[ˈɛɪjaˌfjatlaˌjœːkʏtl]

Get your tongue around a volcano
In answer to my afterthought below; check out the link above.

What Eyjafjallajökullv teaches us about travel.

Returning from a weekend in Milan, I shared the train with a lot of people who were returning from far flung corners of the earth and being forced to complete their long-haul trip over land. It was announced repeatedly over the tannoy in Milano Centrale that all trains to Northern Europe where full until Friday 23rd March. I don’t see this as an entirely bad thing (although admittedly I don’t have a flight booked until two weeks time, when hopefully high winds will have blown the culprit volcanic dust away, and the eruption will have stopped); the volcanic cloud is creating many adventures, it is reinventing (temporarily) travel. People are not just going to a place and returning. They are going to a place and have to get creative about their return journey. Living in the centre of Europe it is quite common to go by train to another country, but I imagine for many of the Brits stranded, they will be taking their first trip across European borders on trains.

People are travelling, as opposed to going from A to B and back. Strangers are exchanging stories in full train carriages, they are discovering the humanity of train travel, and its contrast to the sterility of identical airport lounges and cramped planes. I am guilty of treating air travel like shuttle buses; it is all too easy to hop on a plane to visit some friends. You go with a purpose and rarely see anything outside what you intend to. Train travel has an eventual purpose, but it is so much more about the journey, and the people, and the places you pass through. There was a triumphant cheer of the group at the neighbouring table as we drew into Zurich HB last night. Doubtlessly, a city few had visited before had transformed into a milestone, and they were going to have the chance to scratch its surface with a group of fellow travellers, before continuing their journey north.

Perhaps I am romanticising, but I wonder how many new friendships, new discoveries, new projects this Eyjafjallajökull cloud is inspiring across Europe.

As an afterthought, how the hell do you pronounce Eyjafjallajökull?

It's that time of year again

Lunch on a jetty by the lake in early April.

Einfach wunderbar!

Swiss psychitsophrenia

Switzerland ranks fourth highest in Europe for suicide rates, behind Hungary, Finland and Belgium (in that order). There is one thing that strikes you even after just living or even visiting the country for a short while, and that is the fact that if you don't conform, you have a bloody hard time of it. Swiss society, more than anywhere else I have thus far experienced, is based on money. Money equals success. Many openly discuss salaries, and most cover themelves head to toe in the most expensive brands. This applies not just to the Gucci's and suchlike, but also to the Mammut and North Face and Peak Perfomance outdoor kit. A simple unlabelled t-shirt for a hike just will not do for the Swiss.
A scene on my tram commute shocked me this week. A lady; not the mentally ill, drunk, Parisian metro type, but rather the mother of two point four children and an admin job genre, started verbally attacking another completely innocent commuter. The trams (and particularly the new ones) are cramped at peak times, particularly if you have anything more than a small handbag to transport. The victim was quietly reading her French novel, with her handbag on her lap, and a small sports holdall between her legs on the floor. The lady opposite joined at the next stop and started to shout at the reading woman; if you need so much room on the trams then you should take a taxi, where do you expect me to put my legs, tut tut, huff huff. (And vociferous rants sound all the more nasty in thick Swiss German of course). The reading woman, who was as shocked as I was at this rather unnecessary outburst (there were other seats avaible that the angry woman could have sat at).
So I have a theory about the Swiss (I hate generalisations of course, but when you see similar things so often, you do start to wonder...). The theory is that if there is one tiny thing that is not right, or wobbles their rigid daily routine, they go completely AWOL. The Zurich commute is a far cry from the stressful London underground journies. It is safer than a stroll on an Italian pavement. I guess if you know no different, a woman having the cheek to transport her sports kit on public transport is massively inconvenient. You have to give up that extra 50cm of space for your cute little NavyBoot pumps, and you're obliged to hold your Chloe handbag that little bit closer to your cashmere sweater; having to hide the label that displays your wealth.
Coming back to the suicide thing; I think that perhaps if you're not a fan of only living by the strict societal rules of Swiss life, and only doing your recycling until 7.30pm, and not showering after 10pm, and so on, then life is tough. It's a slightly different ball game as an Auslander of course, but it is easy to see that if seemingly normal people kick off on a tram about a sports bag, there is a certain level of oppression and pressure to do everything according to the book.
Thank God I'm an Auslanderin and am therefore quite used to not living by the rules!