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Swiss/Alsace

 

FRIDAY, MAY 16: 7:20PM: In the midst of packing I get this out of the closet and find ALL files filled with Venezuela and then Moving, so I have to check all the printouts to make sure I have them, then erase all 8 files. 53° out; yesterday, playing FreeCell and Minesweeper and working with stamps I just wished I could STAY HOME, but I know that trips are always for the better, and this, planned by Ken (dispite his disability) promises to be a very good one---just hope the weather there isn't as cold as it is HERE. Well, at least I've proved this WORKS! Continue piling things on the table to pack, then make out a list of things to do tomorrow: 1) call for car (and called Ken, who's taking his OWN car and is "considerate in packing." 2) plants/mail/keys/paper-need/grapes/milk to Bob L. 3) catalogs to library, 4) record phone message, 5) wash dishes, 6) fill pills, 7) make milk ice-cubes, and, at bedtime, add 8) gym/shower. Eat dinner with the penultimate chicken serving, feeling tired, starting reading Scientific American, the only magazine I have left to read, then brush my teeth and take a Noctamide with my evening pills and go to bed at 9PM, hoping to sleep. Feel good in bed, snuggled into the warm blankets in the 50° cold outside, and, amazingly, drop IMMEDIATELY off to sleep!

SATURDAY, MAY 17: 6:34AM: Wake at 4:55AM, almost exactly 8 hours, and feel VERY good about Noctamide! Up to pee, have trouble putting up the blind, then have breakfast at 5:30AM, still very late at 11:30AM Zurich time, but not outrageously so. Then tackle the pills, finding that I need to order calcium, vitamin E, and folic acid from AARP before I leave! Feeling rather tired now, though anxiety is undoubtedly part of it, and catch up with this at 6:37AM, 47° outside, and Ken said it was cold and rainy in Switzerland, too! [8:01AM on laptop: Take 14 rolls (543 slides for 23 days is about one per HOUR!) of film and four hours of videotape. 8:50AM: Meticulously go through each step of the packing: checking off the list, reorganizing what's left, making sure everything's at a reasonable minimum, except possibly shirts, and record the phone message, make milk ice-cubes, order pills from AARP which will be delivered when I'm gone, needing to catch up with folic acid, and the next things to do are only 6, taking maybe an hour except for the gym at noon, so I'll now get back to stamps at 8:51AM! Polish stamps lovely until noon, when I put in the last chicken for the last meal here. Phone Shelley for a happy birthday, then shower at 1:40, finishing this at 2:02PM, ever more ready for trip. Everything totally done now, at 2:48PM. Leave at 3:02, to airport at 3:50 through brightening day, and at 4:04 films 400 and BELOW are unsafe in machine "since January." Read Ken's article about Islam. Boarding 5:16. Board 5:30, GOOD seat BEFORE wing! Back out at 5:56. 7:07 flight. Take melitonin at 6PM and get off at 6:10. Montauk passed at 6:25, but only water after other islands? Dinner's over at 7:30, took pills, sun setting. Did Actualism, took sleeping pill, no sleep. Maybe doze for half an hour. Look out at the moon-bright clouds, nothing below, some slight turbulence, calm flight, NO babies hollering.

SUNDAY, MAY 18: Change from 11:34 to 5:34, less than two hours to go. Horizon sheets of blood. Sunrise at 6:05. At 6:52 "landing in 25 minutes," EXACTLY 7:07 from 6:10 takeoff. TOTALLY cloudy and RAIN against window. Land at 7:21. Dark and cloudy and LOTS of layers of clouds. Evil omen? Dock at 7:27, to Movenpick bus at 8:04, to Movenpick in private bus at 8:10. Khovanchina 7:30-11. Room ready at 8:50, room #507. To cab to Kunstmuseum at 9:57. 43SF, or $33 each way! Rousseau, Kandinsky, Seurat. $33 back, Ken's having fish buffet and I get quail which is tiny, but share part of his and finish with a fabulous 10.5SF chocolate sundae. #12 Zurich: Banhofstrasse. #13 Limmat River. Off bus 2:20, which leaves at 4:15 from Frauenmunster. #14 "Lust auf stuffe." #15 Newmarkt St. #16 Old City Hall tower at 2:36. #17 facade on Spiegelgas. Grossmunster founded by Charlemagne in 8th Century. #18 Charlemagne in crypt. Dash to top of tower and take pictures to #25, not that great, but I DID it! 2F to get up. 3;08 down and #27 and 28 of Grossmunster at 3:16. #29 SNOW in Alps over bridge over Limmat. #30 Frauenmunster Square. Video Frauenkirch Chagall windows to 3:18. Battery half gone in three minutes! #32 balcony across from Frauen. #34 Neo-Byzantine new Main Post Office. #36 Ganymede at 3:50. Back to bus, to hotel at 4:45 to be told meeting is at 5:15, and Ken reserves in the Dim Sum restaurant for 6:30. I STILL can't decide whether I want to try the opera or not! 4:47PM: decisions, decisions: just find out that wake-up call tomorrow is 7AM, and the last airport shuttle to the hotel leaves the main train station at 11:45PM, which makes it possible to get there from an 11PM ending of "Khovantschina" with Salminen and Ghaiurov at the opera house, which looks splendid, though the prices, up to 300F, do too. The Kunstmuseum was the treat of the day: I'd thought it would be trivial, but the SCOPE of the painting: huge murals by Holder, dozens of Fussli, a few Bocklin, Gauguan, and an extraordinarily bright Van Gogh of dark pines against a bone-white sky with faint swirls of blue. Then the Picassos, Vlamincks, Sisleys, Monets, Renoirs (one of his incredible female faces that glow blue about the eyes). A Dali, a Rembrandt (phony?), two El Greco's (one phony, though in the style of Tintoretto), classic Giocomettis---and we're told he was SWISS-Italian, not just Italian. Finish at 5:08, deciding to wash and charge battery, which recharges in a disappointingly short amount of time, making me think the battery is essentially wearing out. Down to the meeting at 5:20, wrangling TWO glasses (white and red) of wine where, she pointedly says, "You were really only contracted for one." We're 33 on trip, and I count the 16 couples, two of which seem to be male-male, one of the hand-wounded pair and the probably gay one across from us Ken starts up a chat with ala Fred, and she goes through a lot of stuff, mostly funny, mostly helpful, and I remark to Ken that no one has YET identified themselves as the pains-in-the-ass of the trip. Tomorrow wakeup at 7, bags out at 7:45, leave at 8:30. Restaurant tips are 5%, and the meeting breaks up at 6:20, she reminding me of Tracy Ullman with her Brit-accented dry wit. We're off to the already-crowded Dim Sum restaurant, which overfills as we sit, an Autralian couple from Melbourne waiting a LONG time for their menus, leading Ken to "introduce" us with "What did you do wrong that they're not paying any attention to you?" He also asked the woman at the desk to reconfirm our flights, but American seemed closed on Sundays, which she said hadn't happened before. I talk a bit about my trip to Antarctica from Hobart, in saying how much I liked Melbourne from my friend's house in the suburb of Brighton. The food's not very good: two Tsingtaos are 13F and two shrimp fried rices (white nevertheless) are 17F, and his shumai beef is tender but with that odd spice-rotten smell I haven't been able to identify, and my barbecued pork is rather tasteless even with the addition of the pepper sauce, soy sauce, and sweet-and-sour sauce. Pay the 101F bill with my credit card, as with lunch, to catch up with my debt to Ken, and go to the room at 7:30 to start to do puzzles and Ken reads, but by 8:30 I can't keep my eyes open and he says he's willing to go to sleep, and I say I NEVER sleep more than 8 hours, but we get to bed, me complaining about having only an duvet, whch turns out to be rather comfortable anyway, so I MUST have been tired, and go to sleep almost immediately.

