Rack up the let

Tea makes me hot. Or maybe it is people in the house, but since I've been at home sick for the past couple days I feel good most of the day, but during/after supper I start sweating like a Sweed in a sauna but my roommates are just normal.

Tomorrow I'm going back to work.

Today I got my voice back. I played the guitar and sang for quite a while. Maybe not the best way to help a recovering voice, but I enjoyed it. I also took to baking being home sick. Last night I made tortilla shells to go with the fajitas i cooked. It was just a dough mixture that I rolled out and then fried in a hot pan of oil. They were delicious, but when I was telling my friend today that I had just baked my first thing, they said technically it wasn't baking since it didn't go in the oven. I think I consider anything that requires mixing flour and using measuring cups to be baking. (Other than pancakes this was the first time I had done this with my cooking). Anyway today to proceed in the baking world I made some fococcia bread with olives and zucchini in it. It was good, but I think I liked my fried bread better. Only time will tell what I will make next, but I am excited to join into the baking world and put away my fear of measuring cups.

After weekend 8:

I went to a concert in Basel. The band's name is Kings of Convenience and they are a duo from Bergen, Norway (I went there as you will hear about in posts to come). Both are tall and very good at guitar and just play and harmonize kind of like Simon and Garfunkel (except Garfunkel was useless and both of these guys played guitar). It was a pretty good show except Swiss people are super reformed and up tight and no one got into it really. They would try to get the crowd involved a bit and dancing, but everyone was just standing there with a confused look on their face thinking why would we do anything but stand here and be all organized and Swiss and stuff.

Anyway I had fun.

Also looking back, Canyoning was only weekend 7, so

Weekend 8:

There is a group here called IAESTE. If I had to guess right now I would say it sounds for International Association Equipping Students on Technical Exchanges.

Now I will look it up...

International Association for the Exchange of Students for Technical Experience

I'm impressed how close I was.

Anyway they are the ones that got me my work permits and papers (all be it they screwed up and I was delayed coming here and I probably wouldn't do business like that with them again). But their main contact with students in Switzerland is organizing weekend trips. And so I did one. 3 days in Ticino, the Italian part of Switzerland. Switzerland has four official languages: German, French, Italian and Romansch. I don't know anything about Romansch. Until now (when I looked it up) I always thought it was Romanian. Maybe I will go to an area that speak it and check it out. Anyway so the trip..

Day one, meet at Zurich train station, train through mountains. They are building this long tunnel through the alps to save trains from having to go over them. The tunnel is 151 km (Gotthard Base Tunnel) and is supposed to be super sweet and epic and we stopped at a little info museum about it on our bike ride. Anyway they are still building it. But until then the train still goes up and over the alps before coming down on the other side. So what we did was get off at the town at the top on the back side of this mountain. Then we rented bikes and biked down to the bottom. It was 41km, but pretty much downhill all the way. If it wasn't for some headwind that we hit towards the end, we would have barely had to peddle at all. It was so sweet. I always enjoy the train in Switzerland. I don't see it as a hassle to have to take a 3 hour train, but more of a three hour enjoyable experience of watching the beautiful scenery pass by. And all the waterfalls. There are tons of waterfalls everywhere. I don't know why our mountains don't have as many. We have mountain, and we have glaciers, but waterfalls are still something cool and to write home about in Canada. Where here, there is an epic waterfall every couple kilometers. Anyway, I enjoy the train rides, but to get out on the pavement and be biking through this epicly beautiful place was just so good. Fresh mountain air in my lungs, sun in my beard, o man it was a good cruise.

So we biked (more like glided) till we got to the town in the bottom, then we trained to Lugano. Lugano is a nice little town on a lake. On the one side of the lake is a little chunk of land that is actually owned by Italy. There is some fancy word for it that I can't remember at the moment, but there is a little chunk of land with some houses and a casino that is considered Italy and falls under Italian law, but then all of the land (hills) around it is part of Switzerland. That night we just had a big group meal (there were 30 other students on this trip, from countries all over the world, but all of them working doing some type of technical internship in Switzerland) and then wandered around the town along the edge of the lake.

