On July 3rd, I meant to go hangliding at 11:45. The session was cencelled due to weather. It worked out better at 13:45. I also scribbled some frustrating thoughts on my abstract server file generator thinger, probably while sitting at Balmer's.

2007-07-03

So I went hangliding. I got picked up at Balmer's and taken to their HQ where we met a slew of Koreans. I was the only hanglider there - everyone else was paragliding. My pilot's name was something like "Dain Waith" (it was written down but not entirely legible). He was the same pilot as A-Day had in the morning.

We drove up the mountain to a take-off point that wasn't as high as I expected. My pilot and I set up the hanglider while everyone else set up their paragliders. The wind died down and it started sprinkling and we worried that we might not get to go, but things cleared up and we got wind, and off we went. It was cool taking off, and it was neat to see how my pilot could seemingly keep us up indefinitely by catching updrafts. I'm not going to do it again though. Too expensive.

The pictures from hangliding cost 20 CHF.

I ran into A-Day and his 2 friends from Balmers on the way back. We took a chocolate factory tour and got a bunch of included-in-the-tour-price chocolate. A-Day was being unfriendly.

What people around here say is that if you're not paying out the butt for 'extreme adventures' then there's not a whole lot to do. I'd go mountain climbing some more but it's always raining. Mostly I've been hanging out at Balmer's or internetting or writing in my journal.

I met some jackass 'culinary experts' in the lobby of Funny Farm who were mad at Arnold because he signed a bill banning foie gras in california. It made me have more respect for Arnold, and also reinforced my notion that 95% of Americans I'd run into in Europe aren't worth talking to. I'm now back at Balmer's talking to some random dude about how to get up the mountain on a train. A-Day's buddies came by a few times. I got a picture and their e-mail address.

I had a dream last night between being kept up by the roomies and waking up to go sign up for hangliding. A-Day and I had gone back in time to try and stop WWII. The tricky part was that I would have to go back to the states from the Netherlands in a kayak, geared only with a bottle of water and a bag of gorp. Also, I wasn't sure if preventing WWII was the best thing to do.

"We may be the stupid Americans, but at least we're not annoying. That category has been taken over by the Asians."
- Joe

"It's flat, it's expensive, and it sucks the life out of you."
- Pat on LA

2007-07-04 (Wednesday)

I managed to get to sleep alright using my earplugs, even with my roomies having a party around me. There were 2 guys from California, one from Louisiana, and then some others.

I dreampt about a place with black soil or rocky ground. There were a lot of ditches into it that you could walk around in. The whole thing was on a long slope, and people had built up sort of a city on it. Also, there were muppets.

Someone I was with started a grass fire. We thought we could put it out right away but it spread too quickly. The fire got really big and somehow de-stablized the soil. The ground started sliding down the slope, carrying the whole city with it, and the fire quickly spread up the hill. A lot of people were dying. I somehow managed to stay up on top by climbing a tree.

After it was all over I was surprised to see that the ridges and valleys had kept pretty much the same form. But there were guys in military uniforms shooting at us from behind some mounds of black sand. One of my muppet friends tried to use a funny squareish grenade on them.

Today I caught a train from Wilderswil ("vildahzvee", they say) to Lauterbrunnen and walked around through the tunnels and felt and looked at the waterfalls at Trümmelbach. After getting out of that place I walked south to the end of the valley and then turned around to make sure I'd catch a train back to Wilderswil. I changed my socks several times during that walk. It turned out I could have been out another 4 hours.

2007-07-05 (Thursday)

Had earplugs in last night. Had come back from Balmers's where I had had the 'vegetarian savoy' for 14 CHK, no happy hour drinks. Back to Funny Farm because feet cold. At 22:00, I was only one back.

Woke up in morning with a room of roomies. All cold. Got up at 10:00 and all wondered why windows left open.

Took off and internetted a bit, then rented bike and headed south towards...'Grindelwald?'. Stopped in tunnel to have lunch and upon departure found I had flat tire. Tried to replace and inflate. Not working. Much effort for maybe an hour. Finally Czech guys came by and helped me out. Better tire patchers than I. Turned out I had a spike in my tire. Both tubes had holes now, but Czech guy (who spoke little English) had a patch kit.

Not wanting to be even farther from Interlaken when I got another flat, I started biking back. I got off at a trail and walked up a mountain. I ran out of camera memory as I took one last picture of the rocks in a creek before changing the card. After walking for about an hour, the path ended and left me at a muddy field near the train tracks. I kept walking, partly through the field and, when the train had just passed, along the train tracks. I came to a train station that seemed to be about 2/3 of the way up the mountain. I walked out on a platform with a Swiss flag on it and took some pictures. It started raining, and I had to get the bike back in a reasonable amount of time, since I was paying something like 3 CHF per hour to have it sit at the foot of this path. As I walked back through the fields I slipped and fell in the mud. The train passed me a few more times on the way down, and I took pictures of it and waved.

Was very happy to find bike. Felt nice to ride downhill. Rode back to Interlaken, biked to lake and went for a little walk.

As I returned the bike a mustache man at the bar told me that he worked at the train station where I had turned around and had seen me.

I got very muddy where I slipped in that field.

Pat from N. California claimed to have found himself in the window in the photo I had taken of the train.

I am told I missed some fun times last night. Crazy Spanish guys making a lot of noise and being horny.

The outside of this peach tastes like ground.

- American female roommate on peach left by former roomies.

You need one guy to hold the... I'll explain later.

- Spanish guy after being asked why they always went to the bathroom in pairs.

This girl... she thinks me fuck him!

- Spanish guy on JZ from Canada.

As I wrote this article, roomies also talked about mass transit being cheaper in Krakow, bands getting rich, cool, and therefore uncool. A guy came in and talked with a midwestern accent and it sounded weird. I switched pens, and drew a picture of a hiker that looks kind of like Phil.