MONDAY, MAY 19: Wake a few times and lie thinking how WELL this is working out: no more flights til the return, a not-bad group of people, a decent tour guide, and the improved weather for yesterday was a blessing, hoping it'll be not too bad for the rest of the trip. Idly think ahead to the quick trip with Fred, the Florida excursions in October and November, Ken's statement that THIS will be his last trip this year, though he DOES want to see Yellowstone and the Tetons, and I think of my new apartment and feel quite happy, finishing recording this while Ken still snores at 6:42AM. 5:42 an ASTOUNDING panoply of dreams: from an early one with an Indian woman lying spread out with her cunt saying "Lick my pretty" (probably a reflection of the book of erotica for sale in the Kunstmuseum's shop) to the final "investigation of the block around our camp, in Canada, where I was a sort of guru in a summer camp, when I went into a department store and stood on the edge of a swimming pool with a lot of women sitting around it (obviously from the Frauenbad on the Limmat tour yesterday) only to find it rocking back and forth like a boat, almost tipping me into the water, then climbing up to try to get out, but finding the ledge past the workman who was pulling the ropes which tipped the boat too narrow, and seeing a small ladder (from Jacob's ladder in Chagall's stained glass?) I used only the tips of my fingers to work my way down the two or three stories to the ground below, marveling at the ease with which I clung to the finger-tip room of the rungs to lower myself to the ground, almost like floating. And then I got to the stone back-wall which turned out to be an exhibit area which was taken over by a group of Japanese judo artists who were running across a platform, bouncing off the edge of a pivot hung over past the end of the stage, and making extraordinary flips in the air, beautifully emphasized by their flowing huge fundoshi-type "diapers" which would flare out in the most amazing cloud-billows when the jump was well executed. Before that I had some kind of sorting of stamps in which I had pairs of kings in regalia to be sorted before a like image on a stamp of a higher value, and there were three or four sets of these which I was satisfied to be able to sort out. There were no real frustration dreams, though there was one hint at sexuality when I thought I had to circle around the group of admirers in my camp and go into my apartment alone and stretch out to jerk off, but somehow with the thought that they might be able to look in on me and admire me for what I was doing. There were three or four OTHER dreams in this evening, which started at 8:35PM when I couldn't keep my eyes open, and then I woke at 1:35 to go almost immediately back to sleep for more dreams, only vaguely wishing I could record them, and waking again at 3:35, thinking that it WAS seven hours since I'd gone to bed, so I got up to sit to pee in the dark, since the bathroom light was STUPIDLY set up to turn on in the HALL as well as in the bathroom, and only by turning on the hopelessly wasteful heat-lamp was it possible to get light in the bathroom without lighting the bedroom, so I put out my flashlight for both of us to use to pee at night, and then STILL didn't record my dreams, and then woke again, dozed again, and then "finally" woke, recorded the time here, and started this total scramble which I'll have to proofread immediately afterward to recall my words, and stop now to pee again at 5:50, but from 8:35 to 5:35 it was an astounding NINE hours of sleep making up for my jet-lag, and maybe I'll even get ANOTHER nap in the almost-hour before our wakeup call at 7AM this morning. Then get up at 6:10AM, not wanting to waste more of the time in bed without sleeping, and shower with my flashlight, finding count THREE (one the duvet, two the bathroom-hall light-connection) against the Movenpick, which we unfortunately return to: the only source of soap is a plastic liquid-soap dispenser at the sink, which works OK, and in the tub (where I had to fumble and fumble before pulling the knob OUT to get the water to transfer from the tub to the shower) where the first time I tried to use it I PULLED IT OFF its tenuous plastic fitting, and was thankfully able to replace it easily. Open the door to sufficient light to dry myself and save my flashlight battery, and Ken is snoring away still, so I open the shade ever so slightly, just enough to see this screen, and record the rest of yesterday, proofread my lengthy dreams, and catch up to date now at 6:55AM, when I expect the phone to ring momentarily, enabling me to open the shade completely to enjoy the sunlight coming from the ALMOST CLEAR sky. GOT to brush my teeth, too, fuzzy from the chocolate sundae yesterday lunch? Start brushing my teeth when the phone buzzes almost exactly at 7AM. Ken's slept well and showers while I watch TV brushing my teeth thoroughly, and there's a dull thud and he's fallen. He moans and moans, I ask "Can I help?" and he says no, so I say "Call me if you need me," and he says "Thank you," and finally comes out to say he's slipped on the floor and hit RIGHT on the toilet where his disk is hurting most on his back, and that I'll have to carry his carryon down to the lobby, as well as putting out his bag at the door, as well as getting him juice, sweet rolls, and bacon from the buffet. Good breakfast with particularly juicy oranges, both orange and red, and lots of breads, though the omelet station was mostly vacant except for some eggs frying terminally in two pans. Lots of juice, since we were there 7:40-8:l5, and he keeps saying things are getting worse, and we're up on the mostly inoperable elevators and pack finally and I have to put this in my shoulder bag because there's no room for anything more in my blue bag, which had the LOCK snipped off in the US, which means I'll be looking for another as we "shop" on the tour. Now at 8:22 I'll be packing this up and going downstairs for the bus at 8:30, which lots of people seem to be assembling for already. NO double seats as we're on last! Cart HIS bag and MY bag the WHOLE LENGTH of the bus, to the back seat where the (thought he was Japanese, but he's) Malayan is slouched in the center of five