Invasion of the Canadian Cousins

11 July 2011

Something magical happened on June 17th. The Canadian cousins - Garry and Diane & Raym and Marybel Brenneman - arrived for a much anticipated week long visit.

M&R arrived first on the number 10 tram from the airport.

"You'll know us," Marybel said, "Because we're wearing yellow Canadian T-shirts."

I laughed. Of course I'd know them. I'd know them in yellow shirts or red shirts or blue shirts or stark naked. I've known them for almost sixty years. But when the tram pulled up, that screeching yellow made the spotting easy.

Greg was at work (hey! Somebody has to support us!) and G&D weren't arriving until 19:00. We walked by the lake, visited the wine guild house with its interesting small pottery museum and wandered inside the Grossmeunster Church, gazing with awe at its windows made of thinly sliced agate. G&D arrived at the Hauptbahnhoff (main train station) shortly after 20:00 and we were there to pick them up.

A guy was standing there doing amazing things with this model airplane.

The next day, we braved the rain and went to our usual Oerlikon Saturday morning market. I had expressly told the cousins - in writing - that the deal was:

• we would pay for all food and beverages consumed in the apartment.
• when we went out to eat, we would split the menu equally.

Those damn people never did listen.  By the time they left, I think we had actually made money. In fact, when you consider they paid for almost all the food and drinks, we did make money! I don't think it's supposed to work that way.

Anyway, back to the market. Uncle Lloyd had a butcher shop and the boys had spent a fair bit of their life helping him and so they were fascinated by the butcher stand. They bought three large steaks and had that new-to-Switzerland shocked look on their face when they paid 160 CHF (about $190 US). To digress a moment, the dollar and Swiss franc were close to par when we came over here and the US dollar is now almost 20% less. Since Greg is being paid (pension and Vistakon contract) in US dollars, we've seen a 20% drop in income. And this in one of the most expensive cities in the world! Ouch!

That afternoon, we wandered in the pouring rain through the huge downtown Saturday flea market which, sadly, was a shadow of its usual self. My stupid umbrella decided it would rather be a seive and we were all damp and dreary (except Marybel who had a marvelous long lightweight raincoat). I traded in the traitor umbrella for a new one and we all plunked ourselves down at our favorite English pub to dry out on the outside and hydrate the inside.

Sunday found us all on the train to Bern famous for its bears.  The story goes that the founder of Bern vowed to name the city after the first animal he killed there. That dubious honor fell to a bear and bears, since 1513, were housed in a small concrete bear pit. That has all changed now with the building of a huge and wonderful natural park. Go bears!

I Love this statue - I think he's the patron saint of parents and teachers!

Mamma and two cubs

Pappa Bear busily digging for something

wonderful new bear enclosure

lunch guests. They liked the potato chips.

Click to enlarge and you can see the stunt flyer.

Diane, Marybel, me, Raym, Garry, Greg

Bern Cathedral. The main doorway has 200 figures - all different.

I love this statue - and the man couldn't have come along at a better time!

Monday, Greg was back to work and we were off on a ferry ride to Rapperswill, famous for its roses. Only, seriously, it's a quaint medieval town with gorgeous views but I don't think the roses are anything better than what we have here in Zurich. My god! I'm becoming a Zuricher!

Zurich See is long. These car ferries cross the lake.

Garrry is a really TALL guy and he needs a really BIG chair!

The cousins had taken to referring to me as their tour guide and I took the title seriously, smacking Garry when he once tried to ursurp my position by holding his umbrella aloft to lead us. Therefore, I was appalled when, on the way to the Rhein Falls, one of the boys casually remarked, "I remember that building from the train ride yesterday." Yikes! Yesterday we had gone in the opposite direction from where we were heading today. Yup! I had us get on the wrong train. That little oops cost us two hours but the Canadian Cousins were very consoling. We arrived at the falls for a very late lunch where the boys had a very LARGE beer which the waiter insisted, as he opened the bottle with a loud pop, was better than champagne. The boys concurred. We had time to snap a few pics of the falls before boarding the train again.

