Author: kmarieclark

Day 2

To be more aware may be to attend your only thoughts to the presence… not to planning too far into the future. That is what I am trying to practice now.

We left early in the morning to find Griesalp Switzerland from Zurich and found ourselves by way of a very efficient transportation system, to our Friendship house (Neu Freund Haus in Griesalp Switzerland) by early afternoon.

But, back to the first morning we woke up in Europe. I woke up early to the sounds of a piazza three stories down. I sat in a chair wrapped in the down blanket that came with my bed for about an hour before jumping back in bed to sleep more.  Waking up to find we had overslept wasn’t a problem.  Jumping the train at 11am and arriving to our chalet front porch by two wasn’t bad. On our way there, our first stop to see the Alps first-hand was in Thurn. Thurnsee, it’s liquid gem color set a beautiful table to the mountains, fresh red flowers, a chapel steeple, farming terraces and the iconic swiss chalet (with stained wooden horizontal siding, and low over hanging eaves on thin A-frame houses.)

From here we boarded a bus with out-door looking German-speaking folk. Hiking poles were apart of the accessory. Even with extreme hiking (9-10 hours of walking) I realized people dressed the way they wanted to look. I’ve seen hard-core looking, merril kicking chicks with their thick shirts and dirty poles and have thought I’d never be able to keep up -but really I find a hiking shoe of any kind is suffice and if you want to see the Alps in your Umbros or Long Johns, well the go for it! It really doesn’t matter. Phil and I climbed Mt. St. Helen in  Oregon last summer in New Balances and without poles. (Though my knees really would have appreciated them!) Phil and I ranked our hikes along our trip -Mt. St. Helen by far, for me, being the most difficult. More on our hike and rankings to come.

We took a bus up supposedly one of the steepest bus routes in Switzerland. The road was thin. It looked like the way we’d found Zumpthor’s chapel in  the field many years ago.

(This was during a study abroad program I took through Virginia Tech in 2002 and also was my first glimpse of the Alps.)

At one point during our bus ride we had to pause to let the cow traffic by. We rounded through the rocks without a scratch and with a bus full of laughter, though neither Phil or I could understand any commentary. We arrived in the town square of Griesalp and it was different from I had expecting. Instead of the stand alone hotel/restaurant there were three chalet buildings that had central picnic table areas where most people were eating their kabob sandwiches. The fourth chalet being built afforded me the opportunity to look at it’s construction. Concrete slabs that extended over walls had 2″ thick insulation board imbedded in it as if it were apart of the form work, then left. Town was quiet. Where was the Neufrienhaus?

The nice thing about entering any Switzerland city was that to find your hotel or chalet you can simply find and read the very present direction signs that locate your place of rest with mileage and direction. We never had trouble finding any place that we had booked. However, booking wasn’t really necessary considering that traveling in September – October in Switzerland and Italy isn’t very popular for the rest of the world like it is during the summer time.

We crossed a low river, the water was white, cream, grey; pristine mountain water.

Here is what I wrote with this in view:

At our chalet we sit as high as West Virginia’s High point -Spruce Knob. The children yell in high-pitched German. There is a vertical forest of Spruce. Steep fields with one road pass and many more hotels and chalets in Griesalp than expected. Ours, over the bridge, next to the house under the road, turns from where our bus left off. Much quieter.

(This is where we stayed.)

The Alpen, grey ash falls from the glacier. Wind carved rock. Flat stump hills in the foreground, cow bells in the distant sounds. Happy husband with a light lager, drawing. Black face of rock, popped through the firm landscape like a bottle cork from the lips of champagne. The snow faces of the highest alps have direct triangular orders. They climb stacked behind one another in a certain order until they break off at the sky. Green land exists on the top of a wine cork.

(Yes, that is a house on this hill)

The Suisse positive flag is perched on the slate roof. We left the doll house facades and ceramic tile roofs in Zurich. People are older here, having tall plates of ice cream and cream whipped. Streams in the places where mountains touch glisten and the east faces cast dark cloud shadows. But I am drawing in the sun.

We took a walk before dinner. Phil thinks it is called the Witches Calderon. It took us about an hour to make the loop. We heard the harmony of cow bells and joined their light mood. The sun set on rock I couldn’t take in with my whole being. The mass of the mountain was so large it stood on tip-toes and tilted into me with such great force, that I had to look away.

Dinner was served buffet style and we met Bob from Bend who joined us to dine. We ate steaming potatoes, cheese (of course.. and would eat lots of cheese from this moment forward) and a vegetable I’m sure. More than the houses’ guests were gathered on the porch and at some point these 30-something-year-olds took their seat at the table indoors. Perhaps they were here for the weekend, it was a Friday night. Maybe they grew up around the mountains and missed their weight and so had returned. I don’t know but they were still there in the morning when we went to breakfast. We changed out our shoes for house slippers once inside. We brought a head lamp for light -for there wasn’t any electricity. Our room was tiny but we had fresh flowers at our window. We closed the shutters and figured out the locking latch. We slept together on the top bunk of our full-sized bunk beds. Phil wrote post cards and I read Walden.

How did we hear about this Alpine Hike? Backpacker Magazine. On Day 3 you can see a very similar photo I took of Phil to the one I see on that magazine webpage!

I want to be more aware. To move forward with this I am proposing to ONLY concentrate on one thing at a time. After a month abroad without an internet / phone attachment to myself, I realize how often I question something and then go directly to looking it up. What a blessing that my questions can be instantly answered! So different from finding time in the next day to go to the library and look through the encyclopedia. (The library culture has really had to change since, right?!)

