Friday, August 31, 1990

RTW Trip - Switzerland - Summer 1990

Continued From Previous Blog

Arrival
Kandersteg International Scout Center
After leaving England I arrived at Kandersteg International Scout Center at 5:30pm on June 10th. I had wanted to get there in time for my birthday on the 11th.  It had been almost two years since I was at the Center but not surprisingly it was exactly the same old place. I saw Kato S and Dave F in the staff room first, then said hi to Ron E and Rob G, and then saw Susi G and Lomi.  I left my stuff in the staff room and ran over to see Anne W and Jan B - it was fantastic to see them.  We had a long chat, then I headed back to the chalet.  I met with Ron E (back as program director) and outlined my goals for the summer. I started work immediately that night - watching the Chalet during Spring Staff night out (dinner at the Doldenhorn courtesy of the Commissioner from Ireland).  I received a call from Steve saying happy birthday, then off to bed.

Birthday Drinks with Susy, Anne, and Jan
The next day was my actual birthday - I had the day off so ran around the village, caught up on letters, hiked to the Upper Hut and Gallihorn in the afternoon, and made it home just in time for dinner complete with birthday cake for desert.  We adjourned to the Adler for dinner where Jan gave me a card from my parents for a parachute flight from Allmenalp - and some of the leftover money helped pay for a round of drinks for everyone.  The next day was spent cleaning the Upper Hut with Warren P, and Lomi - as well as setting up the solar panel, installing lights, and getting the radio going.  We headed back to the village via mountain bike - quite the ride!

Orientation
Staff Training
While I had arrived early, the rest of the summer staff arrived shortly, then we had the official kickoff of the summer staff - introductions, goals, icebreakers (like human knot and bashing each other with a newspaper).  We also had to get our health checks (make sure we are not contaminating the alps?).  We also learned all about the job - laundry duty, discovery trail, and learned the fire alarm.  We had sport night that evening, followed with dipping Ron in BP Fountain as we were unhappy with his umpiring!  The next day was discovery day around the village.  My team was Kirsten B, Cath O, Dave F, and Skippy R.  This was followed by dinner and overnight in Campsite 39 - with a side trip to the Crystal to celebrate Anne W and Sue's birthdays.

Oeschininsee
The final part of the staff orientation prior to "graduation" was the staff hike.  We should have started with a dawn hike but skipped it as the weather looked a bit iffy - though it ended up being an amazing day.   It was a slow walk to the Upper Hut where we did a climbing workshop culminating in climbing milk rock - very hard for me.  A song fest in the Upper Hut wrapped up the evening before bed.  The following day we climbed the Gellihorn (not for dawn - too lazy for that) and then walked over to Arvenseeli (the lakes) for lunch where we swam before the long trudge to Selden.

Staff Hiking
We camped the night in Selden where Mike from summer '88 met us for dinner - and brought me a hat that held coke cans along with a Coke.  So, I broke my 9 month dry spell and had a coke - delicious!  The next morning we got up at 4:30am for a 6am departure to the Lotchenpass.  We held some ice axe practice on the glacier where I hurt my knee racing David down the slopes.  We all made it back to KISC by about 6pm where Lomi had Rosti prepared for dinner in the Tower.  The orientation was a great way to get to know some of the amazing people I would work with over the summer, including Mike T, Dave F, Kato S, Rob J, Wendy V, Victoriano O, Yoshiko I, Richard B, Nicolette M, Fausto G, Warren P, David P, Skippy R, Mia L, John M, Helena B, Kersten B, Sue T, Neil A, Anne W, Roope R, Jan B, Susi G, Kathryn O, Warren P, John M. Fran M, Ron E, and Mark L. 

The Summer: Work
Staff Fun
So the summer did include work, if you can call it that.  My official role was quartermaster (along with Skippy).  We both spent an enormous amount of time cleaning and organizing the program hut - tossing a lot of crummy or obsolete material.

Assisting with in-camp activities is a big part of the job:  BBQs, Campfires (which I got to blow up like we did at Worth Ranch), giving tours of the Center to day-guests, pioneering bridges, abseiling, and any miscellaneous activity that needed planned. The other part of the role was guiding hikes: to the Blumlisalp, umpteen cheesery hikes to visit Rudy the farmer, and one Lotchenpass hike with an Irish group and John where the cloud/fog was so thick we ended up going in a complete circle and ending back at the beginning.  The fog did clear and we made it to the Lotchenpass Hut, but I never heard the end of this one!

