RTW sort of by Accident

Last week we returned from quite a long trip as it turned out. We hadn't meant it to be like this, witness the number of times we had cause to change airline reservations, but it sort of just happened.  The plan, if you can call it that, was to be in Zurich when our first grandchild would be born.... yes, I just slipped that in. Quietly. And yes, both Viv and I are very excited indeed! Around the same time however were a different couple of dates that we would not be able to change but which had to be included: namely a board meeting for me in New York as well as a 90th birthday party for Aunty Blanche in Bermuda.

Due date for the big day was 1st October for the longest time then all of a sudden it was pushed back, then not again. Not something that could be set in stone, that's for sure. Our grandchild would come when he/she was ready and not before. This didn't help much in our planning for, as everyone knows, those paragons of customer care, let's just call them 'airlines', do not take kindly to last minute booking and changes despite what all those "I traveled the world on $100" smart Alecs say. The later it became, the more painful it was.... for us needless to say. And as I said earlier, we had to make changes seemingly every week all of which increased the pain threshold. Fair to say I am heartily sick of aeroplanes, airports, airlines, mindless bloody stupidity at the airports, endless security lines, aeroplane food (big time), not being able to sleep, immigration procedures that change seemingly change all the time yet when you comment 'this is new', the official gives you a blank stare so you try to remember not to comment on anything but smile in a sort of glassy and fixed way every time someone asks something arcane like 'what brings you to...' -- I mean, I just landed on a plane for goodness sake, what do you think I am here for? To visit.... derr!

Anyway rather than go through a blow by blow for each stage, I'll do it by photos:

1. England

The land of Brexit and Boris Johnson! It seems to have become the only topic of conversation. Will we exit on October 31st in Boris's words 'do or die' or was it he'd rather be 'dead in a ditch'? Doesn't matter, everyone was speaking in ridiculous hyperbole like this all the time. 'End of the world', 'total disaster', 'catastrophic'.... you name it, these are the words of the time. Made me glad that we wouldn't be spending a lot of time here, just a few days with Viv's mum Anna.

Reculver Castle on the Thames Estuary is an old Roman Fort, church, you name it what else. The twin spires seen here are only kept as markers for shipping otherwise they'd be allowed to fall down.

Just had to eat the best fish n' chips in the country! Still great.

That other institution, the Sunday roast. Random country pub and it was fantastic.

Visiting the Royal Naval Dockyard at Chatham. Really interesting yet sad to me for it is now a tourist attraction seeing as there is very little Royal Navy left to service.

The Turner Modern museum in Margate I thought would have paintings of said Turner, a local lad who painted mid 19th century industrial type paintings, particularly steam ships, but it had the annual competition going on with artists like this doing modern stuff. The interpretation I found a little less than helpful.

2. Switzerland

Indy and Cat live in Zurich so it was there that we flew next. We stayed in an AirBNB in the centre of Zurich and found that the public transport was cheap, really efficient and on time. Trams, buses, trains... all really clean and a pleasure to use. We also found it was Oktoberfest time! So we had some fun before the big day arrived.

Quite a raucous affair it was too!

Taking our new grandchild for a walk. Felt like a supermarket trolley but of course just like everything Swiss, it really does work!

3. New York

After only a few days I flew through London again (ugh... horrible airport) to New York for my board meeting. Happily Dee Dee came to join me for a couple of days so we were able to hang out and go crazy. I dragged him all around Greenwich Village into bars and blues clubs.... great time!

Found time for the big steak too!

4. Switzerland (again)

Viv had stayed on in Zurich whilst I traveled alone to the Big Apple and I was looking forward to going back to join her, Indy, Cat and our beautiful grandchild for a few more days.

5. England (again)

One thing we have never managed is the knack of traveling light. I am always totally impressed by people that travel only with a carry on even when they are traveling for weeks or months. I imagine their choice of wardrobe is therefore limited but even with umpteen bags I find myself wearing the same trousers and shirt all the time. However this time we'd smartened up a little and actually managed the side trip to Zurich with just the one big bag... each, and had left the other two big bags in England. Hence England for a couple of days.