As a result of wandering, then, directly looking, I see a globalized impact on Italy and her cities. I wonder about myself and the constant distraction this availability provides as I am working on a project or concentrating on daily work -the availability is a distraction. As is, being available.

Along our trip the large plans were taken care of, such as what city we’d be visiting and where we’d be sleeping. But, the day to day time was very loose. So, we judged what was next by the prior ten minutes, and continued on for a month in that way. What needed to be done, or what we desired to do, grew out from the last thing that attended us. We didn’t have to remember to do anything, but did something as it came along.

To be more aware of my trip i am going to write and remember it day by day and give myself the time to be thorough.

Zurich, CH .   Day 1

Wandering through the streets of Zurich I see men in suits, bicycle traffic moving along with the street, city rail trains stopping for pedestrians. Zurich was founded for a reason I cannot find beyond that it was enjoyed by lake dwellers. Zurich’s central location probably accounts for one of the reasons it is now the largest city in Switzerland. Now, financial institutions inhabit the city, and on a Friday afternoon bankers and young families are out for a long lunch.

There is the Limmat River cutting through the city, the old town Zurich to the west of it. The river leads to the Zurichsee, the Sea, and a view of Die Alpen. The old city of thin passageways and no cars, people walking between the key maker signs, jewelery shops and sweater stores. One low entrance has green silk curtains to the inside of the door so that upon entering you could close off the door to a window.

Phil climbs the Grossmunster church’s wobbly tower steps while I fall asleep in a back pew. An orchestra is rehearsing in these stone walls, their sound so awake and alive as I drift off.

We stop by the lake. The night concludes in a pink sky, school bands play their trumpets in piazzas around the city. We climb the stepped ten feet wide streets between five-story buildings in the old town to listen and clap with the crowd on the church steps.  We have an Italian dinner by the river, just sit down to be served instead of asking for a table.  The waiters have these compact computers for taking our order with, then someone else bring our drinks out… very efficient. I see a sweater I’d like to get for a friend on our walk home (our mobile home of not more than a bed, a shower and one another for the next month) and think these mountain people know how to dress.  Ladies in at least three layers; tight pants, leggings under dresses with sweaters, jackets and scarves hanging off them as they walk by in heels. Zurich is clean and cool, church bells ring through out the next morning but no one is awake before nine.

We woke up saying that the first morning at home in Ohio. What a trip, I am  thankful we have a long weekend to think about it and settle in before work days on Monday begin.

After living out of a backsack for a month, coming home to many clothes and many chores, I consider the things I want in my life and those things that I should consider doing without. But, it’s great to come home, home to the luxury of friends and family, familiar things, common things you know to enjoy like a bath, a comfortable bed, and the corner coffee shop!

My ultimate vacation day included 4 hours of walking, a few hours of eating and in discussion with Phil, my husband, an hour or two of rest mid-day, and at least an hour to write or draw. All other time awake was left to explore a town, talk a new language, meet new friends and question a different way of life.

I went to Europe with a thought in mind -to question and write about how people spend their time. How do Italians spend their time and enjoy life? I have a stronger grasp on how I enjoy spending leisure time more than I can describe how those people I came into contact with are enjoying their lives.  Most people we met were hosting a great commodity of their local economy, by supporting tourism, serving us countless prosciutto pizza, pesto pastas and vino. Italians were driving busses, manning shops, tabaccerias or news stands. Gentleman behind the espresso bars served strong shots of coffee and liquor. Everyone kept a clean stoop. Women and their daughters hosted new travelers each day in their seven room bed and breakfasts. Women in wine country hosted five couples and small families, cooking four-course means, dinner and dessert. There were culinary boat tours off the coast of Cinque Terre held by a husband and wife team – fishers of tourists they said.

We met a lot of west coasters from the U.S. hiking in the Alps, booking their accommodations each night along the way. We met most people on their 8 week to 6 month travels all the way from around the world -down under in Australia. We had liters of wine on the sun warmed porches late into the night in Menaggio.  Off Lake Como our voices rose until almost two in the morning -two of us from Ohio, Ken from Slough, England, Stephanie from CA, Josh from Australia. We talked of healthcare and taxes, traveling and work, how we most enjoyed spending our days, family and siblings, parents and traditions, growing up and festivals, and when the chef joined us, of families in Napoli.

New people gave dimension to our meaning and thoughts. Walking with Tokeko and her husband through the gorge of the Alps leading to Interlaken, meeting a married couple our parents age over the course of a few days around Cinque Terre peaks, the Australian friends we sat next to at dinner one evening in Siena -he a contractor and she a reader and past flight attendant -we followed one another home to bedrooms that were right next to one another! We met up again a few days later in a different city. Funny how small the world could be, even when we were all moving. Train riders were great -trying to communicate with the older man who called his daughter to try to translate, the fourteen year old school girls (four of them) who were done with school at one o’clock and headed home, who thought we were Australians and then when found out we were from the U.S. assumed we were from N.Y. or Boston.

Along the way I was so fully relaxed and inspired I thought a way of tapping into that up on my return home would be just to go day by day, recalling photographs, video and my journal. Then, with the ability of the Internet now, solve some of my unanswered questions.

So, here we go, two traveling backsacks…

…into the land near where my grandfather’s family is from Giulianova, Province of Teramo, Abruzzo Italy.