Tuesday was the Big Day. Our cousin Helen Brenneman is a geneologist and told us about Melchior Broennimann, our ancestor, who lived near Bern in the 1600's.  Poor Melchior decided he'd rather be an antibaptist (later known as Mennonites) instead of staying with the reformed church and so the church threw him into the Thun Castle tower and later exciled him and confiscated his land. (Isn't there some conflict of interest there?) Helen tells me he was actually one of the "lucky" ones - most antibaptists confined to the tower didn't live to tell the tale. She also told us that he had lived in Bronni. A google search showed us that all that was left of the town was a road. That's all we needed for a Brenneman excursion! We hired a van and headed west.

The scenery along the way was stunning. Our route took us by the Brienz and Thun lakes (called See here - I think Switzerland chafes at its landlocked state). The famous Interlaken lies between the two. Somewhere along the highway, we passed a field filled with painted gypsy wagons - just like the ones you see in pictures. Only, these were pulled by automobiles instead of horses. Unfortunately, we had no time for pictures.

Thun Castle was our first stop.  Of course, we posed for pictures.

IF Melchior could drag his chains far enough to see out the window, this is what he would see: the church of the guys who had put him into the tower. Nice.

The castle also had an interesting museum. My favorite exhibits were the toys and an intricately carved mother dog and her nursing puppies. The area is known for its woodcarving.

Those shoe things in the middle are actually roller skates.

Toys for little kids ... and big kids.

We tried to imagine Melchior's relief as he walked OUT through these gates.

We ate lunch in Gruyeres, a tiny medieval village with the requisite awesome view. Raclette is a block of cheese on a heated surface. As the cheese melts, you scrape it off and add it to bread, pickled onions and boiled potatoes. The stuff was so good, we packed it in until we were beyond stuffed. Which was too bad since we aqueezed in time for a lightning visit to the Cailler Chocolate Factory. There, the scent of chocolate would drive any human mad for a taste but alas! we were so full we could hardly appreciate the long tasting table of their many kinds of chocolate product.

GROAN! If only we hadn't been so full!

Gastronomy taken care of, we tumbled back into the van and followed the GPS to Bronnistrasse where we played the game of Melchior where are you?  The countryside there is pastoral and beautiful with the mandatory mountain backdrop. (Really, you can't seem to get away from them here in Switzerland.) We drove up the dirt road, stopping for a farmer herding his cows into their pasture. A little further along, we stopped to take pictures from the car of a wonderfully painted old building practically on the road. A young boy, probably eight or so, crossed the road from the farmhouse opposite and, as he was climbing into a vertical water tank swimming hole, greeted us with "F-ck you, f-ck you, f-ck you" over and over again like a stuck record. Really, it is so good to see how quickly the young pick up a foreign language!

We drove to the end of the road and stopped en route to take pictures. It was thrilling to be on this road in this country standing where Melchior must have walked and worked. It was so beautiful and peaceful there - how he must have missed it when he was exciled to Germany! And for me, an atheist, I think how he could have saved it all if he had only played along with the religious zealots. But then I'll never understand why people are willing to die horrible deaths and suffer ridicule and worse for something I think should be inviolately internal.

This cool HUGE house was at the beginning of the road. We fantasized about IT being Melchior's house and emailed a pic of it to Helen B ... who responded by saying likely not since the date on the house was 1700s and Melcior died in 1673. To add insult to injury, she pointed out that he was probably poor.

Wednesday the weather was clear and so we all boarded a tram to the top of Uetliberg, Zurich's tallest spot, for yet another photo op. On the way up the trail from the railroad stop to the top, we passed a baby fox curled into a fetal position on the side of the road. It had a fly infested wound on its side. I flew up the hill in front of the others - Greg says he's never seen me move so fast uphill or down - and barged into the hotel lobby to demand they immediatley send out a rescue team. Smiling, the receptionist explained that someone was already on their way. You gotta love the Swiss. I have no way of knowing if the little guy made it or not but at least he was out of the rain and someplace safe and warm.

Taking the tram to grab the tram to the top of Uetliberg - the steepest non-cog RR in Switzerland.

Now THERE'S a novel shot - a picture of my family coming towards ME. Usually all I get is their asses. The guy in yellow was this old dude who ran past us on the way up, ran up the tower when he got there and there he is running downhill. Overachiever.