We took in a visit to a winery nearby which courtesy of global warming is now a producer of very decent bubbles, Balfour Estate. The tour guide explained that the owner had sort of bought the grape producing fields 'by accident' a few years ago and set to wondering what to do with just another 150 acres of decent arable land. He is very wealthy.

6. Bermuda

Thankfully we flew out through Gatwick, not Heathrow but I do have to comment on car rental firms. First time was Avis, second time Hertz. I go by price not loyalty so the companies change all the time for us. We get to see a variety of operators as a result. For some reason, this week no company had any cars to rent! This is Heathrow, one of the world's busiest airports. I'd booked ages in advance so was OK but people who rolled up on the off chance were totally out of luck. At Hertz, it was a pick a number and wait your turn thing! Unbelievable. 

It wasn't until our last day at Gatwick that we managed a full English breakfast! Very nice.

Great time of year to visit Bermuda by the way. Sunny and warm, yet no humidity. We stayed with Charmaine and David again and it was just lovely to catch up with friends. Dee Dee was working there too so we were able to  hang out with him as well.

Aunty Blanche's 90th birthday party was lovely. She got to sit next to her favourite person, Dee Dee, so was very happy. Very pleased to be there with her. Happy Birthday Aunt Blanche!

It was also lobster season so we just had to...

A week or so before we arrived, this hurricane came to visit. It was a bad one causing plenty of damage. Very unusual for Bermuda. No loss of life thankfully.

7. Toronto

We've a condo in downtown Toronto which is a lovely place to stay, however we have also found that the best long distance routing from Penang is first via Hong Kong and then onto wherever via Cathay Pacific. Direct to London and Zurich going west, and direct to New York and Toronto heading east. All are very long of course but the Toronto routing really works out best for us. Only for a few days this time.

8. Hong Kong/Penang

Transiting through HK still hasn't been impacted by the troubles going on there ... yet. 

Yodeling and Mooing

It is interesting sometimes to consider how people see themselves. We all have our opinion of how old we are mentally, for example. Me, I think I am 25. I know I am not of course. My knees and other joints tell me something quite different. But on our recent Christmas trip to see Indy and Cat in Zurich, it rebounded quite strongly. Not my knees, this thought.

You'll no doubt have followed our every move on Chris' fantastic and now beautifully updated travel app, Track My Tour, which if you haven't you can catch up with right here.  I alluded to our arrival and departure interludes when on the airport shuttle trundling you between terminals, the voice over charmingly welcomes you to Switzerland (in English) and when finished is replaced by these sounds that you think really cannot be. Surely that cannot be alpine bells tinkling, alpine horns moaning and ... wait for it... contented Swiss cows mooing. Can it? But yes, it is. We listened to it going in and out and both Indy and Cat confirmed that it is a standard thing. So the Swiss who are some of the most sophisticated people in the whole darn world think these cutesie little things are those things that most completely describe them??

Why not fondue? OK well it is a solid cheesy mass that sits in (and on if you are a bit messy like me) your tummy for days and days afterwards. 

Apparently so, and as for myself I do like a chuckle or two so appreciate self deprecation but really the Swiss are all about milk, bells and yodeling?? No I don't think so and I am glad we spent some jolly hours in the Swiss National Museum to straighten things out for myself. Mind you I could have just walked down Bahnhofstrasse past all those watch shops, private banks and name brand designer shops selling hideously expensive stuff to realize that that milk, bells and yodeling stuff is just plain hogwash. (Spoiler alert here... I did walk down Bahnhofstrasse on several occasions).

So where do I start?