seats, with his and his wife's baggage ALL OVER the other four seats. I say nothing, merely indicate that this is the only place that's left for us to sit---and Susan calls from the front of the bus "But aren't there lots of seats up front?" and I reply tersely, "But we want to sit together." Throw his heavy case into the corner, and the wife takes pity and asks if we'd like to sit in HER double seats, and I plump by the window since he's obviously not willing to slide across two seats. I'm particularly pissed by the two TINY oriental women, mother and daughter, taking two seats in front of us. Off at 8:32, and she launches into a long spiel about what has to be done, can't be done, should be done, may be done, and the only thing I write down is that it's 76 cents to a swiss franc. Drive and start film-roll #2, #1 and #5 and #6 of the not-yet-blooming rose garden, and #2, 3, and 4 of the panorama of Bern below. Bern named after the bear "first killed in hunt" which they KEEP in bear pit at the base of the hill. Green dome is Swiss parliament, which meets six times for three weeks, not REALLY central government, most done at LOCAL level of 23 cantons, such as schools, taxes, etc. On Aare River, and there are 3,024 communities which handle most of the politics. Good overview to 10:20, and I went down the hill through WONDERFUL bird-song to be nearer the river overlooking wonderful river-front dwellings with lawn, views, boats, and many of life's lovely amenities. Japanese couple, who were off to one side taking pictures, and I did NOT say "It's time to get back to the bus"---FUCK 'em, were VERY late back to bus. #7 bears at 10:30. Candle flame in urinal to "be put out." Leave 10:58. #? Parliament building at 11:11. To #18 in WONDERFUL downtown Bern to 11:48. Enjoy munster promenade views, and go around to the front of the house on Junkergasse which was some woman's home in the 1300's, which is now open to the public ONLY for four hours the first Saturday of January, April, July, and Sepember. Walk up the main street and look down a wonderful side street and take #20 of the Kruezgasse building, then a Schwittering machine, what look like GREAT restaurants with idle people luxuriously lunching next to the flower market, great shops, banks, and to hot bus (which can't keep air conditioning going because the bus must be STOPPED in the city when waiting) at 12:15, after not videoing dancing bears because I was taking a photo of the bell-striker on TOP! Hot and SUNNY, but when I look for my sunglasses later, I can't find them, so I must have lost them somhow! People SLOW. Idiotic Japanese (Malayan) wife "She gets lost" is lost, and husband suggests "Ten minutes," to which I say VERY loudly, "TEN MINUTES!" and he scoots out of bus to find her. She comes back on her own and he returns after about ten minutes, at 12:25, and I'm PISSED because we leave at 12:26 when we should have left at 12:15. Into Murten, pretty main street, but everyone goes to eat where they "make their own sandwiches," which I'm not interested in, so we wander up the street and try a few places but go to the Pizzeria Taverna and I have a good 16F menu of mushroon soup, beefsteak, ratatouille, and two lovely beers, while Ken has a mineral water (so as not to conflict with his pain medicine) and a Four Seasons pizza that I eat two slices of and he STILL leaves a lot of. Meet the group at 2PM to go to an aborted attempt at the walls ("They had more entrances last year," Susan explained lamely), then jump in not-rain to take photos and go out onto a terrace from a corner and see fabulous IRIS as #28 at 2:19. Tour to Panorama over lake and plain french church inside. Back to bus at 2:45, still holding off rain, and pretty drive down to Ouchy, but then HEAVY rain and an IMPOSSIBLE (due to misparked cars, Mikhail said) drive to hotel Alpha Palmiere in Lausanne at 4:30, Susan FURIOUS, but to room 233 at 4:50, I typing a lot, then the bags come, I hoist his load onto a tabletop, and we go down for a "Gray Goose," says Ken of I thought MY invention of grapefruit juice and vodka, having two shots of vodka, feeling good, laughing when Ken calls Tony (from New Zealand, an entrepreneur and travel agent between Queenstown and Mt. Cook) TINY, and then sympathizing his putting his glasses down on the BAR when Tony put them on the BATH. We laugh a lot, I pay the bill with tip to the cute second waiter, hoping to pay back the first for getting Ken his desired three baggies for "different coinages" and we're back to room for me to finish this at 7:31, and then we're to the Bistro for dinner. CUTE waiter who reminds me of Edgardo takes care of us, and I don't care for the hot carrot soup when he told me it was cold, and the sweetbreads could have been crisper, and Ken's sabayon wih fruit was much better than my profiterolles, and the Johannisburg Sylvaner from Switzerland that Ken liked tasted to me like it was watered, BUT with the dreadlocked crotch who drank his coffee and MAYBE left only his tip without paying his bill, and the passersby on the street going up and down, were interesting enough. Ken wanted to stay in his room at 9:30, but I went to the 6th floor, found the doorway to the upper hill locked, went back down to the bottom and then climbed the hill, and another hill, and crossed a busy street, and climbed another hill with outdoor dining areas being closed, and climbed to a point where I could see lights from a cathedral or a castle in the distance, and tried to get there, up another road, around a corner, down stairs being upped by a cruiser in white pants and a helmet of hair, and I was afraid of getting lost in the town Susan called the most complicated in the world, "On three hills that i can never figure out how they're connected, and get lost" and I feared getting lost, so wearily retraced my steps on unscenic roads and down the hill to the hotel to get in at 10:30 with Ken complaining about maybe a FEVER, showing off his huge blue bruise, and I got into bed about 10:40 and slept til 1:11 when he was in the john for a long time, moaning, and I peed and got back into bed to lay until 1:23, then got to sleep and woke at 6:12 to shit and drink water, and then the phone rang at 6:41, Ken finally answering it to stop it.