The next morning was kind of a slack day. It was August 1 which is Swiss National Day and so they were going to have fire works on the lake that night. So the trip we were doing was usually (past years that IAESTE had done the same things) a 2 day trip, but since Swiss National Day fell on a Sunday they decided it would be good to stay in Lugano for Sunday night and so they stretched it into a three day trip and we had to take Monday off for more activities. So anyway they didn't have a ton of stuff to fill our day on Sunday, so it was fairly chill. We went paddle boating on the lake in the morning. Now paddle boating doesn't sound like something that would interest me as an activity. Maybe as a means to go fishing or a nice way to explore a quiet mountain lake at sunset or something, but this lake was big and open and we weren't allowed to go very far so I thought it was going to be quite lame. However, when there are 7 boats with 4 people in each of them and most of them are rowdy people from foreign lands, things get funner. So I actually enjoyed the morning doing bumper paddle boats and playing pirates (ie jumping into other people's boats and trying to throw them out but ending up breaking the chairs instead). After boating we went for a nice picnic lunch in a park and then I went for a further walk with an Australian guy (some one who equally enjoyed my barefootedness and joined me in it) and a guy and a girl from Belguim. We wandered along the lake to a ritzier part of town exploring and I jumped off a bridge a couple times at one spot where we found some kids jumping. I didn't do a back flip off it though. I got psyched out and couldn't do it. After we got back to the hostel, everyone left together and we took a train to the base of nearby mountain and then took a funicular (a special train for going up steep hill so all of the seats are on an angle so that you can sit and look at the view at a normal comfortable angle) up to the top of this mountain. We cruised around at the top of this mountain for a while and enjoyed the nice 360* view over Lugano and the lake and surrounding mountains and area. After we went down we walked through the old town to a nice little pizzaria. Now for the meal we had each been budgeted 21chf (the meal was included in the whole fee that we had paid for the weekend trip, but since it was at a restaurant it wasn't unlimited). So what I decided to do with Morten (Norwegian guy I will talk about more later) was to split to pizzas so that we maximized our money. So we got one fairly normal pizza for 17chf, and then we got one high class pizza off their premium menu for 25chf (chf=Swiss Franc, which is pretty much worth the same amount as a Canadian Dollar). This second pizza was one of the best I had ever had. It was some random name with some topping listed in Italian that I didn't understand, but then said dried beef. Meat is really expensive (I haven't eaten steak since I have been here) in Switzerland, especially beef, so I was excited to get some beef even if it was dried.

Well it wasn't dried.

It was chunks of steak.

Cooked nice and medium rare.

O man..

It was layered with three types of cheese, one kind of textured like cottage cheese but with better flavor, then a mozza like cheese, and then shaved parmesan on top with some rocket salad as well.

O man was it good.

I should go back just for that pizza..

Anyway after I had finished sharing (regretfully) the two pizzas we headed down to the water and found a nice spot to watch the fireworks. I have to say, the Swiss do fireworks pretty well. It was only a couple weekends earlier that I had seen firework shows in Zurich for Zurichfest, and again these ones were pretty spectacular. After the fireworks we made our way back to the hostel. The next morning we left early and it was just starting to spit rain. We trained, then switched to another train, then switched to one more, then made it Lucarno (I don't remember if these names are the actual names, but they sound right in my head). From Lucarno we started walking, for about 1.5 hours, until we got to the Verzasca Dam. This is a famous Dam. Do me a favor and look up James Bond in Goldeneye. Watch the opening couple minutes where James jumps off a dam in 'Russia'. Well it's not Russia, it's Switzerland, and Pierce Brosnan isn't the only one who jumped off it.

I Ben McDonald did the highest free falling bungee jump in the world, all 220m of it.