Switzerland was a nonentity waypoint in Roman Empire days so not much is made of that and it became more important when Charlemagne's grandson's daughters found they liked Zurich enough to build an abbey there. In the 9th century Zurich was a mildly unimportant rural town in the Holy Roman Empire but these ladies upped their importance and dignity for with religious buildings like cathedrals, monasteries and abbeys comes people and lots and lots of money. However although this is a key point in Swiss history, it is almost forgotten now as Zurich in particular was an amazingly focal point in the Reformation. Some of the key men that took the Reformation onwards and upwards came from here and of course they needed pulpits and found plenty to chose from, including the abbey which these days is called the Fraumunster. The then abbess around 1524 politically decided to cede the abbey to the town (and hence the reformation) and go somewhere they felt more welcome leaving the place free to the fire breathing reformers that were the new breed to howl at the moon and their congregations. We know this for the pamphlets provided by the churches said so and more. Very open they were. Apparently these new breed were so vociferous that when one of the main voices died, the congregation of course paid for a statue but also took a loooong deep breath before settling back to enjoy the more charming cocktail party manners of his successor. Who apparently had a long and happy life there.

The Fraumunster on the river

I love this story as it is just like the early days of the Christians who had the hard nosed, fire breathing evangelists discussing fire and brimstone and of course love everyone who were followed by St. Paul who had to tone it down a bit and put the whole thing onto a more stable footing... and of course more remunerative along with his buddy St. Luke. They basically wrote most of the New Testament and I don't think I can read St. Paul's letters to the Corinthians without laughing out loud. His attempts to suggest that when our lord talked about loving everyone, he was talking rather more spiritually than physically and the Sodom and Gomorrah that Corinth had become in the first century AD was actually a bit of an anachronism as opposed to a model community.

Apologies for the digression but it certainly is curious how things repeat.

But I was talking about the Swiss, wasn't I? Well they dumped the Empire back in the late 13th century (maybe the Empire noticed, who knows these days?) and started off on their own.

An early freedom fighter from Empire days... or a terrorist? Depends on the viewpoint

One massive irony came almost immediately after the Reformation when they decided to remain neutral during the 30 Years War that started in 1618. That's right, leaving all their protestant buddies in countries nearby whom they had done so much to convert to be ritually slaughtered over the next 30 years as the war utterly devastated Central Europe, particularly Germany. One of the reasons for the civil disturbances of 1649-50 in Switzerland came as a result of demand for Swiss products declining in the aftermath of the war as local economies started getting back on their feet. Just like the general strike of 1918 (the main display in the museum when we visited) when you know demand for Swiss products declined as their major customers (Germany and Austria) stopped buying. And again just after WWII when nobody would speak to them as they had sided with the Nazis (stopping short of being a part of the Axis of course). Some of the key trading items during these times in no particular order were Lenin, looted Jewish gold and flat packed log cabins used for military purposes by the SS in Eastern and Central Europe..... they had to apologize to the Soviets before they were allowed in to the UN.

How do you write about this stuff and say as little as you can so that people don't think that you are really despicable? But you have to say it. Or at least something approximating it. At least they are better than the Japanese at owning up.

So much for being moral arbiters.

The country itself is picture postcard perfect although Zurich as we discovered is in a valley where it may not snow that often but which more than makes up for it with fog, mist and rain. Lots of drizzle too so I felt just like back in England.

Ridiculously beautiful

Speaking of whom I can't let the current Brexit situation pass without comment and Switzerland is a perfect example of what Britain could be if they chose this path. Now of course Switzerland isn't physically separated from the continent like Britain but it is not a part of the EU but has open borders being part of the Schengen system. It is almost laughably expensive but has zero unemployment and has a population that is totally OK with buying Swiss made stuff. So almost every brand you can think of has a Swiss plant that produces stuff at double the price of the not quite so laughably expensive EU.

$17 for a burger.......no fries

Why hasn't anyone in Britain thought about discussing the "Swiss Model"? That is, if Brexit is to happen.

But it works. Spectacularly so. The standard of living is one that can only be dreamed of for the rest of the world. And that is totally normal. For everyone I think (although I don't know this for sure but it sure seemed that way). Mind you Swiss people are forever popping over the border for a shopping experience which their EU neighbors happily manage by placing supermarkets, shopping malls and every manner of retail experience right there, walking distance away from a very large car park on the border in Switzerland. For while it is not legal to drive back with stuff that has no duty paid on it, you can certainly trundle it back by hand.

All in all I loved it warts and all.