Jan on August 1st, Swiss National Day
The big summer event at KISC is Swiss National Day - August 1st - the busiest week of the year at the Center.  My responsibility was Carnival on the parade ground.  We set up a huge tower in the middle with a PA system so loud it go complaints from the village.  We started the day with aerobics led by Kato, then a huge breakfast that everyone joined at the same time.  We then had the wide-game - I participated in the ground sheet one - where 20 people get on a ground sheet and then keep folding in half until not everyone could fit.  Other games included pass the orange, push a plate of shaving creme with your nose, walk up a slippery uphill groundsheet, and water balloons.

Christmas in July
The carnival was after lunch, culminating with a launch of a heap of balloons.  After cleaning the sports field we had a quick dinner in the Chalet before joining the procession to village, arriving at the bonfire in the main field and did a heap of yells.  The staff wrapped up the evening at the Bernerhof for ice cream before crawling into bed wrecked.

Another big event for the summer was the first KISC Alpine Challenge with 3 days of events.  The first day was navigating the Uchinintal to collect 27 markers.  The second day was "incidents" such as map making, stretcher carrying, blindfolded confidence course, tying a clove hitch around a tree, and a first aid/climbing one.  I helped with this - Dave was hanging on a cliff with a "broken arm" Jan at the bottom with a "head injury".  Jan "died" at least 3 times - thank god nothing was real!  The final day was brainteasers at Oeschininsee - like sending messages, getting a key out of a tube, and weighing 5 rocks.  The last event was a race: run to the water's edge, row to the far side of the lake and back, then run to the finish.  I competed in this one with the staff team but we were not winners....

The Summer: Fun
Steve Hiking
As if the "work" part of the summer was not fun enough, I was able to set aside time for non center-related activities.  While too mnay to enumerate, there were some fun highlights.  One night at the Alpenrose Dave, Warren, Mike, Sue, and I developed the "Kanderstegger Hoteltest".  This was a takeoff of the "Huttentest" where you visit all 8 Swiss Mountain Club huts in the area in the least amount of time.  Our version was to visit all major pubs in town to have a beer - and see who could do it is the shortest time.  We developed a semi-professional booklet for this - not sure what the actual record is now!  Another fun activity was surfing the Kander by tying an old board to the bridge and trying to stand on it.  We were able to go from side to side, but god is that water cold!  Mia and I did a day hike over the pass to Adelboden to see the Girl Scout Chalet - about time after we have so many tours to the Guides visiting the Chalet.  We also had our fair share of water fights - many (most?) instigated by me.  I met my Waterloo one morning when walking out of the chalet to recycle some cardboard.

I was grabbed by most of the staff, tied to the flagpole, and drenched with buckets of Kander water, soaked by the fire hose, and covered with more shaving cream than I knew existed.  It took a 30 minute shower to warm up!  The unofficial song for the summer must have been Meatloaf's Paradise by the Dashboard Light and a group of us (generally Anne, Sue, Kato, David, Fausto, Skippy, and I) could be found weekly doing our rendition as an air band.  We even blew out a speaker playing this too loud. 

Selden Valley
Since Steve spent about a month of his summer at KISC; he, Dave, Jan, and I reprized the epic end of summer staff hike'88.  We took the train and bus to Greisalp and walked to the Gespalthorn hutte, spent the night, and then walked the Gespalt glacier to the Mutthorn hutte - taking 3 hours this time instead of the 14 hours it took 4 years prior.  We bivouacked in the little hut on the Petersgrat and the next morning climbed the Chinglehorn.  It was a beautiful climb through a deep gulley (snow and ice) where we had to front-point the crampons the whole way up - a great feeling of accomplishment for me.

Oeschinsee From the Freundenschneur
There were a quite a few old friends passing through the Center over the summer.  Ryby visited with a buddy for a couple of weeks and we all had a few fun nights out - including the one where Ryby held court at the Crystal, telling everyone a "made up" story about me.  I could not stop laughing.  Heidi from summer '88 came a couple of times.  Mike (along with Connie) came by for "Christmas" to play Santa - it was one of a few trips we saw him.  Of course Steve was there, and Nick from Oz stopped by as well.  Russ also visited a couple of times from Germany.  My parents came with Graham and Margaret.  Kathy, who I met earlier on the trip at Moyra/Bill's house, was traveling around Europe and stopped by the Center for a couple of days - we hiked the Freundenschnur, the path behind/above Oeschininsee. 

Kirsten, Mia, and Helena
While the summer was full of quotes and "ones for the book", a few that stand out are Richard's "it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission:, the posting in the staffroom: "Heaven is where the police are British, the cooks French, the mechanics German, the lovers Italian, and it is all organized by the Swiss.  Hell is where the chefs are British, the mechanics French, the lovers Swiss, the police German, and it is all organized by the Italians".  Others include "my mind is OK but I can't control my body" and "no human being believes that any other human being has the right to be in bed while he himself is up", "the lights are on but no-one is home", and "ta-da".

