to all:
The last Wednesday in Spain my family and I went to a ninety minute Flamenco show, but I felt as if we were only there for ten. The percussion section included a gourd rhythm instrument, a drum, plus the traditional clappers (Sorry folks, no castanets). There were two guitar players who played using their entire hands as opposed to just strumming. Then one guy who played a flute. About the dancer my sister said "She was not wearing a frilly colorful dress, it was just black. She moved so fast that her hairpins flew out all over the stage." I've tried unsuccessfully to come up with a better description, I suppose it is more like a feeling that must be experienced than a describable thing. Throughout the performance the audience would spontaneously yet unanimously interject phrases like "Vale" "Olé" or simply "Va." I suppose standing ovations are not a thing Spaniards do, because during the applause the only people standing up were five Americans. But Spain has been in our dust for awhile, we left about two weeks ago.
To get to Busswil, Switzerland, we had nothing shorter than an adventure. We woke up at eight in Seville and caught a bus to the train station. Then we hopped on the train, where we were greeted by a lovely ski club from Pensacola. We got to listen to them (complain) about their tour guide all the way to Madrid, I wonder how many times I heard "Well this is just the last straw..." A sigh of relief was unanimous in the family as we stepped off of the train.
Then on up to the Spain/France border where the train stopped for awhile in the border town of Irun. Finally someone who worked for the train company came to our car and said "Tienen que salir del treno ahora, que no dejen nada, que vayan calmamente pero rapidamente. Hay taxis esperandoles. Hay una bomba en la estaciĂłn en una maleta dejada," which meant "You need to leave the train now, donât leave anything, go calmly but quickly. There is a bomb in the station in some left luggage." So we hopped into the free taxi with the nervous looking driver, he drove us across the border and we continued our trip.
Oh the pain, we got to "sleep" in another couchette, all the way to Paris. We spent a few hours there, where I watched the bags while the parents went out and found some French pastries (our last for the trip, if all goes according).
Then onwards towards Switzerland. At exactly 3:27:20 we catch our first glimpse of snow of the trip. Claire was excited, to say the least. As we continued, however, the snow faded and disappeared. After a few more trains we are in Busswil, near Bern, in the Swiss-German speaking part of Switzerland. If you are looking at a map now you realize that Paris is not part of a straight route from Seville to Busswil, but with Those Mountains in the way it is the only route.
The first comfortable bed in more than a month was slept in by me in the house of Ueli, a Swiss friend of an American friend. The next day we begin our search for snow by heading towards higher altitudes, it was obvious that we would succeed when people with skis got onto the train. We got off of the normal train and got onto a narrow-gauge one which is able to make tighter turns. Finally we are able to touch snow, Claire immediately makes a snow angel, and I start rolling a ball for a snow creature. Later on my father and I rent some cross country skis and hit the trail, it's not as easy as they make it look in the Olympics: both people much older and much younger than I were passing me right and left. Then we take a train that is mostly windows to Montroux, somehow we have crossed the blurred line into French speaking Switzerland. It is a lake town with a huge pedestrian road by the lake, after a walk we go back to Busswil.
The next day we go to Biel to rent bikes. They turn out to be the "Swiss Cheese" brand: yellow with holes. My ride around the lake was six hours, but it was only supposed to be one. In an act of desperation I knocked on a stranger's door who was nice enough to give me a ride back to Biel, after we crammed the disassembled bike into her tiny car. I had to hold the door shut for the whole trip.
There was nothing very exciting at the Swiss/German Border. We headed north in train to a town four kilometers from the Dutch border, where we slept in the house of some friends that we met in Taizé (a long looooong time ago, in October). There I concentrated on getting better from a small cold that I got traveling. Besides that, I went across the border with my family to a market in the cheaper Netherlands (Netherlanders go to Germany to buy gasoline, Germans go to the Netherlands to buy coffee and cheese). This day had some of the strangest weather I've have ever experienced, rain changed to sunshine, then wind, then snow, and all over again. I also spent time listening to my much neglected CDs.
Next a train to Hamburg where we spent too much time in a train station with a bunch of scary people while waiting to rent a car. It was our prison because outside it was raining and snowing hard. Finally we got the car, a cute VW Polo, and we were on the road again. Although the road was icy we survived to the Danish border where we got our passport stamped for the first time of the trip.
We kept on until we arrived to Skals, the town of the Folk School where we will stay for the next four weeks. I am showed the room that I will be sharing with four other kids my age, then I am showed to the computer lab where I type this here letter, and now we are caught up-
Peace on Earth,
Forrest Dysart Oliphant