TUESDAY, MAY 20: type to 6:55, weary and reluctant to shower, but I gotta!! Do, quickly, watering the floor and leaving the wet towel over the tub. Dress and put out two bags and at 7:20AM type this, readying for breakfast. Up from breakfast at 8:10AM, having watched all the ENORMOUS bags being laden into the bus by the porters and poor Mikhail, and enjoying the variety of people passing by: young sexy jeans, business people, old, young (but NO childen), and the breakfast was not quite as varied: I could have COLD chocolate with the cold milk and the Suchard powder, there were boiled eggs that didn't appeal to me, but not as much fruit, though still a variety of cheeses of which the brie was the tastiest, and nice tender croissants, and I had a raspberry yogurt and a good cherry preserve with two croissants. The group didn't seem overly communicative, so maybe I already communicated the idea that I'm not really very interesting in most of them, and Ken's odd conversational gambits may have put them off too. Ken observed that we always seem to be at the END of people having breakfast, and we were certainly the last on the bus yesterday, to our detriment of having to sit together, and Ken wouldn't even TRY to move his seat out into the aisle to give me more room, though I asked him to and intend to do so when I have to sit at the aisle, though it will be closer to the front and therefore a greater impediment to the people in the back than would have been had be extended when were were NEXT to the back row. Thank goodness Susan seemed to think it OK if the Malayan couple (who came out at 8:10AM with what SEEMED to be their large luggage, but then I remembered their LARGE bags out when I put ours out, and so their bags, heavier than mine, were merely their "store beneath the bus carryon," as oppoed to their "taken onto the bus as carryon." Can't think of anything more to say at 8:17, so maybe we'll go down and even leave early. Everyone on bus (we last) at 8:27, but couple two seats ahead (the sleepers) can't find their passports! But we go anyway? And later Susan gives her cock and bull story about "Didn't you motion to the driver that you'd found them?" and finally decide they can do it all by telephone and they'll mail it to the next stop (and in fact later it turns out it dropped out of his pocket and they found it in their room and will forward it. 9:35 sign: "Road along Lake Geneva is CLOSED!" which is where she wanted to take us, and the only other road is FULL of taffic. #31 promenade at Geneva bastion at 10:26 AM. Four figures of Reformation: Farrell, Calvin, Beze, and Knox. Behind: post tenebras lux, and it's surprisingly bright. Back in bus at 10:40. #32 jet d'eau at 10:56. 11:16 having wandered elegant streets, finding no john, RAINING, I get back in BUS to do puzzles until we leave at 12:15 for La Cote station, where the upper dining room is closed, for lunch at 12:37, told to leave at 1:15. Daily pasta, Polish(?!) pasta mostly macaroni and a BIT of sausage, good grapefruit juice, and a great 3F macadamia dulce de leche Movenpick ice cream. Leave 1:13 to cruise Lake Geneva to Montreux. #33 Henry Dunant docking at Chillon at 3:43. End of roll 2 around Chillon to 3:54. Roll 3, 4PM tour starts, good tour of LOTS of rooms and replaced stuff and slide-projected paintings in chapel to 5PM. To bus at 5:05, but off at 5:13 after waiting for the Malayan husband and the non-understanding Chinse man traveling alone. Great ride up mountainside to Villars to 5;50, told dinner at 7:15. We unpack a bit and go down for drinks from tall bright-eyed bartender who recommends a peach drink that's rather mild, and Ken has a strong Marguerita which he shouldn't even have because he's under heavy pain medication for his back. Finish about 7:05 and wander outside to pass time before getting back to wait in line for dining room to open, and when Susan and Mikhail take only table-for-two, I suggest the windows at a table for six, and David and his wife Estrella sit next to us and we have GREAT conversation during mediocre spaghetti, large salad served-ourselves with mustard dressing, then a chicken leg (which I'm glad I didn't order for lunch) with potatoes and bits of broccoli, and then a GOOD apple pie more like a tart tatin. Decent bottle of white wine for 37F, and upstairs about 9:20 to find that it's raining out. The mountains had come and gone in the fog and clouds, but the last view is of almost nothing, so I'm in when we decide which optional trips we want to take and I finish this by 9:45, few lights in the room, so I'll just get to the Times puzzles in bed. Read about Chillon til 10:25, when Ken goes to sleep and snores. I want to go to bed 10:35, but when I look for my night-pills I can't find them! Go through my dop kit twice, search my A&K bag, look over what I'd unpacked, but just can't find them. Despair about not having the pills for the rest of the trip. Take a shit and do more puzzle and get the vision of tucking the bottle into the side of my blue bag! With Ken snoring in the background, I rustle through more plastic and FIND them! Thank goodness! ALSO, in hunting through my dop kit, I find my SUNGLASSES, which I thought I'd permanently lost. GREAT. Get into bed at 11:04PM, not leaving even 8 hours before a 7AM wakeup which Ken said he entered into the telephone. Sleep quickly.