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AN AMERICAN IN SWITZERLAND
I'm in love.
Not with a girl in particular, but with a place. A country and its people. Its landscape and its land.
It's culture, well, I'm still working on parts of that one!
The object of my affection is Switzerland. It is a land of immense beauty. And not just the Alps (more on that later). Care-free inhabitants with European sophistication.
Enjoying beers in the fun village of Saas-Fee.
The people are wonderful. They are friendly, open to meeting others (such as Americans like myself) and quite hospitable.
They are also born to ski, born to eat cheese for dinner and born to walk. And it is in those last two areas where I begin to slide down the cultural landscape.
The skiing, okay. Love it. The Swiss learn to ski the way Americans learn to drive. Everybody does it. By the time they reach 10, they are ready for the Olympics. Not every American is ready for the Indy 500 when they get their license (far from it, in fact).
Yes, they really do eat fondue for dinner in Switzerland.
Now comes the sticky part. They eat cheese for meals. Full meals. Fondue is great and the presentation should win an award, but dipping little squres of bread into a small kettle of melted cheese is not dinner. To an American, this is as sustainable as a cracker. It's more of an appetizer or side dish. We need meat with our meals in order to satisfy our carnivorous habit. This being said, there are some terriffic cheeses in Switzerland and they don't all contain holes.
Then there's the walking. To say the Swiss like to walk is to say Americans have a fondness for football. It's more like an obsession. And not walking like an American, who is too lazy to even return the shopping cart to the grocery store door, preferring instead to leave it in the parking lot.
The Swiss, on the other hand, think nothing of walking several kilometers a day. Not to go anywhere in particular, mind you, but simply for the pleasure of it all.
On a press tour put on by Tourism Switzerland, I was in the fun village of Saas-Fee. We put on "snow racquets" as they call them, and went for what I envisioned to be a simple stroll through the snow.
Whoa, was I wrong! The guide pointed to a structure halfway up the Swiss Alps and very calmly announced it as our destination. It was so high up and far away, I had to squint to make it out in the distance.
"You've got to be kidding," I said to our Swiss Tourism host, the lively Eugenio Ganazzi.
"We don't joke in Switzerland," Eugenio proclaimed.
And, indeed, we walked there. In the snow. Up the hill. Every time I thought we had arrived, I was greeted by another hill. To an American, if this destination were such a special place, we would drive to it. Take a cab.
But that's not the point. To the Swiss, it's not the destination that is the objective but the journey.
Then there is the matter of the T-bar. A European reading this may say "so what," while an American is likely to say "what's a T-bar?"
Well, I'lll tell you. A T-bar is a tow rope with a plastic device attached at every few intervals that is supposed to pull people up the side of a ski slope. To someone accustomed to the comfort of chair lifts, this is as foreign as the Swiss language.
First time, first attempt. I was on my butt in seconds.
I would like to credit the lovely Denise (left) of Tourism Lenk for keeping me from mangling myself on this strange contraption. But in reality, it was a heron, a helpful ski instructor from Norway who, a day earlier, initially got me going in Saas-Fee.
It was Denise, however, who allowed me to gain a measure of confidence with the darned things. Otherwise, I may have spent my entire time in Lenk at the Tipi Bar.
Denise is one of those captivating Swiss girls who simply make Switzerland more beautiful. She's a native of Lenk, dynamic and about the size of my suitcase who is as natural on skis as I am in tennis shoes. At the point of T-bar departure, Denise would toss the thing aside like an old boyfriend. It was nice skiing with her.
And she's not the only Swiss that I miss from that country. There's Samanta of Saas-Fee tourism, a wide-eyed wonder who was impressed with my sunset photos of my home in Manhattan Beach, CA. She's as sweet as Swiss chocolate.
There's also Estelle, the exquisite bartender at Zur Muhle, one of Saas-Fee's apres bars. And the darling dames from Tourism Bern and Tourism Zurich, Flurina and Claire, that showed me those fine and fun cities.
The lively Eugenio with The Bartender at a "forest fondue" in Lenk.
And of course Eugenio, who may not joke but he sure does laugh. He makes others do the same, as well.
Yes, another beer for The Bartender in another Swiss bar.
So I'm not a Swiss. I'm an American.
But Switzerland, would you be open to adopting me?
Please?
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