2 Elusive

All the clichés regarding Switzerland are not exaggerated (yes, cow bells, clocks and pocketknives) and it is totally neat, clean, and crimeless. Apparently there’s a law against flushing the toilet after 10 pm (and men are not allowed to stand up while peeing); perhaps an urban myth, but all the same it wouldn’t shock me (anymore).

After Ol arrived in Zurich, we, along with the Taj, crawled up the Swiss Alps to regroup our things and thoughts. We stayed and worked in an apartment for few weeks in a small village, called Hospental, for a good break from the van. It was a strange experience: we learned to operate the prehistoric washing machine (punch card and all) and became sheep-like and used the designated grey garbage bag, and used a key to throw the rubbish out into a communal bin—all very odd.

The nearby village, Anderamatt, was our sanity refuge (played too many chess games in that apartment): an excellent source of coffee and Apfelstrudel. Here, at a funky café, I learned to routinely say ‘Kann ich Apfelstudel und Kaffee haben bitte?’ I don’t know German, but I did take some time to listen to German lessons while on my journey from Sweden to Switzerland—I was sweetly rewarded Actually, Ol knows a lot more German than I (and possibly his parents) first realised; I reckon the apple strudel helped him access the Germany memory bit from his childhood

In all, a nice experience in the Swiss Alps (it even snowed one morning), but the arms were going from steel to rubber, so it was time to climb (but the legs didn’t want the long approaches to climbing crags). The answer: Arco, Italy…