Our next stop was the Basel Zoo to see the newly born Snow Leopard triplets. We had lunch along the Rhine River where we watched boats cross the stream tethered to an overhead cable and powered solely by the river's current. As we walked to the zoo, the skies started spewing rain. The others took a leisurely stroll through the zoo, stopping to watch a baby rhino have a swimming lesson (it didn't do so well) but Diane and I scarcely saw a thing as we raced to the snow leopard cage, bound and determined to see those babes.  We stood forever in the rain, staring intently at the snow leopard mamma in her cave, willing the babies to appear. It was only later that a zoo attendant informed us that we had spent all that time watching the pappa. Mamma and babies were cozy inside their den. A very soggy group of Brennemans took the train back to Zurich, fortified with beer supplied by Greg from the train station Kiosk and pretzels. The boys were amazed (and happy) that alcohol can be consumed here in such public places.

Uh. Mom? I'm in trouble here!

Greg had a hard time finding a stand at the train station that was selling beer but his diligence was rewarded. Note happy grin.

We taught the Canadian Cousins the Swiss ritual of toasting by looking in each person's eyes and saying their name while the glasses are clinked. Margo. Garry. Marybel reports that she and Raym are still doing it every time they have a beer. Marybel. Raym.

Follow up: The following Saturday, Greg and I returned to the quest. This time, the day was lovely and we took our time seeing the zoo. Our intent had been to see if the babies were out and then to sightsee in Basel, returning in the late afternoon, which is when an email exchange with the zoo curator had told me we might see them. The zoo, although small, has an excellent collection of animals in well designed enclosures and they specialize in breeding endangered species. We never did leave the zoo for that sightseeing. Around five, we staked out a spot by the snow leopard enclosure along with a bunch of other people with some serious cameras. Serendipitously, our visit coincided with a special event where the zoo stayed open until midnight. It wasn't until after the regular closing hours of 18:30 that Mamma came out of her den to check the lay of the land and she was none too happy to discover the papperazzi. Finally, at 19:15, she brought the babies out. It was more than well worth the visit. The only slightly jarring moment was when an older Swiss woman came up to me as I was enjoying the babes and began to harangue me because I didn't speak German. I took it as a joke and playfully responded to her anger which finally had the happy result of sending her off with a final tsssk. That is the one really annoying feature of the Swiss - they tend to feel they're the policemen of the world and society as we know it will grind to a halt without their constant vigilence. Remember: you can click on any of these pics to enlarge them!

The monkey cage was adjacent to the snow leopards. The blur on the left was a baby monkey. The monkeys were as curious about the triplets as they were about the monkeys.

Thursday was our last day together. Sending Greg off to work, the rest of us headed to Konstanz Germany and a ferry ride to Mainau Island, aptly named the flower island. When we left the island, our ferry back was late, leaving us a measly five minutes to run from the landing through a pedestrian tunnel and onto the train. We all ran, with me (as usual) in the rear. Garry was our hero. Arriving first at the train, he stood in the doorway so the doors couldn't close.

Saw this fox in a field on the way. Reminded me of our baby fox. Hope he made it.

Konstanz Germany.

Life imitates art.

A BIG tree.

An even BIGGER tree.

Lovely butterfly garden.

HUGE caterpillars - about 8 inches long.

Friday, the cousins were up at the crack of dawn, headed to the airport for their flights home. G&D were anxious to see their grandson Anthony and I understand a stock race track was calling out to Raym.  The house hasn't seemed quite the same since they left.

Having the cousins here was truly magical. They were a magic carpet ride back to a time when we were all young and growing up surrounded by extended family and a small, nurturing village where everyone truly knew everyone else's business but somehow accepted almost all.  In all my many moves throughout the world, that base has grounded me and helped define who I am. Reconnecting with the cousins reaffirmed who I was ... and am.  The Canadian Cousins are the only ones who still call me Mugs, my childhood nickname.  They accept - and like - me for who I am regardless of all of my transgressions, past and present. The Canadian Cousins are warm, funny people who know how to have a good time ... and a good time we had. Thank you, Canadian Cousins, and come back again soon.

Something magical happened twenty-seven years ago today. Katherine Brenneman Hill was born at 8:47 PM Eastern Standard Time in Poughkeepsie, NY. To quote Winston Churchill, it was, indeed, my finest hour. And somewhere around September 29, 2011, my baby, all grown up, will have her own finest hour when our first grandchild makes his/her appearance.
Life is full of magical moments if you only encourage them to happen.
Acknowledgements: Thanks to Greg and Diane for some of these pictures. And thanks to the Canadian Cousins. Without them, this post would not exist.