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 21: Wake at 3:14AM to pee, then back to sleep and wake about 6:30AM and finally get up to pee again at 6:43AM. Ken's up, complaining about knocking his glasses and everything onto the floor off his table. His ineptitude is endless! He goes into the john while I open the curtains to find deep fog over everything outside and not a trace of sunlight. Pity! Get to type this, putting off the telephone at 7AM when it rings, and do this to 7:10AM. I repack, getting out fresh everything for the first time on the trip, and he lets me into the bathroom at 7:20, when I remark that we surely WON'T get to breakfast at 7:30 as he'd wished. Leave 7:37, getting to the LAST clean place-settings next to Christa and Veronica, charming women from Toronto, talking about immigration waiting-lines to the USA. Egg and two croissants and jam and two Suchard chocolates with hot milk this time, lots of salami, a bit of cheese, and VERY dry and uninteresting meusli. Back up at 8:10, by far the last out of the dining room, and brush teeth quickly and pack to get out at 8:20AM. #4 snow-pines above Villa at 8:22. Bus goes 8:31, up into SNOW across Col de la Croix, bit of view, and Col de Pillon and at 9:10 out INTO thick-falling snow on MAY 21. Into Gstaad 9:27, walking town main street 15 minutes, and we leave at 10:45. #5 Gstaad at 10AM. #7 and 8 pine on Gstaad Coop roof, raining all the while. #9 electric train at 10:42 for Steve Hayes. Malayan husband late, leave 10:48. Wildflowers! ALL over! Gruyere 11:40, go at 1:15. I bitch about short time, particularly on seeing Giger (pronounced GHEE-grr), and hardly anyone supports me! She relents to 1:30, so Ken and I, followed by Dave, rush to castle at 12, GREAT rooms and decor and Lancet tapestries and "Corot" landscapes and family portraits, and #11 Shield of Mars. Leave castle 12:21, definitely rushing, and to GREAT, HUGE, EROTIC Giger museum, 7F for seniors to enter, 15F for book, to 12:45, videoing a LOT, and I hope it comes out. To Ramparts for PLAIN (and not very tasty) Gruyere sandwich with a minimum of mustard on one slice of good bread and butter on another, beer, and undercooked rosti, huge, but we finish it, for 44 with an added chocolate Caotina for 4F to 1:29. #13 end of colorful-kid parade from Gruyere 1:31. Bus leaves 1:36. 2:03 begin trip up Col des Mosses, #14 & 15 stop in Les Mosses 2:25, clear in spots, GREAT views from road, winding, and #17 church at 2:41. Stop at Col de la Croix 3:25-3:37, video and photos, and hotel 3:50 to go out with Ken to buy a 225F gilet for his heights, and walk back to lookout point past the hotel, but too cloudy, and back to hotel at 4:35, sitting on the porch with the shade down, jacket and shoes off, listening to the birds, the door being slid open next door, Ken clearing his throat inside, and worker rumbling in the yard and restaurant. Finish this at 5PM and start reading more of Giger's introduction by, of all people, Timothy Leary. Then my eyes keep closing, I move inside because it's too cold outside, and because Ken's snoring I feel tired too, so I lie down about 5:30, but he insists I should come down with him at 6 to pay for the excursions we've decided on, but when I seem to be reluctant to move, he suggests that he pay for the ones we KNOW we want, and then I can pay for the two "on approval" if needed, and I say that sounds just fine. He comes back at 6:10 to say that he made the line just before it got too big. Great. Then he wants to go down for our drinks before dinner, so I reluctantly get up and put my shoes on and we go down about 6:30 for my large beer (which was something like 6.5F) and his Le Vin Chaud, for which he actually wrangled a spare card away from the cute waiter, slightly less cute because of a new pair of glasses, and then we went in to dinner at 7PM to sit at a table to which he quickly invites Tony, and then Veronica and Christa join us, and THEY invite Bob, the single traveler with the enormous red nose, and I think it's going to be a disaster, but with Tony's measured tones, learned, we learn, from the BBC, and Christa's and Veronica's intelligence and wit, the dinner of quiche, salad, and barbecued pork on the spit which I go over to investigate, while I finish the large beer, have half of Ken's half-bottle of white wine, and then a dessert glass of Muscat (I'm told that the word Muscatel just doesn't do it anymore?) with the---WAS it creme brulee? I feel good, so that when we go to the room at 8:45 after I pay the 107F for the bar bill, I say I want to walk to the point where the three Indians chased us off before, and he's not going, so I put on my jacket and go out, few cars or people, and I'm alone on the point from 9-9:45, even silently chasing away two couples who came up, whispered behind me, and then left silently. The sky was still bright, and through the skein of old contrails, a new one spun its way across the powder of sky and clouds, at times glinting, disquietingly like the glitters the space shuttle manifested when it was breaking up in the films of its fiery destruction, but the brief contrail continued, bright in the not-yet-for-it-to-set sun, while the horizon darkened and the lights came on below and the black and white cat came and went, and the cold increased, but never to the point that I could see my breath, and the weird symphony of cowbells, which at first I thought MUST be a recording, or a disco, or at least a CD of Balinese gamelon, continued, ebbing and flowing but never stopping as I thought it would when the herds were finally sequestered and quiescent for the night, but the dongs and clings and plinks and soft clangs continued almost unabated while the clouds refused to release the mountain tops to my vision, though the area to the far west, where what I had thought were the Dents du Midi turned on the map into the Dents de Morcles, and the solider white of the higher, snowier, probably glaciated mountains remained visible in the far distance, and the cars passed and the birds continued singing, and the flowers continued healthily while my breath still didn't show, until I put up the hood and my thigh-tops got cold and I finally got up and made my way back to the hotel without having encountered the love of my life, or the reason for my existence, though I did a very complete Actualism session down to the Ground of All Being, and for the dozenth time contemplated the impossibility that the globe on which these mountains rested was spinning through space at some 600 miles per SECOND, about which we were mercifully oblivious, and then recalled that I hadn't completely recharged my battery, so that when I returned I got the socket back from Ken, in his shorts complaining about the increasing cold in the room, and I put on the battery and peed while he insisted on coming in for a sleeping pill, though he's still awake now as I finish this at 10:07, ready for more than 8 hours sleep before the wakeup call at 7AM tomorrow, remembering to take out my sweater for the colder day tomorrow. Pack somewhat to 10:22, Ken insisting on bed, and I toss for a bit, then sleep, and wake for a moment at 11:45PM.