Wrap Up
The end of summer staff hike this year was a walk to the Lammernhutte via Gemipass to the Wildstruble, but weather got the better of us so we skipped the Wildstruble and instead just slept until 10am and walked back to the Upper Hut via the Talisgalcier.  We spent the 3rd day climbing around the Upper Hut area - I tried lightening route but fell more times than I should mention.

Kandersteg from Almenalp
We cleaned up the program hut at the end of the summer, determined to leave it in good shape for the next crew.  At the same time, the Dutch Working Party was at the Center - their project this time was to demolish the old tower bunkhouse that was to be re-built new.  Some of this group was the same as '88 - including Harold, the group leader.  I made tacos for the Dutch party as well as the staff for my last night - way too much food, but good nonetheless.  A night out in the Adler wrapped up the evening.  Yoshico and I were to depart the next day, but since my passport and visa had not yet arrived in the mail we postponed for a day.  The (real) last night saw us at the Crystal and the High Noon where we met a heap of people.  It ended up being a fun, wild night back at the staff flat with Andy from the Steinbock, Dave, Anne, and 4 others who we met along the way.  I was woken the next morning by a phone call from Yoshico trying to find me for the train out - so it was a massive dash out to catch the train for the next leg of my adventure.

Continued on Next Blog

For More Photos:

RTW Trip - NYC, UK - Summer 1990

Going Away Party
Well, the idea of traveling around the world first became an idea during my first trip to Kandersteg in 1988.  After saving $7166 at Steak and Ale from Jan 6th 1989 through Sept 1st 1989 I had enough money in the bank to head out for the adventure I planned.  I added some more money over the two following semesters at TCJC to make it a nice round $10,000.  So the choices were: do the trip I had planned, bag that and buy a new car, or invest it at 10% until I retire and have a nest egg of $1.2 million.  But I was set - the trip was on -  from Dallas to NYC, then to England/Scotland/Wales, over to Switzerland, around Europe, up to Russia, to Beijing via the Transiberian Express, down to Thailand, around Australia for six months, then back home via Hawaii a year later.

My parents threw me a surprise going away party in the back yard of their house, with a heap of scout, school, and Steak and Ale friends showing up: Tara and Krissy, Lisa, Janet, Christine, Stephanie, Peter, Khris, Tracy, Rob, Tim, Mark, Rob, John, Deanna, Patrick, my family, and a few others.

At Steak and Ale
On Friday May 18th I closed out my last Steak and Ale shift.  I paid someone to bissel my station (the first time ever) and headed over to Bennigan's for a few (too many) drinks to celebrate.  Dave Lovelace and Janet met me there first, where I had a shot of 151 and a strawberry daiquiri  I immediately handed my car keys over to Peter who was working there that evening, and celebrated the evening away with Lori Rosenthal, Laura Winters, Jake Atchley & Cindy, Keith Armstrong, Jeff Caplinger, Todd Brown, Leticia, Juan Perez, and a few others. The following day was Christine's graduation followed by dinner at Ruths Chris. The last time I left for Switzerland it was on a lower note - my parents had just heard that I had failed out of TCJC after having failed out of Texas A&M the previous semester.  At least this time was a better departure! 


New York City
Janet and Steph at Cartier
To fly to the UK I had booked a flight via New York City where I met Stephanie and Janet.  My flight was to Kennedy and arrived early in the evening, so I then took the shuttle over to LaGuardia.  Janet's flight was late getting in to Kennedy because of a problem with the airplane door, so she had me paged and I was told to just meet her at LaGuardia.  It worked out - I saw Janet at the AA ticket counter at LGA and we chatted until we met Stephanie and her dad Les at 9:30pm - they took us back to Les' house on Long Island where we then watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit before falling asleep, with Janet and I in the living room and Steph on a couch in the kitchen.

Janet, me, and Steph in Rockefeller Plaza
We slept in late in the next morning - then Les took us into Manhattan where he had to work.  Janet, Stephanie, and I spent the afternoon window shopping on 5th avenue and visited Trump Tower.  We changed clothes at one of The Limited stores (Les is a regional manager for them) and then headed to dinner at La Bonne Soupe, which Les had recommended.  I had the Mahi Mahi and we all had a 1/2 carafe of rose before we headed over to the Majestic Theater to see Phantom of the Opera.  Les picked us up after the show and took us to the Hard Rock Cafe for Brownie Bottom Pie before he shuttled us home - nothing like having our own chauffeur!  It was a quick trip to NYC - I headed out the next morning to London on Pan Am at 9am.  It was a 747 that was mostly empty, so I had 3 seats by the window by myself. 

