What a crazy moment it is to write the word ‘Switzerland’ in English eh …. Switzerland.
When I rode into Geneve, the first thing I thought which is such a dumb hack thing to think, ‘Where is Jason Bourne?’ What an ass I am, I’m here in Geneva and this is the first thing I think of? Oh man, take it easy on yourself dude, life is a hurricane, just get in there and spin yeah. Well actually I was thinking about being rain wet cold and tired of being this way … and also I don’t have the kind of money to hide here so I kept riding ….
I ended up here, at a great road side hotel/restaurant, after exhausting my possibilities before only offered four star hotels for a huge price in Nyon; Switzerland might be considered expensive, for I spent a small fortune just to stay here, just off the autoroute, although I like it but just not the price of the taxes I don’t benefit from yeah.
Anyway it was here I met Amelie, a dudette who has lived in Edmonton and studied there, she the French one in Switzerland. So cool to eh, to meet someone quite by accident who knows your home town too. At the other end of the spectrum, I passed a new accident today just before feeling sorry for myself again, the one’s who slammed into the upper part of the ditch but at the bottom, three or four vehicles were already running, a woman was being shaken to life in the passenger seat, and as I rode by, I knew there was nothing I could do, for I don’t speak the language and I’m already too late and I don’t even have a phone that works except in South Africa, Mexico before that, they will make it work I hope. It reminded of a time that I saw two dead bodies for the first time when I was thirteen in Edmonton, crashed victims dead within a steel car, child included, three I saw I suppose, and regrettably I learned it’s never easy to be the first one, even though I ran all the home after that and leaving them behind; yes irony lurks inside ignorance.
Anyway, it was a good night to chat with Amelie, I hope to see her again some day. A strange happening also, which was when I left my room from down the hall at 12:30am to get some wet things from off the bike to dry, and to have a look around, I walked into the lobby thinking the man and woman with the manager were bikers, for earlier I had seen a a Varaderro parked from the Ukraine, and they were wearing matching suits. ‘Oh are you the bikers with the UA license plate wherever that is’ I asked excitedly, but before they could answer in my stride of two more steps I realized they were the Police. ‘Oh, Polizia, is everything okay?’, I said looking at the manager who I had had good chats with too in the night. He answered yes don’t worry so I continued without breaking my stride with slight hesitation to my bike to collect the stuff I wanted to dry, back only after a few moments to breathe in the air and look around my surroundings of Switzerland in the night before going back inside only once more to interrupt the Police’s investigation to ask which license plate was ‘UA’, and after quick deliberation they concluded Ukraine, cool, I said while leaving for goodnight.
In the morning while I was leaving I asked the same manager what had happened last night and he told me someone had broken into the office safe and had stolen a few thousand franks last night while we were in the restaurant. It’s so weird he said to me after, it’s so quiet here normally, as I said to you when you asked if your bike would be safe out front, it’s usually so quiet here. I said I was sorry for the misfortune, and left thinking who could it have been? Someone local I’m sure, always an inside job I was thinking as the bike started vroooom. Not me I knew but was still thinking I hope they don’t think it was me. Ciao, I thought thinking, at least my camping gear is still there behind me, and I went 50 metres ahead to the fuel station for a coffee and croissant leaving the keys in ignitions as always, for I have done so for tens of thousands of kilometers before, and also I had woken up late and missed the complimentary breakfast at the hotel so this was the next step yeah. Alright, time to ride on the autoroute speed zone place without many curves just to get there without the journey, for it was cold and wet eh ….
I arrived at Christoph and Sylvia’s place with Alexandra and dog Fiona with great welcome and good honest warmth, in the country of Switzerland, not a city not a village not nothing but the country with horses, a dog, some cats, some quail and eggs, grass and trees. Thank you please.
In my room, one of their computers has pictures of their recent trip on shuffle, and I lied there in bed looking at people and places I knew too, and others I did not but smiled from ear to ear thinking where was that, and frowning happily, oh no I missed that eh?
This is a splendid view from the front ….
Christophe’s garage, well everything is Sylvia’s and Christoph’s, everything is mingled together and they both ride too ….
…. a small walk about ….
Hannus and Brigette’s work is to build houses from scratch, from the very beginning of land and conception to the sell, and just the two of them. Wow, it’s really incredible and Bruce I know that you would talk forever with these two.
Fiona I believe, likes the Quail as her own very puppies, counting them over and over and over, though I really wonder what she thinks when one of them sticks a beak outside a crack in the plexiglass sliding heat controlled window, just after snapping at them like she may take their scrawny necks off, well I wonder is all; if she wants to eat them or not.
I need not explain most of these photos …. and as they say ‘A picture tells a thousand words’. We had life in our hands and feet ….
… in the evenings we watched movies of our own choice, and wept every time we felt like it, and wanted to kill the other ones that didn’t get along, well loosely I concede I said outloud maybe in the beginning even though I didn’t know I was gonna say it like everyone else does but I did after when all knew it too ….’North Country’ was/is these pics to follow ….
Chris and Sylvia, like all the beautiful people in this world, when I would do the most mundane thing like oiling the chain on the bike, well they would still after everything offered, offer their hands to help some other hands; this is life I think again and again, so what about the news and her nemesis the opposite one who is the same over and over again yeah, ‘So what who cares’, Sylvia says, ‘So what’. And they agree over and over again and again. How simple this world could be figured out for a dime eh, maybe even a nickle I don’t know, for they tell us how much that’s worth eh, a nickel and dime.
Yet another good-bye to say and feel, and then off for Germany. Chris plotted a nice route to accompany me to the border saying, ‘I am taking you to the border to make sure you leave Switzerland’.
Excerpt from journal …. here in Switzerland with Chris and Sylvia, in this beautiful forest all dark and misty, having met a few of their friends, a nice dinner and good words over wine, with that philosophical kind, hanging in the molecules of water there by itself, coincidences like blankets keeping us warm with good thoughts and great meanings; a drop of water in the sands of regular life sometimes forgotten, rocks turned into tiny grains over time, great big magnificent mountains lying there on the beach before incomprehensible oceans, gazillions of these moments that are so different and thankfully the same raw goodness.
