Tschenten

I hiked up another mountain today. It was Tschentenalp. We FINALLY got a beautiful day on our day off, and so we decided it would be perfect weather to work on one of our challenges - to climb three mountains to a total of 3000m. I had been up two already, so this was going to be the last big ass Alp I'd have to climb, and I was looking forward to having it over with!

So we set off with our little do it yourself map from Our Chalet. We did a pretty good job until we got to this tunnel. And it was a really cool tunnel. And Sidsel and I could not resist. So we went through, and should have turned around and gone back, but decided - the trail is headed up, it must go to the same place. It didn't, so after 20 minutes, we turned around, back through the cool tunnel and then on to our destination. (We found out this evening from the staff that have done the hike many times that there's no tunnel on the trail we're supposed to take. I said that they must have been going the wrong way. Because we found the cool tunnel AND the top of the mountain.)

Once we were back on track, it was a grueling, but pleasant ascent. Sidsel and I move at similar paces and need to break at similar times, so it was a good day. We took advantage of all the benches along the hiking path and had some very good sandwiches and cookies.

We got to a part that was very steep, and I had to document that it was so steep that it scared the shit out of a cow. Cows climb these slopes all the time, so I was a bit apprehensive to see that this trail made even them nervous.



Slowly but surely, we made it to the top. And it was soooo clear. We have hardly had clear days when we've been on top of mountains. Come to think of it, we've had none. It was so beautiful that I had to sing.


After my concert, we made our way to the area where they were flying model airplanes and took advantage of some more benches. We were almost hit by a mountain biker on the way up. As he went down, it looked like he'd just ride right off the end of the mountain. But mountains don't end, they just slope down. In case you didn't know.


After marvelling in our accomplishment, we made our way to the gondola station and restaurant for some much deserved snacks. I had espresso ice cream in which I dipped my pommes frites (fries). I freaked Sidsel out, and most of the other people at the tables around us. But it was delicious, and I thought of Jessie with every bite. Have you fed Lima Bean fries and frosty's yet?


On the way to the restaurant, we saw a bar in a bubble. I made a mental note to return during ski season and try it out.

And I wanted to post the photo of a Swiss road just so you can see that the zig zag is a true Swiss way of getting places.
After our delicious snack, we hopped on the gondola to return down to Adelboden.

While in town, we stopped at the Coop and grabbed some random food before returning to Our Chalet. I grabbed this thing as my prize for climbing yet another big ass Alp. The lesson here is - when you climb up and down a big ass Alp, you are rewarded with fine things like cheeseburgers. When you walk up a big ass Alp, but cheat coming down on the gondola (even if it's due to a bum knee) you are rewarded with a baked good resembling an asshole.

I'm a Klutz

So one of the things I was looking most forward to when coming here was learning things about myself. Well I have.

I'm a klutz. I love to cause myself personal harm. My running list of accidents/injuries are as follows (this is in one month mind you):

4 papercuts
1 gash out of my right thumb
1 sliced finger on the cheese slicer
2 nails broken under the skin
1 busted knee
1 burn due to pouring scalding water out of the tea kettle down my arm
1 shoulder cramp from shrugging
2 blisters from hiking

I think that's about it as of right now. Chances are I'll gain a few more before I make it to bed. Wish me luck!

Our Chalet Challenge

Here at Our Chalet we have what we call the Our Chalet Challenge. The guest version requires guests to complete tasks in four different categories - Swiss Culture, Our Chalet knowledge, Physical Challenge, and Service. If they complete it, they get a plaque with their name burned on it and the pride that comes from accomplishment.

The staff have their own version, which is a list of tasks that are more involved and slightly more dangerous. They also get a plaque and the pride that comes from accomplishment. I am taking on the challenge of course and wanted to share some of the things I have done.

One is to take a picture of yourself in the dryer...check.

Another is to climb down the fire escape of Main Chalet...check.

And then there's climbing down the fire escape of Spycher... ... ... but Sidsel and I couldn't find it at first, so we jumped out of a window. It's how you'd escape a fire right? So, check.

And then there's going through the old oven while writing a poem...check. Although, my ass was a little big for this one and it did take some work and a second try. But I was successful in the end. And there was pride involved in its completion.

And then we asked Kat, the cook, about the fire escape in Spycher. Well it's not jumping out of the window, but a roll up ladder in the attic. Great...so we went to find it and do the challenge right. Simple enough right?

Wrong!

It's a rope ladder first of all, with small wooden slats as rungs. And I was wearing clogs, so I had the brilliant idea to do it barefooted. As a side note, I've learned that I'm quite fearless when it comes to stupid crap that no sane human would do, like jumping off bridges and climbing out the top window of a perfectly good and not burning three story chalet onto a rope ladder for the sheer pride of accomplishment.

So out the window I went.

And soon discovered the ladder did not hold tension. So I stepped on a rung and it immediately slid into a vertical position. Not only that, but the sides of the chalets are not smooth. The wood is rough (that's what she said! :). And I was barefooted. So not only was I hanging on to dear life as the rungs slid up and down, but the skin on my feet was slowly being eaten away by the beautiful Spycher chalet.

Sidsel was taking photos and could hear my heart beat from the window. She said her palms were sweating just watching me.

But I made it. And will never do it again. Well I would if the building was on fire, but I think I'll request to sleep on the lower floor from now on.

Yes, I do work.

So a lot of you faithful readers are constantly remarking, "do you ever work?"

Yes, I do work.

I think it's time to give a little glimpse of the day-to-day life of a volunteer.

There are two types of days a volunteer could have - guest services or program.

If you are on guest services, you report to the kitchen at 7:30am to set up breakfast. It is buffet style so you set up all the food, dishes, utensils, drinks, and make sure that stuff doesn't run out. Then at 8:45, you clean up. You take up all the food and either dispose of it or label it and put it in the fridge. You do the dishes and clean up the kitchen. You then report to the morning meeting where you get your tasks for the day. The morning is spent on cleaning. You will perform a variety of tasks from the following list:

Laundry - bed linens, towels, kitchen stuff, etc.
Cleaning bathrooms - toilets, showers, sinks, bathtubs, etc.
Cleaning guest rooms after they've checked out
Setting up rooms for guests checking in
Mopping
Vacuuming
Taking out the trash, recyclables, compost, and food scraps
Taking the trash down to the silver bins
Cleaning mold off ceilings
Dusting storage cellars
Restocking supplies
ETC.
ETC.
ETC.

Then you have lunch at 12:30pm with all staff on duty and on-site. It's usually left overs since we can't feed them to the guests. And we always have dessert :). After that, we get a break, ranging from 1.5-2 hours. Just enough time to work on this post!

After break, some of us report to the kitchen for cleaning and dinner preparation. The others are assigned various tasks - ground maintenance, working on upcoming programmes, etc.

Then at about 5pm, you start preparing dinner - chopping, boiling, measuring, weighing, retrieving, wiping off, rinsing off, etc.

6 or 6:30p is dinner.

After dinner, you clean up. Do all the dishes, label and store left overs, and clean the kitchen - sweep and mop floor, scrub all counter surfaces, scrub down Wendy (the dishwasher), wipe down oven and stove, take out compost, recycling, trash, and food scraps, wipe down tables, etc.

And then about 8:00p, you are done for the evening. A solid 12-13 hour day.

Now, for those on programme it ranges from day-to-day. Some of my adventures are from days I was on program, but basically, you'd start the day with a meeting at 8:30am, and then depart for the program at 9am. You spend the day on whatever was planned basically babysitting the guests and participating when appropriate, and then come back to Our Chalet around 5pm. You then have a break before dinner. After dinner, you are in charge of evening program, which is a variety of activities for the guests. The list includes - international night (guests give presentations about their respective countries. It can be teaching songs, dances, explaining traditions, talking about what the country is famous for, etc.), Swiss night (we teach the guests about Swiss traditions including fondue), movie night (they watch a movie about the history of Adelboden), games and sports night (I had them play musical bingo that night), campfire, night hike, and other activities. You're day ends around 9:30pm. A good healthy 13 hour day.

So yes, I do work. It just looks like and is a lot more fun that where all of you work. :-P

Engstligen Falls

After a much needed nap, we earned it considering we had spent the night dancing in Zurich, we woke up to a sunny afternoon. So Sidsel and I ventured out to Engstligen Falls to see if there was any Eidelweiss left. It was a beautiful walk, in other words minimal hills, mostly along the river. The Eidelweiss was dead, but the view was breathtaking.

Zurich - An All Nighter

We have a new volunteer. His name is Lukas, and he is a Deep and Fast volunteer. (And the jokes are never ending about that one.) And he will be here for a total of two weeks. He is Swiss, and so it's been nice to have a native speaker that we can ask lots of translation questions.

Lukas is also a great resource for information and about Swiss night life. And he suggested sampling some of it in Zurich. To be more specific, he suggested pulling an all nighter, exactly how he likes to do it. And who was I to object. So we went.

Sidsel and I decided if we were paying for a train ticket, we wanted to see all of Zurich so we got up Friday morning and headed out. And of course, as Sidsel and my luck goes, we left sunny Adelboden to arrive 2 1/2 hours later in cloudy Zurich. But it was alright, because we'd spend most of the day indoors anyway.

Zurich was a great time. When we arrived, the big grocery chain here - Coop, was having a huge exhibit to advertise their new vegetarian line. So they had these huge booths giving away tons of free food. I knew then I'd like Zurich.

Then it was on to lots of shopping, much to Lukas's dismay and our delight. We hit up a huge toy store - much like FAO Schwartz - and Sidsel and I had to maintain our sliding tradition. They had this huge slide shaped like a dragon. The top was the dragon's mouth and it was jet black inside. And of course we went down it. And scared quite a few small Swiss children in the process.

We also ran into a movie filming in which a very skinny puffy haired guy was running down a large hill with a buggy to be followed by two actors in a uniform, a group of school children, and then a very scantily clad woman. The fun part was that we were watching from the angle opposite the camera. So what we saw was a large group of people hiding behind the corner of a building waiting on their cue to start running. When the director gave a shout, here came the guy with the buggy, director shout - the uniforms, director shout - the group of school kids, director shout - scantily clad...no wait she wasn't ready, scantily clad backs up behind corner, director shout - scantily clad...no wait director wasn't ready, scantily clad backs up behind corner and cusses director where he can't see, director shout, scantily clad runs, director shouts "super" in a very funny accent and the shot is done. And then we continued on our route.

We visited the birthplace of dadaism - google it if you don't know what it is. And in general, just wandered about the city.

When dinner time arrived, we went on a mission to find Swiss food. Lukas didn't seem too interested in it, but he was obliging. We found a small little pub and I had my very first wienerschnitzel. When I ordered it, I expected a sausage type thing. But no, when it arrived it was a flat fried thing. A fried pork chop. It was good, but I soon realized from our meal that Swiss food is just kind of plain. And that's why there aren't any Swiss restaurants in the US. It's quite uninspiring. I guess they don't need to have fancy food when the view through the restaurant window is enough.

And then it was on to the part of the day Lukas had been waiting for - time to sample Swiss nightlife. We started in where else but a Irish Pub, and then, after dropping our backpacks at the train station, we headed to... a British Pub. Good Swiss night life. Then, we laid our evening into Lukas's hands and headed off to a "back to school party" at a dance club. Lukas said he knew where it was, but seemed to be asking a lot of people if we were headed in the right direction as we went. Eventually we found it and danced the night away and welcomed the morning.

And then the night got interesting.

We left the club at about 4AM. Our train did not leave until 5:20, and Lucas wanted to take us to a club that played his kind of music - house music. On our way out of the club, we happened to be walking next to a group of university students. They overheard Sidsel complaining about the music selection and one of them commented, "you can dance to anything." And so we started chatting with them. 10 minutes later we get to an intersection, and they ask where we're headed - Lucas tells them the Hive, and they inform us we are walking in the opposite direction that we need to be. We must have looked pitiful, because one of them told us he'd drive us to where we needed to go after he dropped his two friends off. And why not? Sidsel and I have a history of being offered rides. One day we were walking to Adelboden, and a car full of Latin men offered us a ride into town, and why not? Then we were headed to the bus stop and a man at the gas station offered us a ride. We didn't except because the bus stop was just around the corner, but it was nice of him. So his offer was no surprise. And so we got in the car.

And he got lost. He got lost on his way to drop of the nice German girl in the backseat beside me - we went around in a traffic circle at least five times. Then he got lost dropping off the nice but quiet Swiss guy in the front seat. Then we got lost trying to find the Hive club.

So after 30 minutes of driving around and asking and looking for this club, we pulled up to a guy, and since it was too complicated to explain the directions, he just got in the car. And so we were off.

We got there and it was closed.

We went next door and it was closing in 5 minutes.

And so the latest addition to the car, he was a very nice Swiss guy, said he knew a place that would be open. So we get back in the car and go.

And it was closed.

And so he says he knows a place that is open 24 hours and will be great to get food and drinks.

So we go...

To the BP station down the street. It was the best coffee and salami sandwich I have ever had.

Then the driver, Shannon, who is Swiss, but also half Irish, and from the French part of Switzerland, took us to the train station.

And I got to give my first Swiss goodbye - kiss one cheek, kiss the other, then kiss the first one.

We had a great time. Zurich was a blast, but we were very glad the next morning to climb the hill to Our Chalet. And we made it in time for breakfast!

Woodcarvers and Cholerenschlucht

Here lately we've been doing quite a bit of cooking and cleaning and not much else. We haven't had a programme for two weeks, so things have been somewhat uneventful.

So last Wednesday, the 17th, we were surprised with a hike to the woodcarver's hut. We needed to go on it so we could lead the hike the following week for the Friends of Our Chalet week.

So we went, and so did my knee. But it was worth it. I finally got a woggle for my scarf - a woggle is a wooden "bead" that slides on your scarf. The one I got has the trefoil - the universal scouting and guiding symbol - and on the back, the woodcarver burned my name into it. I'm very proud of it.

On the way back down we went to Cholerenschlucht - try to say that three times fast - which is this huge gorge. It was absolutely beautiful.

It turned out to be a beautiful day and we all had a great time. It was much needed after all the housework we'd been doing. And it was a good hike to test my knee and how it was recovering. It's not. Well it is, but I won't be hiking down any big ass Alps any time soon. But I'm happy to see the gorges too.