England
Berwick Castle
The flight landed at Heathrow in the evening, so I then headed to cousin Giles' house via subways and trains, getting there four hours later, just after midnight.  Giles had consumed a few beers so a friend drove him to meet me.  We chatted for a few hours I passed out exhausted from jet lag that night (he was unable to attend cousin Guy's wedding in Denver a bit earlier so we had not seen each other in a while), and Giles took me to High Wycombe station so I could go back to Kings Cross for an 11am train to Berwick, arriving at 2:45.

I was planning on walking to my grandfather's house.   However, he picked me up at the station, just guessing train I'd be on and nailed it the first time.  While in Berwick I spent some time with Ga/Isabel, stopped by to see Catherine and Phillip, saw Uncle Billy at the workshop, headed to Spittal, had dinner at Tillmouth, and generally plumped up before my Outward Bound experience.

Outward Bound
The Outward Bound Crew
Ga drove me to Newcastle since there was no train from Berwick that would have enabled me to catch the 8:15am to Aberdovy, via Birmingham, Shrewsbury, and Machynlleth where I was to attend an Outward Bound course that my parents had bought me for my birthday.  The week course was just fantastic.  There were vans at the train station to pick us up and drop us at the center. I was in room E in the building at the top of the hill, with roommates Barry, Paul, and Dermitt.  There were twelve people in our age group of 18-24, though most were 20/21.  The team I became closest to were Dermot, Paul, Barry, Vicky, and Rachel. We kicked off the first night with icebreaker games like anagrams, filling a bucket while piggy-back, crawling through a net tube, passing an orange with the chin, etc.  The course included lots of group and individual activities like hiking, canoeing, rafting, rock climbing and absailing on the crags north of Aberdovy, a night out camping, ropes course, etc.  The course was concluded with the "final scheme" which was a re-enactment of the meeting between Arthur and Llewellen at the peak of Cadair Idris.  It was a really good two-day exercise and we all had a blast. 

Southern England
Bill, Linda, Alan, and Moyra
Following Outward Bound I headed to Sheffield to see Steve, who was supposed to be studying for finals but was willing to let me distract him.  He met me at the station on his bike at ~3pm and walked back with me.  After shopping, watching Pretty Woman, and getting ready, we headed out to a Spanish restaurant called Cosmopolitan where I had the flame fillet and a bottle of '86 Beaujolais.  I was woken by Steve at 10am with a glass of orange juice - who would have thought that you could get this kind of service while backpacking? Jan was in Australia for her brother's wedding so we called her to get a recipe for asparagus sauce that we wanted to have for lunch *any excuse to call her!).  I chatted with her a bit on the phone - I would see her later in Kandersteg.  We talked and read about all things KISC that afternoon and then Steve made a curry for dinner that night.

Dermot in London
I departed Steve's to head to Tavistock to see Ian while Steve headed to school to complete his finals.  I did a run/walk around Dartmoor in lieu of cruising the area in the jag - unfortunately since Ian had not driven it for a few weeks the battery was dead and there was no starting it.  I had a great dinner with Ian and Grandpa Dodds, and they lavished me with a 100 pound note and 50 pound note "to get me going".  Ian dropped me at the train station in Exeter so I could head to Moyra and Bill's place.  Linda picked me up at the station and took me to the school where Moyra/Bill worked and I met Cathy who also worked at the school.  Cathy was a lot of fun and would be in Switzerland later in the summer so we would be able to catch up then.  Linda took me to Bath for a day to do all the standard tourist attractions, then we all went out to the pub for dinner, including Alan who was at home for the weekend.

The next day Linda was incredibly gracious and drove me two hours to Worthington (near Brighton) to Dermot's house, arriving at about noon.  I "did" Worthington for the day and we grabbed take-out Thai from Bridge on the River Kwai for dinner.  Bizarrely, after dinner the phone rang and it was Bill Holden - asking for me!  He chatted for a few minutes, then asked me if I knew where my camera was.  Argh - it was with Linda, 2 hours away.  I can't believe I had forgotten it!  It was incredible that he even found the number - he had just pressed redial - since I had called Dermot that morning it worked!  If anyone had made any other calls from the home that day I'd be without a camera and lens for the next year.  So, Dermot was a hero and drove me four hours round trip that night to pick up the camera - leaving at 9pm, getting to town at 11pm looking for a "blue door" - which we eventually found after speaking with random strangers.  We arrived home crazy late.  The next day was our theater day in London (seeing Aspects of Love, which we had arranged while at Outward Bound, grabbing a little bit of Americana for lunch (me, Taco Bell; Dermot, Burger King).  We saw the 3pm Aspects, then met Dermot's roommate and his girlfriend for dinner at Wong Keis, the largest Chinese restaurant in the city.  We headed back to Dermot's house for a movie (Top Gun) and sleep as we had to be up at 6am for the flight to Switzerland from Gatwick. 

Continued On Next Blog

For More Photos of Outward Bound: