Travels in the Confoederatio Helvetica

Waking up at 4:00 AM in Cologne, Ashley and I quickly got all of our kit together and set off into the fore-dawn skies for Zürich, Switzerland. As in the Manchester and Cologne airports, the giant, multi-storey-tall, face of Kevin Costner endorsing Turkish Airlines met us again with that smirk and sparkling eyes from the sides of buildings in Zürich. In our tired early-morning daze, it was that much more off-putting.

We were met at the airport by Nadia – a Domm family friend. Nadia and her husband Simon invited us to stay with them for a week over Christmas while they showed us around the lovely and varied sights of the Swiss Confederation. Our base for this week would be the lovely town of Wil (pronounced “veal”) roughly a half-hour’s speedy drive from Zürich. I must admit that I had not spent too much time preconceiving what the Swiss countryside might look like leading up to the trip. And certainly before that my impression of Switzerland was that of a historian and pop-culture consumer of The Sound of Music and whatever that annoying yodeling commercial was in the 1990s.

It’s safe to say that the foggy morning of December 23 allowed me a much clearer view of Swiss agricultural fields and the basic economy, which is very much in line with modern and what some might consider that rare breed of “pure European” trends. Which is what, of course, people selling cars or trends or fashion tend to attempt to conjure up. And indeed, with Switzerland being the tiny, neutral though increasingly xenophobic microcosm of European cross-roads that it is, that’s not surprising. The history of the Helvetia Confederation is quite long, storied, and intriguing, but I leave that for further research on your part.

Suffice it to say that the county is tiny (really tiny. Driving across the whole thing might take you a long, though scenic, afternoon!) and is comprised of various cultural and ethnic groups speaking the four official languages of the country (French, German, Italian, and Romansh – an insular Latinate tongue spoken in a few valleys). However, it’s a country that shares similar ideals and their Alpine identity.

We spent the days eating (look for a blog from Ashley regarding all of the wonderful Swiss food we discovered and fell in love with), generally resting, eating again (We shared dinner on Christmas Eve with Nadia’s father and brother and their impeccable cooking), sight-seeing, and traveling.

During one such evening of rest, Ashley discovered her new favourite programme on Swiss television:

Das Traumschiff

Now, for those of us who don’t speak German (but do speak bad ‘80s television about Germans on cruise ships), this is a show that I believe has to be a soap-opera or just an outlet for a crazy director to force bad actors to stay together on a cruise ship for God-knows-how-long pretending to act. The title is literally The Dream Ship, and Ashley fell in love. Not being able to understand German (or perhaps, in spite of that), I was able to watch a few minutes while reading my book and came away with something about the cruise liner captain taking care of a randomly injured falcon, a lady passing out because she was taking too many diet pills, and a random German crew member falling in love with a sheik in the UEA. Yes, I think they actually filmed those scenes in the UEA. At least, Dubai looked convincing. It was at that point that I realised the show that I believed had to be from the ‘80s (horrible acting, terrible terrible grainy film quality, etc) must have been very very recent, given Dubai’s skyline. Someone should tell the show to stop blowing their budget on filming on a cruise liner and on-location in Dubai and buy a decent camera. But I digress…

We walked through the old-town Wil and fell in love with its character that comes from being a truly historic settlement in the midst of dozens of similar villages with similar stories of long histories and continuing relevance. We visited the nearby towns of St. Gallen, Lucerne, had a quick evening jaunt through Zürich, and drove out to the quintessential Alpine village of Appenzell.

It was in the abbey in St. Gallen that Ashley and I discovered the model for our future library. We couldn’t take pictures, so we bought enough postcards of the interior to have most of the angles covered for the future.

One of the richest medieval libraries in the world. World Heritage Site. All of the books available still for public use, though books older than 1900 must be read in the room. One of the manuscripts of Nibelungenlied. It’s a pretty fantastic library. Sorry: the best image I could find.

During this entire period, I was continuously at-the-ready to take advantage of any prime romantic-y/nerdy moments for Ashley and I that would allow me to propose to her. To whit, I had the ring in my jacket pocket at all times, and had spoken to Nadia and Simon about being ready to back away and give us a little privacy if I gave the sign. Alas, nothing ever presented itself to my satisfaction. The closest chance that came was on the famous bridge in Lucerne, but alas, tourists tend to just get everywhere and would have seriously cramped my style.

Unfortunately, our time quickly came to an end, and it was off to Istanbul for Ashley and I.