I was the first one to go out of our group. This was kinda the main reason for the whole trip for me. I wanted to see the area and the bike ride ended up being really amazing, but this is why I came. When we signed up they told us that if 10 people did the jump then we would get a group discount and it would only be 170chf for the jump, rather the regular price of 190chf. When the weekend started there were only 6 people confirmed as doing the jump with a bunch of maybes. So all weekend I was working my charm (as I do) to get 4 more people to join so that we would get the discount. Jump time comes and there are 13.

I did well.

Now for those of you who don't know, I have bungee jumped before. In Australia in 2006 I jumped 4 times all of the same jump stop (a special deal they had for unlimited jumps in one day). That bungee jump was only 50m, and I was scared feces-less on every jump. But since then I have worked and increased my heights and jumping enthusiasm. So coming into it I wasn't so much scared, as I was eager to do the highest one and be able to look down over the edge and jump with all my might. And I did. And it wasn't scary at all. It was really fast, but it was over quick, and I have to say that I enjoyed my Australia jumps more. This one was still pretty cool, but without the fear element it loses a lot and was kind of just old hat.

But I still did it and can say that I did, and every time you watch Goldeneye and see him falling with all that hang time, you can think of Ben and smile.

After the jump we bussed upstream on the river that was being dammed until we came to a nice little town on the edge of the creek with a sweet little swimming spot and sweet big boulders. There was a bridge there that they had told us about that was 13m (42ft) above the water. Now me being me and just coming from a 220m jump, I knew that I was for sure going to jump. The water was cold, but it was one of the sweetest little swimming spots I have been to. Not alot of swimmers, but lots of watchers just lazing around on rocks enjoying the day and seeing the kids (and bigger kids (me)) jumping off rocks. So I had climbed down to the creek before we got to the bridge and was working my way up jumping off different rocks and doing flips and stuff. I jumped off some bigger rocks (about 6-7m) right beside the bridge. All the while still sure I would jump off the bridge. Then I went up onto the bridge and...

Holy Crap It's High And Scary.

And I couldn't jump. I stood there and I stared at it and I was scared and didn't want to climb up onto the bridge. I was in swimming trunks and most people there were families enjoying the day, so when I went to go across the bridge in my shorts everyone knew my motive and stopped to watch, so pressure was on, but I couldn't jump. I even got heckled by some guy who was beside me on the bridge, and although it was all in Italian and I didn't understand a word, I knew what he was saying. But I couldn't jump. So I went down and joined the rest of the IAESTE people and relaxed and waited and took some pictures and wondered why I couldn't jump. Then the call went out that we had about 10 minutes before we had to go, so I went up to the bridge (wearing a shirt) to take some pictures. The whole way along the bridge, it looks nice and jumpable, until you reach the very highest point where jumping would be best, and there it doesn't look so appetizing. So I would look from there, then walk away a couple steps (only moving down a couple feet) and it would look alot better. I stood on that bridge for about 8 minutes. Staring and contemplating jumping. Being about to do it, telling myself I wouldn't get hurt and there was nothing to be scared of, but then not jumping. And then planning on doing it again. And then not. Finally the rest of the people we packing up to walk for the bus, but I still couldn't do it.

BUT THEN I JUST THREW OFF MY SHIRT AND CLIMBED UP ONTO THE RAIL AND JUUUMMMPPED (splash).

It was good. I quickly squiremed up onto the big rock beside the bridge (6-7m) and did a big backflip off it. Then I scrambled to get my stuff and ran to catch the bus. The whole time, with a grin ear to ear (and I think you all know I can put on a pretty good grin). I was so happy and excited and successful. Who would have thought that in a day of doing a 220m bungee jump and a 13m jump into water that the 13m jump would be the one that scared me, and the one that I enjoyed the most. But them are the apples sometimes. And it was so good.

So we bussed back, then trained back, got back to Baden and that was the weekend.

That was a lot of words on one weekend. I think I know how I got sick. To many nights planning on going to bed at 11pm, but ending up still sitting at my computer typing at 1am. But I enjoyed writing this and listen to a new worship leader (Sean Downs) on the ihop.org prayer room webstream.

I hope you enjoyed as well.

