautiful, a range of small alleys to expansive squares with a variety of late night cafes. On this side of the river sits the remainder of the old defensive wall some 10 meteres high with turrets, crenelations and towers with chiming clocks.
To the south of the river sits Pilatus the mountain in the distance and a range of mountains behind, this side of the river houses more practical shops, and the less touristy stores. Gutsch and the Gutschwald lay on this side too, either a ten miute climb up a zig zagging path of 2 miutes in the fernicular for 5CHF (bit of a rip off) you can stand on the mini summit and servey all you command, and they have a cannon too! At night this place is lit up, and appears to be made from gold.
This side of the river also holds the KKL , which the centre for culture in Luzern. It is a gigantic building, which houses a museum, concert hall and gallery. It has a stark exterior made of polished black glass and steel frame, infact its sinister enough for my photographic comparison to the Death Star (image has been horizontally flipped for artistic effect).
The KKL is neighbours with the train station, and the harbour. From here you can board large ships and explore the lake in luxuary over a couple of hours voyage, or like Hiromi and I you can adopt a pioneers spirit and hire a pedallow around the corner and set out for glory. Around the lake is dotted a casino, an imax and the transport museum.
So, come to Luzern Switzerland and 'Get natural' as their saying goes.