THURSDAY, MAY 22: Pee at 3:05. Dreams forgotten. Wake at 6:04, doze more, then hear the phone ring and ring and turn to see that Ken's in the bathroom already, so I'm up to answer it and type this to 7:06, ready to pack. Shower BRIEFLY to 7:23, STILL not enough time left! Dress quickly and finish my blue bag and put both bags out at 7:30, then down to breakfast, again the last, sitting at the last settings at the table with red-nose, non-English (who I guess have been paired), and Veronica and Christa, charming as ever. Ken takes part of my hot milk for his still-not-strong coffee which Veronica says is VERY strong, and I don't bother with an egg, just have rather plain cornflakes which absorb too much milk, two cups of chocolate, two croissants, and salami and a bit of ham and the last of the gruyere, though they do put out a tiny bit more. Susan, looking rather groggy, says "Hm, they seem to need refills." And I say "They ALWAYS need refills." Last to leave except for the sad-alone blonde and her weak-on-his feet husband, and that waiter starts clearing my table before I've finished. Ken went up early to try to shit, having said that a couple of times already. I get up at 8:02 and type this with the door open to the fresh air outside counteracting the fug of the room. Birds still chirping gloriously. Start packing my A&K bag at 8:07. Pack all away by 8:13, and down at 8:17 and FIRST on bus. 9:25 to Martigny amphitheater, mostly reconstructed, and what was done was only to about half size, but the number of coins they found, which were thrown in for their favorite gladiator, were astounding. Look at the "old road" and I'm just sorry that we can't see the "Picasso to Barcelo" exhibit with the Dalis, nor other exhibits advertised in the town. #25 flowers and outside of noninteresting amphitheater at 9:35. Leave at 9:45, being warned away from the "Turkish, or Italian, style johns." Off for the toilets in Relais St. Bernard at 9:55. Video displays in the floor talked about St. Maurice from 500AD onward, home to many archives, most of which have been put onto the Internet at www.aasm.ch, which should be interesting. Get a 4.9F grapefruit juice which is very refreshing, and look at lots of other nicely displayed food and drink. Leave 10:29. #26 and 27 Sion Castle at 10:50. This is the dryest (only 60 cm of rain per year, though it's raining lightly most of the day) and hottest (97° Fahrenheit when Susan was here last time, though it's barely 50°, I would guess, now) place in Switzerland. Martigny route was blocked by an open-air market, Sion route was clogged by an accident, Geneva entry was closed for roadwork or political reasons. Off in Sion (after going around most of the town) at 11:05, we're leaving at 1:15, and then CARS occupy all the BUS parking spaces. #28 of park sculpture in Sion park at 11:13. FUNERAL fills cathedral so we can't see THAT. #29 door in Sion (at the Town Hall) at 11:27. Supersaxo house anteroom on video 11:46-11:55, closed at 12, so maybe it would have been closed if we'd SEEN the cathedral. Enter Pinte Contheysanne restaurant to a full house and only one guy serving everyone, but order a good soft quiche and a nicely-dressed salad for 15F and a half-liter of Ermitage for 16.5F which is pretty good. Dash out at 12:37 and of course Susan didn't wait for me at the corner at 12:30 for the walk up to the Chateaux. RUSH up road, feeling MOST winded on trip so far, but still want to see everything. Interesting shops, all with "Chateau" in the title, so I figure I'm going in the right direction. Choose the Tourbillon Chateau because it looks the closer and the more ornate, and take #31 and 32 from the way up at 12:47. See the group coming down, dash to basilica, and it's closed for remodeling of both the organ and the altar area, so the jube is completely closed off. Look at the non-view in the clouds off to the side, see others touring the place, glance into the Museum to see an entry-charge in a very modernistic cadre, and decide to take a shortcut which turns out to go down a DIFFERENT way, and I panic for a moment thinking that I might be lost, but get to a few squares I hadn't seen before, then rejoin the main street and go down to the Cathedral, which I enter to find the group gathered before the altar. It's quite dark, so I video lots of chapels, side altars, stained glass, baptismal fonts, and organ lofts, and get a quick view of the crypt and the front chapel and exit to find them just about out of sight at the bus-site, one of the last ones on, Ken at the window, and the bus goes at 1:19PM. Spectacular drive past deep river-filled chasms, one enormous sweep of avalanche, a few towns, and lots of signs for the upcoming Tasch. Onto minibus in Tasch at 2:45, the first one out, lugging BOTH of Ken's and my carryons around my neck, and get off at the transfer station to be finessed out of the first shuttle, but push in front of the ugly couple, who obviously don't like it, but they have to pile their stuff on top of OUR stuff, but they're so fat that they can't get three on their side, much to the disgust of the driver. But we're off on a VERY short trip to the Alpen-Resort Hotel Zermatt, and get into lobby to find there's a 4:15 walk tour. Get to hotel at 3:08, and find it's 7PM dinner. Up to room 202 AFTER carrying bags up to the THIRD floor but finding NO sign for 201-204, and dump the bags and go back down two flights to complain about the location of 202, and back up to open door with no numbers and find Ken inside saying "Well, they had directional numbers from the elevator." Inside to shit, at last, and Ken tries while I do this, and then the bags come and he directs me to put his on the radiator and I finish this at 3:49PM. We look at possible restaurants on various maps of Zermatt, none very good, and then realize it's 4:14PM and we have to go downstairs for the walking tour. Leave at 4:19, but we're a mass of people who attract everyone's attention, get in the way of passing traffic (a surprising amount of it for a non-traffic town!), and get another inadequate map from Bucherer. #35 English Church at 4:42 up a wonderful valley-view. Ken goes back to the room and I continue up the road, hoping that the Matterhorn will clear, looking at all the hotels which might not have any view of Cervin at all, and get to a bridge across the river at Winkelmattenweg, right at the takeoff point for the Kleine Matterhorn tomorrow, and I cross th river and go down Schluhmattstrasse to the Kirchegasse, where I take #36 climbers' graves at 5:28. At 5:37 I give up trying to get back to the hotel and see the WC sign at the Banhof and go downstairs and have a big gassy shit! Up to the room for Ken lying down, having taken a laxative that hasn't worked yet, and I go out on the porch to look at the clouds moving around the Matterhorn, and discern a y-shaped snow-area, and then a set of