Following Ben's Travels posts will inform you about my amazing hike in the Austrian alps where I summited a mountain at 5am to watch the sunrise, me getting bastised, a 9 day trip that encompassed surfing in Portual and a tomato fight in Spain before finishing in Barcelona, and most recently a 59km bike trip through the mountains and lakes in the Norwegian wilderness before ending at a...you guessed it...FJORD. I love that word.

Tomorrow I may be leaving to go hike for two days around Zermatt (where the Matterhorn is), or I might be here and just go down there for one day on Saturday. Depends on what we find for Couch Surfing accomidation.

I love you all and hope the best for you and hope you have a wonderful day and find joy and find out something new about God's love for you.

without wax

Fjordy Fjorderson

So having Laryngitis is a good reason to spend some time on a computer, because I can't talk at all.

This past weekend I was in Norway and I started getting a bit sicker each of the three days. Yesterday my voice started deteriorating and by the evening I was just squeaking like Mickey Mouse. This morning I stayed home from work to sleep and drink tea. Because I was home alone I wasn't talking, so it wasn't until the afternoon that I realized that I couldn't talk at all (some would say a good thing). So tomorrow I will go to the doc to have him throat me with a stick.

Ok, so I am going to try and go back and pick up from like the middle of July where I had stopped before, but there is a lot so it is likely that I won't get things caught up to the now...

Weekend 6:

Two of the past interns that had been here told us of this hype hike. They had done it the previous year and it was one of their highlights of Switzerland and so they wanted to do it again. So I was sweet lets do it. There were about 13 of us that did it I think. So caught an early morning train from Baden and switched a couple times and got to this mountain. It was a phenomenal hike. The mountains in Switzerland are pretty similar to the mountains in Canada, but still different and cool. One of my favorite things about them is the meadows. There are huge green grassy meadows along the mountain slopes with yellow and purple and white wildflowers growing in them. The cows and sheep just wander the mountainside, all of them with big bells around their neck. Now the bells are something I question. Why so many? I haven't personally looked, but some of my friends have looked up the cost of them and they are pretty expensive, but their are fields with 100 cows that have them. Also, can the cows hear them or have they just completely blocked out the sound because that is all they hear all the time? I don't know these things yet.

Anyway the hike was supposed to take 6 hours. Our destination was the Wildstruble Hut. This is a mountain hut that had accommodation and served a big supper and breakfast the next morning.

So we hiked for the first two and half hours until we got up to this little lake where we were going to stop for lunch. I was soaked in sweat (this was my first big hike of the year and so I wasn't in the fittest shape yet) by the time we got to the lake and wanted to go for a dip. There is more of a long story about the swimming process, but the just of it is that I went for a nice skinny dip to cool off and after I came out three of my friends thought it was a good idea but they were shocked by how cold it was and immediately climbed back out. It had been nice and sunny all morning, but just as we were finishing our lunch it started to rain super hard and then hail for a bit out of no where. We quickly ran to this little hut beside the lake to take shelter. The rain stopped in like 10 minutes and then we continued back on the hike. So this is where things got off track, but not where we noticed it. You see the interns that had done the hike before thought that they would remember it so they didn't bring a map. The rest of us that were joining them thought they knew what they were doing so we hadn't brought anything or looked into the hike much. So as we start walking along the path, a heavy fog comes in and slowly these two guys start saying that things don't look that familiar to them. But we are walking on a path and it is foggy and they didn't seem that sure about anything so we just keep going. At one point we come to a sign that says Wildstrubel so we think we must be on the right trail even though they still say that they don't recognize anything. So we walk for another three hours from the lake, all in heavy fog, and we are starting to think more and more that something isn't right. Because there are 13 people, there are different fitness levels. So the fitter people are pushing on ahead, but the slower people can't keep up and are stopping to take more breaks. But because the fog was thick we didn't want to split up. So the fast people would hike for five minutes, then stop and wait for five minutes for the slower people to catch up, and then wait another five minutes for the slower people to rest. We recognized that we weren't sure if we were going the right way, but that we wouldn't make it at this pace even if we were. So 3 of us (me included) decided to split off from the group and go ahead faster to try and see what we can find. If we hike and the trail ends then we would come back, but hopefully we would find the hut and then come back and tell the others to follow. There had already been talks of turning around and going back, but I had been fighting them as much as possible because I was determined to get to this hut. So the three of us hiked past the others for about an hour until finally we hear some voices over this ridge. Two French people were coming down. So we meet them and I say 'Wildstrubel Hut?' and point to where they just came from and then nod but kind of uncertainly. So I motion out hut for a place to sleep. And then they say no Wildstuble top (as in the summit). They then explained to us that we were like 8km away from the hut, and it was on a different mountain on the other side of a glacier from where we were and we couldn't cross it without gear. Apparently we had started on the wrong trail right from the lake. As for why they named it Wildstrubel Hut when it isn't on Wildstrubel Mountain, I'll never know. So we turned around and hiked back and by the time we got to where we had left the group, they weren't there. So we decided they must have turned around and went back down so we continued down. We caught up to them at the lake. One of them had phone reception and one had our GPS coordinated on his watch, so they had called someone and asked them to look up the GPS coordinates of the hut and realized that we were on the wrong mountain.

