When I was a little boy I saw a picture of the Switzerland Alps and countryside, the kind of setting where you see snow-capped mountains hovering over a lush green valley below with Swiss Chalets scattered all over the Alpine meadow.
That scene stuck with me all my life and I knew I wanted to go see it for myself sometime. So finally, last week, I lived out the dream.
In fact, I found a place in Grindelwald, Switzerland, which reminded me exactly of that photo of Switzerland that first got my attention so many years ago and struck me with awe.
The same thing happened to my Dad when he was a kid. But for him it was Crater Lake in Oregon. I think each and everyone of you out there has had some memory of some place that just seemed to especially speak to your heart.
In my previous post about Switzerland, “Kayak Yodeloke “, I uploaded a short video clip of me yodeling in front of a scene that was so similar to my memory of that first photo I ever saw of Switzerland.
In that post, I called it a teaser, but it was actually a part of the upcoming video clip you see below.
It was the first yodel exercise in the series of exercises on the following video clip, in which I’m yodeling, but the camera stopped for some unknown reason 🙂 and my “video production crew” had to start it up again.
So I had a video clip with one yodel and another video clip with the rest of the yodels.
So, the separated video clip with one song became useful as a teaser.
My “Video Production Crew”
This is “Giselle” (Ean Wearn Teoh), and “Sam” (Yee Sam Wang), two young women who were on the tour bus with me.
I had the pleasure of their company for about six hours that afternoon.
The other people on the tour had signed up to go on to another area on this tour. So they went on and the three of us stayed in town.
We walked around the beautiful mountain town of Grindelwald, where we discovered the perfect backdrop for the yodeloke video clip.
Yodeloke in Grindelwald, Switzerland
We also stopped in a charming little Swiss restaurant, had cheese fondue and other delicious Swiss dishes and we sat, talked and laughed for a while and got to know each other a little bit more.
Giselle is a Singapore Airline stewardess from Singapore. Sam is a chemical engingeer, from Malaysia, currently working in London. They said they became friends when they were studying in college in Singapore.
The six hours just flew by and soon we were boarding a train that would take us down the mountain and across the valley to………
Taking the train to Interlaken
……. Interlaken where we were to meet up with the rest of the people from the tour bus and then head back to Zurich.
After we arrived in Interlaken, we walked about five minutes toward the town to the tour bus meeting place.
Paragliders lightly touching down in the meadow in Interlaken
Interlaken
Paragliders were lightly touching down in a meadow adjacent to an outdoor marketplace that was near the meeting place.
A few yards away there were health-conscious cows, eating all their greens. They were musically-inclined too. I swear I heard them playing Hugh Masakela’s “Grazing in the Grass” with the cowbells around their necks, as we were getting off the train.
Later we got closer to them and I figured out what they were really playing. I told Giselle, my new Singaporean friend, my theory:
I said that I thought I recognized what the cows were playing.
“That’s the Singaporean National Anthem, isn’t it?, I inquired.
She confirmed it, saying “Yeah!”
I want to send a BIG SHOUT out from Seattle to Sam and Giselle.
Back in Seattle in my “office” doing the posts about fabulous Switzerland
The tour around Grindelwald would not have been as much fun without them.
Thanks gals!!!
On the train leaving Grindelwald and heading to Interlaken Switzerland
This reminds me of a German maxim I learned from Andreas (aka Andy), a tour guide and now friend, who I met on the Bern tour previously, which says: “Shared fun is double the fun. Shared pain is half the pain.“
In this case, I emphasize the first half of the saying, “Shared fun is double the fun“.
Oh and while I’m thinking of it, I’d like to say THANKS to “Best of Switzerland Tours“!! They really do take you to the best places in Switzerland.
I didn’t know anything about them before I went there. But I booked everything through them and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
(By the way, these comments from me are unsolicited. I just really liked the service they provided.)
Interlaken just before dusk
As the afternoon turned to dusk we went into a Hooters restaurant and enjoyed a final cup of coffee together and waited for the bus to arrive and take us back to Zurich.
The bus just arrived. All aboard!
Auf wiedersehen!
P. S. Check out this $800,000 watch I saw in a watch store in Interlaken.
The Bird Minute Repeater Watch
It’s called the Bird Minute Repeater Watch. Another version costs a million dollars because it includes a lot of stones.
When a watch does all that this one does, who cares about what time it is, right? Just thought it was interesting and fascinating for several reasons.
