swiss chocolate mountains, disjointed ramblings about resort tourism, the dawn of spring

Something about mountains always feels centering. I grew up in the hills, so I imagine some of it is just nostalgia, but I think there’s more to it. Like the ocean, or a great desert, they are too big to fathom, too big to comprehend. Eternal creatures, indifferent to human affairs. Their lives span a breadth of time so vast it is almost impossible to imagine their inception or destruction.

To exist among them makes me feel that most of the things I worry about on a daily basis are probably not that important after all, even when compared only to the length of my life.

Writing progress has slowed significantly (an impressive feat given how slowly and inconsistently progress was already occurring). I’ve deliberately left my laptop at a friend’s apartment. I am going with an old-school notebook, not for any romantic, hipster reason, but because I am planning on going through a good bit of rural Africa soon (theoretically, at least), and I’m thinking my laptop might be in peril if I bring it along. And I’ve backed up almost none of the data. 10$ notebook it is. I am now faced with the tedious process of re-typing what I write in my notebook on my smartphone. There are text scanner apps, but even the strongest AI scanner appears to be completely incapable of deciphering my handwriting. Can’t blame it for that. I am reminded why I mostly write on a laptop.

I like Switzerland. The stuff is good quality. You notice it. Roads, trains, buildings. Alpine chalets are made of sturdy wood. Thick beams with nice grain and more than a few knots span the ceiling and poke through the walls, framing so stout and beautiful it must remain visible. The beams support thick, almost soundproof walls, steep roofs, and sturdy windows with strong metal hardware. They keep noise out too, not that it’s very loud up here in the mountains.

Switzerland has built an international reputation for quality craftsmanship, and I don’t think it’s overblown. Public infrastructure works very well, all the trains and buses run on time, almost all the time. In Germany, which to my North American mind has excellent public transit, any delay under five minutes is officially considered “on time”. Many trains are delayed by hours at times. Not unreasonable, I would say, or at least to be expected. In many places around the world, a five minute delay could be the most on time a train has ever been. In Switzerland, this seems to be considered a significant delay.

I’ve been skiing, which has been awesome. In a new spot this year, which is also awesome. Switzerland has a ridiculous amount of incredible ski resorts, mainly because it has a ridiculous amount of incredible mountains and glaciers.

Probably the most famous among them is a place called Zermatt, a resort/town near a famous mountain known as “The Matterhorn”. What a name. The Matterhorn, as far as I can tell, is mostly famous in the west because it’s the mountain pictured on the Toblerone chocolate bar packages. Officially it’s not the Matterhorn, apparently there was a court case in which the Swiss government sued Toblerone, as they considered the likeness of the Matterhorn to be property of the government. Toblerone’s lawyers argued that it was simply a picture of a generic mountain. Toblerone won the case, as they should have it you ask me. It’s definitely the Matterhorn, though.

Zermatt (the glacier) is quite a phenomenal place to ski, but it must be accessed through a resort town so opulent that I find myself slightly sickened by my own presence there in the past (which was only a weekend, but still). The streets of the town are filled with designer showrooms, expensive restaurants, and many tourists who might frequent such places instead of spending the day carving deep ski lines into the glacier pistes above.

The town actually reminds me a lot of Jackson, Wyoming. Another example of a beautiful natural area, which in my mind deserves some sort of cheerful cowboy town, but instead has an industrialized resort tourism town, filled with lululemon pop-ups and cute French bakeries and things like that. I’m quite happy for a nice bakery, but not in Jackson. I should absolutely not be able to get a croissant in Jackson, Wyoming, much less a good one (and it was good). I should be laughed out of the town for even mentioning the word.

The quiet and exactly on-time Swiss bus pulls through snaking mountain highways, curving around curbs and barriers and other cars with impressive accuracy. Even at high speeds, the bus is often missing walls and other cars by less than six inches (or less than 15cm, to be geographically inclusive). It’s snowing gently, and a stiff breeze blows the snow sideways. The little flakes seem to slide directly off the white peaks of the mountains and past the windows of the bus, to settle on the older snowdrifts from a week ago.

The beauty of this country is always a bit unbelievable. The mountains lay solidly and gently behind one another, triangles of green grass and trees and white snow, sometimes with sharp rock faces. The distance between each mountain embosses it against the mountain behind. If someone painted the scenes with picture-perfect accuracy, one might accuse them of idealizing nature, that’s how beautiful these vistas are.

My first time here was in the summertime.

I stayed a few years before in a town that Tolkien lived when he was writing. It’s said that the valley was his inspiration for Rivendell in The Lord of the Rings. The valley of 72 waterfalls. It’s not hard to see the resemblance. Someone told me that when Peter Jackson was making the movies, he wanted to film them here. He asked the Swiss government if he could. They said no. So they filmed it in New Zealand. I don’t know if that’s true, but it sounds true.

I’ve heard a lot of stories here. Someone else told me during the second world war, Switzerland was worried about being invaded, so they broadcast a message to everyone saying something to the effect of “guten tag, armies of the world. Just so you know, we have mined every single bridge and tunnel in this entire country, so if you attempt to invade, we will blow them all up, rendering it completely impossible to do so. We will stay in our villages and be just fine”. I don’t find that one very hard to believe either.

Switzerland, despite being the geographic size of a small US state, has 26 cantons (which I will reductionistly equate to counties), and 4 national languages. It would be hard to make any accurate character judgements about any large group of people. That being said, I think that one thing I appreciate about many Swiss people I’ve met is a very subtle individualism from the surrounding territories. It makes sense if you live in the mountains, I think.

As the world gets more and more globally connected, it’s easy to see many cultural idiosyncrasies fade. There’s still a lot of ways in which people think differently though, and it’s both entertaining and a bit enlightening to be able to notice it.

One of the nice things about traveling slower is that you get to see changes happen gradually. Things get progressively more Italian-looking as I head south, and I’m soon past the border. The weather is warmer, the houses are brighter. The chalets are replaced by small houses with white walls and red roofs, already looking more mediterranean. The people start to appear slightly more Italian as well, still northern and reserved in comparison to the south, but more stylish and con pasión in their dress and demeanor than the people at the Swiss end of my train. I start to hear more Italian and less German being spoken on the train.

I no longer need my ski fleece and my beanie. I have used 2 buses and a train to go from winter to spring. What powers we have. I plan to meet up with a friend soon, and we’re headed southwest. Things should only get warmer from here. This winter has been more than long enough for me, and only a small part of it involved any skiing, which to be honest is the main thing I look forward to about winter these days.

Gentle waves splash at the edges of the lake. Some ferries and small pleasurecraft dart around. A seaplane crosses high above, while a small white bird crosses its path in the other direction. Holding their trajectory, they almost appear to be riding on imaginary highways in the sky. Little houses are nestled gently in the steep hills, like the snow I’ve left behind, but they settle in the valleys, not on the peaks. Villas sit on the edges of the shore, with green gardens and trees, and fancy powerboats tied to docks below.

It’s a beautiful lake. I am enjoying the warmth and the anticipation of what’s to come. I am also enjoying my Swiss chocolate protein drink. My undeserved luck in being here is not lost on me, in a moment like this. It does not always merit elaboration, but it does merit acknowledgement. Time for spring.