So we hiked down to the bottom of the mountain, but because it was like 7 in the evening by this point, the local bus had stopped going so we had to walk back into town to catch the train. We had asked a lady we met on the mountain and she said it would be a one hour walk. I walked for about 45 minutes with one guy, realized that we were still super far away and then decided to hitch hike. We got picked up by about the 4th car and they drove us right to the train stop, getting there about 2 minutes before the train left.

So it was a long day, and not the day we had planned, but a good day. I will definitely do the hike again, but next time I'll take a map and actually get to the hut. I loved it.

Weekend 8:

After Wildstrubel, I was loving the Swiss countryside and wanting more. I had booked to do canyoning with some other interns. Canyoning is an extreme way of getting down a river

ASIDE: I just went and got another hot water with honey and lemon to go along with my baby crackers. Once I finish it I am going to bed to sleep because I'm feeling worn down and want to get over this sickness.

So canyoning is a combination of climbing down waterfalls, repelling down waterfalls, sliding down waterfalls and jumping down waterfalls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpD3lAyZQSg&feature=player_embedded

Anyway, so we had booked to do an 8 hour canyoning trip Sunday and had booked accommodation for Saturday night, so I went down to Interlacken (two in between two lakes that is like the adventure capital of Switzerland) early Saturday morning and did a hike by myself. Again I was blown away. I just loved the little towns in the steep mountain valleys and the clouds sitting at different levels as I hiked up through and past them. One of the notable enjoyable parts of the hike was when I got to the top after hiking for like 4 hours (very strenuous, going up 1.5km in elevation I think) and it was misty out and I had to go to the bathroom so I went up to this big square building to look for toilets and I find...a dairy barn. Now of all the places to put a dairy barn, I don't know why a person would pick the top of a mountain, but the Swiss do make some of the best cheese and chocolate, so maybe I shouldn't be questioning their methods.

That evening when I got into the town area of Interlacken I found out that the river levels were two high from rain and that it wasn't safe to do the canyoning and that it would probably be canceled. So the next day they confirmed that it was indeed canceled and so I adventured on another hike in the area with another guy this time. We rode a crazy powerful little train up the side of this mountain. We went up 1km in elevation and so it was super steep the whole way. I was impressed with the train. From where we got off, we walked along the plateau overlooking the two lakes and Interlacken and the valley on the other side for the next 6 hours. It was mostly a flat with only a couple of little ups and downs. Again, amazing views and beautiful meadows and some cows.

So that concludes July weekends. Today it is Sept 14, so I still have some catching up to do, but hopefully I can do a recap of my August weekends. Tomorrow I will go to a doc to ask him what to do. I wanted to play guitar tonight, but it would have been hard not to be able to sing at all.

Ta

without wax