A Place To Read A Book And Write A Letter (And Ski): Interlaken

The story I told about my birthday, English teachers would say it began in media res, which is Latin for, 'the writer has no idea what he's doing.' They would say such because it began right smack in the middle, like an art film. And since I'm rather artsy, I thought it fitting to end with the beginning.

On Thursday we flew to Basel from Rome. Basel is a border town, a Swiss town right next to Germany. They speak Swiss-German, which is neither Swiss nor German, nor is it Italian, which is the language I kept trying to communicate in. If anything, my trip to Switzerland made me realize how good at Italian I really was, as I would repeated order in Italian from Swiss waiters. Needless to say, this made me very popular.

On Friday, we made a small detour to Germany to survey a factory that makes modern chairs (you think I'm kidding; this was the architecture students' idea of fun), and then took one o'clock train directly to Interlaken.

Means between the lakes, Interlaken does. Beautiful in the way that you only use once or twice in your life. I settled in the low key hostel (I was continuously told that Balmer's Herberge, the most popular hostel, was 'where the party's at.' I declined), rented some skis, then bonded with my Korean roommates. Lots of Koreans in Interlaken, and no idea why. It's known as a stop for young backpackers, but the reason why there were so many Koreans there escapes me. And the kicker is, I don't think they ever left the hostel.

Skiing in the Alps is a lot different than in Colorado or in front of Pomfret. At least where I was, there were no trees. Ski paths were marked by poles, every ten or so yards. Poles were colored to show difficulty. Obeying the poles was not necessary.

The day I skied, my birthday, a great storm, the hand of God, descended on the mountain and blinded all the skiers like it confused all those who built the Tower of Babel. So, to review: no visibility, no trees, markers placed just out of sight of each other, and everybody else speaks Swiss-German. I had a fun ride down. When I got to the bottom, I think I was bleeding lactic acid. On the mountain, though, I did have a science fiction revelation. Went back to the hostel and wrote it out.

When Ben Rector turned twenty, he wrote a hit pop song. When Cass Trumbo turned twenty, he wrote a short story about aliens. It's up in the air as to which is a better gauge of manhood.