Parting Glances

A minor miracle— we made it through the 12 Gates of the City to actually get our boarding passes in hand. So much anguish filling out one form after another before setting foot in the airport , many of which no one ever asked to see. Even now in the airport, the free Wi-fi demands a phone number that it refuses to recognize. 

When it works, our electronic fantasies of efficiency can be helpful, but in the end, it probably is more inefficient than the human beings who used to do some of these jobs. And minus the potential pleasure of human interaction. Arriving at our last hotel in Walhalla, there was an open door you could walk through without a code! A reception desk! A smiling person behind the reception desk who gave us a key! Someone I could not only ask about nearby restaurants, but someone who gave me a 15% discount card for the one around the corner. Sheer joy!!!

 

So now at the Barcelona Airport with a two-hour layover and a good time to say some final goodbyes to Switzerland and more distant arriverdercis to Italy. Hard to believe that amidst digging for all my associations with Switzerland, I forgot the most obvious— Swiss cheese! Also muesli and more obscure, Swiss Kriss, Louis Armstrong’s favorite laxative. A few parting observations:

 

• Cranes: The national building seems to be enormous yellow cranes. Every single small town had them, some as many as 10 or 12. Eventually, we just accepted them as part of the landscape.

 

• Unmasked: The whole country is. On the street, in the stores, on the trains, in the airport and most happy for me, in the music workshops. I was content to teach live human beings in Italy with masks, but teaching without in Switzerland was the next level of return to a normalcy worth celebrating. Let’s hope Covid agrees.

 

• Smoking: Lots of it! While I often leave Europe feeling that the U.S. has so much to learn to reach a higher level of culture, sociability, care for its citizens, aesthetics and so on, Switzerland could follow California’s lead and stop smoking so much! 

 

• Men’s Groups: Not the artificial kind where we set a schedule to discuss our feelings, but endless groups of men hanging out at restaurants, on park benches, at the outdoor café. Same as in Italy. Haven’t seen similar public gatherings of women, but perhaps they gather at each other’s homes, relieved that the men aren’t around. Or doing the household chores and child-raising the men are neglecting. In my little world of Orff Schulwerk, be it in South America, Europe or Asia, the women are all the organizers and they are all quite comfortable and supremely competent being in charge of these organizations. 

 

And so on. Now’s a good time to give a shout-out to my faithful luggage, the purple suitcase I lived out of for four weeks, my trusty backpack that carried what I needed when I needed it. My appreciation for all the small things that are gold to the traveler— the safety pin that held my sunglasses together, the occasional plastic bags that we needed for the food we bought at markets, the clothespins that kept things from spilling out, the laundry soap we brought, the scrap paper to mark the Rummy 500 scores. Apologies to my biking shorts, bathing suit, camping towel and blue shirt for lugging them all around and virtually never using them. They got their revenge by punishing me with extra unneeded weight. 

 

But all in all, I packed well and though I look forward to wearing the shirts awaiting me in the closet back home and to returning the suitcase to the basement and opening drawers, there is a certain pride and pleasure in doing with less and carrying most of what you need around with you (with the help of wheels on suitcases and waiting beds in hotels). 

 

One final thanks to all our hosts, from the bike tour operators to the Orff friends, to the hotel managers, restaurant workers, bus and train drivers, IT workers that helped us keep in touch via e-mail/ What’s Ap/ Facebook/ blogs. Auf wiedersehen, arrividerci and goodbye to it all— for now. I look forward to return visits!