diagonal cliffs to the right of it, but still the top is uncertain under shifting clouds. Finally at 6:15 Ken says we should go down for a drink, and I choose an Alexander and he a Caprinha, both for 13F, or $10, and then she says no limes and he says lemon is OK, and mine isn't that good, and neither is his, but then it's time for dinner and we again sit with Veronica and Christa, Ken and I get up FIRST for the buffet, and everyone then follows us, and it's carrots and peppers and dried ham and dried beef and a loaf of paté and kidney beans and red beets and tomatoes and olives (mushy, strange) and lettuce, and even a few for seconds when everyone follows us, and then I have the John Dory while all others have the raclet, silly potatoes separate from what Ken thinks is half gruyere and half Emmenthal, and he even has seconds, which I have some of, and then the fruit cup doesn't have whipped cream so everyone has the apricot sorbet with "Abricotine," good, and Ken goes up to try to shit again, and I talk for awhile and then go up about 8:50PM, Matterhorn completely in clouds, and finish this. Oh, Susan announces that the guy KNEW that the top of the Kleine Matterhorn wasn't going, so we'd only go up halfway, and she didn't accept that and said we'd do the Gornergrat instead, which I reluctantly agreed with since there was no other choice. She really has had a lot of BAD LUCK with this tour. Now 9PM and I'm actually tired enough to go to bed, maybe even to get up at 7AM and try the multiple pools in the other building, just to use my bathing suit and do something different. Not even really dark out yet, but I'm tired enough to go to sleep. When Ken announces he's going to have a bath or shower, I determine to watch TV and brush my teeth! Start at 9:10PM, but then Ken can't make the cold water work, and asks me about it, and I almost freak and shout at him, but I just say I don't know and he calls someone up from the office who teaches him that the green turns ON the water and the red controls the temperature of the water. I watch some German-dubbed film with Cameron Diaz, "the lips" [Julia Roberts], and the gay guy who had a kid with Madonna---how's THAT for memory---until 9:35, when he starts clearing his throat, so I put off the TV, finish this, and prepare for BED with MY EARPLUGS IN! Pee again and get to bed about 9:40PM, prepared for a LONG, REFRESHING sleep!

FRIDAY, MAY 23: Wake and pee at 2:18, sitting down and not shitting, thank goodness, since last night I said to Ken, "You need a laxative and I might need to take an Imodium!" Open the door and there's this ghostly naked figure waving at me! I start, then say "That's NOT the way to do it," to Ken, who'd gotten up for the john while I was in it, and looked SO much like an enormous baby with his pudgy body and fat legs and bulbous head (too bad he doesn't have the oversized eyes and arresting cutenes of a baby!) trying not to surprise me as I come out in the darkness. He COULD have called my name or tapped on the door, however, to warn me of his presence, or even had the LIGHT on as I came out, I thought, as I wondered how I would have done it so as not to surprise him. Peeked through the curtains to see how the sky was doing, and the Matterhorn was still obscure. No trouble getting back to sleep, but then I woke at 8:06AM, aghast at the DREAM that I had, and looked out the window at 8:07 to see MOST of the Matterhorn visible, EXCEPT for the very top, and the sky MOSTLY blue, a relief from the clouds and rain since the beginning of this trip! Now, on the john at 6:15, I can talk of the DREAM: I'm riding on a subway in some outer borough of Queens or Brooklyn, on a route that I'd been on before and LEARNED that I had to STAY on this train (which is now rather more like a bus) until I rounded a particular crescent-shaped street with a certain configuration of buildings, maybe a school, which I knew meant I was getting close to a particular transit HUB in which I could make a simple two-train transfer that would get me to Borough Hall, close enough to home to walk. But, with a mysterious blank space, I got off the train BEFORE I should have, in a large train interchange, and I looked at the labels on some nearby platforms and KNEW they wouldn't help me, and then heard about an M leaving from a distant platform, and thought "The M stops at Court Street in the N and R station, so I could TAKE that," and I race up and down a few levels trying to find its platform (rather like racing up the hill yesterday to catch up with the group going to the chateaux), but see a train just leaving, and I seem to remember that the M has a VERY limited time in which it runs to my station, and I think I'm past that time, but I need to find a dispatcher who can tell me what train leaves when for someplace I know, or at least make a two-train transfer. As I'm moving up and down stairs, I DEFINITELY think to myself, "And, unfortunately, I know this isn't a DREAM, because I know what happened before I got here, and why, and I don't have anything that I have to get to at a particular time, so I have to DEAL with this beccause it IS real life and not a dream." But when I look around I realize that I've somehow gone out an exit and have to repay my subway token before even getting into the train COMPLEX to find more information. Don't even THINK of looking at a subway map, though there isn't any in evidence nearby. Go around a few doorways looking for the distinctive brick framework which would indicate the building-complex I'm looking for, and find some ways blocked, some locked, some barred by yellow construction tape, and somehow stumble into an office with people sitting at windows, and go to one window and say I'm sorry but I'm lost and just looking for SUBWAY information, and she smilingly refers me to a helpful-looking man at a desk, and he starts poring through books, even making a telephone call that doesn't answer anything, and has a sort of department-store catalog before him that's sectioned by neighborhoods, or economic classes, that features a small subway ROUTE-map as an inset in its pages, and this one doesn't work, and that one doesn't work, but he's still looking and hopes to find my answer. Once before, walking on the streets outside when I'd somehow "left the building," like Elvis, I looked at the passing traffic to VERIFY that there weren't taxis on these streets, and anyway the taxi fare, evn without the promised increase, would be about $40 and it wasn't worth that just to get to my doorway, though I was almost tired enough to find the thought tempting. But I waited and waited for the right answer in the dream long enough that it finally just faded and I was lying in my bed in Zermatt looking at the dawn-light on the ceiling from the small gap at the top of the curtains closed over the windows, and realized, despite my prior thought, that it