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Let forever be-- Chemical BrothersDateline: Tuesday 24.8.1999 15:54 Location: Pont de la Machine, Genève And here I am in Switzerland. Again, I only meant to drop by; again, I find myself waffling. Everything is in order so I can keep going until at least 10.9., but still no word from E., so I can't just proceed straight to London. Should I go to France, which is gradually emerging from the double whammy of August vacations and foreign tourists? Should I go poke around Geneva, or elsewhere in Switzerland?
90% of all retail space in Geneva is occupied by watch boutiques, banks and travel agencies.
After two months of "service with a snarl" it was unexpectedly pleasant to take care of business here. Do we at the post office sell envelopes? Why, no, but here's one for free -- I do hope the post office logo is not a problem. Even the obsequiously polite droid at Union des Banques Suisses seemed genuinely sorry when he dashed my hopes of being a millionaire after all: alas, the bank account I'd had as a kid had long since been terminated.
Then I went window-shopping for zillions more CDs that I really want to but probably shouldn't buy at Frequence Laser (my life would be easier if I decided to become a single-genre fundamentalist), and now I'm just chilling here on the delightfully named Bridge of the Machine. It's a calm sunny day, and the Jet d'Eau is ejaculating in the background. Quoi faire?
Arto & company left today, after spending all morning (and quite a bit of yesterday) stuffing their tiny Toyota with backpacks, bicycles, clay garden dwarves, bottles of Sola, 96% firewater labeled "Bon Goût", etc. Now the fridge contains lots of beer, a package of frozen veggies, too much Camembert and very little else.
Réservé aux cygnes-- a sign in a patk in MontreuxDateline: Thursday 26.8.1999 10:24 Location: IR "Verdano", Genève -> Montreux Once again a quick Geneva stopover just keeps getting longer -- 4 days now and counting... resisting the temptations of a free apartment and free net access isn't easy! but tomorrow I'm leaving for London via Paris (chez Antoine).
So what have I been up to? Well, yesterday it was time to conquer the Alps. However, as Mont Blanc (4810m) wasn't enough of a challenge for us, we opted to scale the heights of... the daunting! the fearsome! the awe-inspiring!... Le Salève (1347 m), right next to Geneva, albeit on the French side of the border. The "we" consisted of yours truly, CERNite Erkki and his recently arrived tourist friend Janne. After sneaking across the border on foot, we commandeered a cable car and, daring adventurers that we are, drank a Coke at the café on top while admiring a beautiful view of lots of haze. But to prove that we weren't total sissies, we scaled some 200m to the next observation point... by walking along a paved road, that is.
After eating a picnic and enjoying more views of haze, including something that may or may not have been Mont Blanc, we set off back. Not by hang-glider, although the nearby "runway" ending in a vertical cliff looked quite spiffy, but on foot -- and this time through the forest. It was a hot and muggy day and merely scaling our way down from 1250m to 400m proved to be a bit of a chore -- my improvised walking stick came in handy. We backtracked to the cable car station, kept on going through the jungle to the village of M. and then scaled the Pas d'Echelle, some 320 stone steps hewn into the mountain... and it would have been easier had there been more!
3 more people appeared in the apartment yesterday, after having been kicked out of their previous one with less than a week to go before their return to Finland! Of the 4 original rent-payers, only 1 remains, with no less than 5 freeloaders... including me.
And now I sit on this eerily quiet train to Bordeaux, to continue my so far unsuccessful hunt for the statue of Mannerheim (a Finnish WW2 war hero who died in Bordeaux). The silence is only interrupted by giggling fits from a party of Italians up front (this train continues on to Milano).
Montreux also happens to be the center of the Montreux-Oberland Bernois ("MOB") private railway, which offers a wide variety of 'scenic panorama' trains -- for free with InterRail! Switzerland is one of those countries where IR really pays off, just this hour-long trip would cost CHF 50 without it...
Dateline: Thursday 26.8.1999 11:50 Location: Quai des Fleurs, Montreux 
So here I am at the monument to Marshal Mannerheim, which looks entirely unlike what I expected. Probably due to memory leak from the statue in central Helsinki, I was expecting a tweaky-moustached Swede up on a horse -- instead, I was treated to a gray Stalinist slab of granite engraved with obscure saying and the emaciated lion of Finland (a rather bizarre symbol for a Nordic country, no?).
Montreux itself is nothing special, just yet another lakeside town with a pretty lakeside promenade like every other town on Lac Léman -- but the town center is largely under wraps for restoration. Now I'm sitting in a MOD train to Château d'Oex, a place I didn't know existed one hour ago. Isn't Interrailing fun?
Strains of Jordan Knight ("You know I could give it to you...") keep running through my head, especially the funky little electro sequence embedded in the middle. Does the concept of an ex-New Kid on the Block singing vaguely naughtly lyrics with amazingly hideous rhymes ("Anyone can make you sweat / But only I can keep you wet! Ungh!") appeal to my perverse sense of humor, or is it just proof that MTV reduces IQ?
I think "panoramic" really just means "we were too cheap to build tunnels."
Dateline: Thursday 26.8.1999 13:50 Location: Jardins de la Moste, Chateau d'Oex 
When arriving in this little town I spotted a small hilltop church, so I donned my raincoat and headed for it, not even pausing to pick up a parisienne along the way, which my rumbling stomach now regrets. Raindrops are falling on the leaves of the trees around me and cowbells chime in the distance. Little houses dot the sides of the rolling hills, an occasional rocky outcrop sticking out here and there. And again that wet fog fading the horizon to white...
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