WAS a dream, and I REALLY had to record it, though I was in danger of finishing File 2, and thus would have OVER a quarter of the files finished when the trip wasn't QUITE a quarter over, though this IS the SEVENTH day of the trip, though not counting the first Saturday, and today, it would only be FIVE out of the 24-day trip, so not QUITE a quarter. Now 6:29AM and I'm ready to leave the john and look out the window AGAIN to check on the status of Matterhorn visibility, maybe even to VIDEO it in case it disappears as the day goes ON! Stop now at 6:30, having slept ALMOST 9 hours. Now at 7:09 I've finished a luxurious shower, knowing how to work the knob, and wash my hair and use the Dove cream for soap, which leaves me with a film that might be good against this dryness at altitude that caused me to find my in-flight bag this morning and liberally apply Vicks to my lips and inner nose. No real ventilation in the bathroom, so I have to use the face towel to wipe the mirror, and still feel damp after my underarm deodorant, choosing to forgo my crotch powder, so I sit naked on the throne, Ken still blinkered and probably earplugged in bed, and I'm inclined to dress and just sit on the porch watching the mountain until we leave for breakfast and the tour at 9:30. Now 7:12AM. 7:48: Look through the Weekend book on the john, not worth keeping. Go onto the porch to see a reflecting glint on the near crest, and when I get my binoculars the glint is replaced by a tiny dot of red, so undoubtedly I've seen a climber on the mountain. The Y-slide and parallel cliffs are MUCH below the summit, which actually peaks cloudily through the mist for a moment and then vanishes. My fantasy of swimming this morning is gone, but I WOULD love for Ken to get finished with shaving and shaking out pills and running water and coughing and clearing his throat and complaining about the blood he's left on his sheets from his "rectal bleeding" despite the pants he wore specifically to thwart staining the sheets, and I refrain from looking at it for fear the vision will remain with me beyond the time I might wish it. Debated going down to breakfast by myself, but then thought of having to sit at a table with no one to fend off conversation was too much for me, though now at 7:51 I'm really desperate to get started with SOMETHING as he closes the door to the toilet! 7:55: had moments of GREAT panic when I COULD NOT find my wallet: searched both bags, the bag I'd put out beneath the counter, my pants, other bags, and moved things a number of times to finally find it under my blue bag sitting on the top of the counter. Awful thoughts of someone coming into the room last night and TAKING it were rife. Ken wanders around undressed, and I've GOT to get out to the porch at 7:57! [From notebook:] Up 6:38 for #37 of Matterhorn, and change to roll 4. Down to ask if anyne has larger binoculars, but they don't. Maybe the early morning saw MOST of the top. Go downstairs to the fitness center: surreal: no one there, lights go on automatically, tennis court enormous and totally underground, swimming pool dark with a LOW roof, like swimming in a cave. I left shoes outside, took a shit with the YELLOW wiping that usually means diarrhea---maybe I'm drinking too much milk? They have a light-room, maybe a type of shower, that gives two alternatives: Fresh and Tropical; a solarium with a tanning bed both above and below, a "Dampfbad" with plastic seats and a drain-floor, maybe a communal shower? and a sauna with open controls, but the hockey game is 1F, the tanning bed is 5F, but ping-pong and scrabble are free. Back to the room, Ken not ready, red dots on Matterhorn appear to be moving DOWN. No one, including the desk, has more powrful binoculars. Up to finish this at 9:20 and we're finally off for the day. Get gloves and scarf and change SHOES and gather at 9:30 for the 10AM rack-and-pinion train to Gornergrat. Times down at X:19 and X:43. Short walk to station to 9:45 and into train at 9:50 in backward-facing Matterhorn-side seat: perfect! J.C. and Song join us: he's a radiation oncologist and she's a ????? They came from Korea in 1973, already married, and he punched me on the leg with a laugh when I said "You were married at 5?" Up through larches and great views over the mountains around Zermatt, including the Mattrhorn, and I take picture after picture, happy to have a good day at last. Up at 10:45, and take a long time to gather for the 20F photo, me in the top corner away from Ken, until 10:55. Go up behind the Kulmhotel Gornergrat, very much like I remember, except the old-fashioned elegant dining room has been changed into a cavernous serve-yourself cafeteria. Great views over Monte Rosa, and finally get a view of the second map-standard which shows that the perfect white pyramid "way to the right" of the Matterhorn (4482) is the Weisshorn at 4512, and to the left of that, in many of my slides (including one around #17), is Zinalrothorn at 4223, and NEXT to the Matterhorn on the right is Dent Blanche (which I couldn't figure out from one map which said Dt. Blanche) at 4364. Walk VERY gingerly, mostly on rocks which, though wet, are more stable underfoot than the mushy snow that seems very slippery. Ken hasn't come up, and when I finally have enough and figure to find him before he goes down at 12:19, I look through everyone on the porch, then inside to find him, with Susan, having a Jager tea with rum, which sounds good, so I get goulash soup, good, for 9.5F and a rum tea, with Ceylon tea, quite strong and flavorful, for 6F, and go back for a free glass of water. Ken leaves and I leave Tony with his soup of the day, vegetable, at 12:13 and climb BACK to my favorite seat, this time with very few young men around, though over time a few couples come to sit quietly behind me and tolerate my getting up and changing positions when I want to get better views of the antics of the marmots below. Start at 12:33 and get just engrossed: #18 two marmots at 1:33PM, and lots of videos, lots of contented staring through sunglasses or binoculars at glaciers, blue lakes, the Monte Rosa hut, outside which I THINK I see tiny dots of people, but though I keep checking the Matterhorn, I never see that climber-dot of red again. Wonderfully clear sky, great peace without Ken complaining at my side, even the rock is comfortable though at times I find myself slouching and force myself to sit upright. Start down at 2PM, take a shit at 2:06, still diarrhea yellow, and marvel about the marmots, birds, skiers, helicopters, ski-lifts, mountain huts, glaciers, people (not many sexy ones, sadly), sights, and it's GOOD and warm in the sun. Appear to be two trains leaving at 2:19, and I'm in one at 2:15 which he says is leaving next, and it does leave first at 2:16. Take photo after photo of wonderfully bright mountains and clear fields below, through #28 on way down to 2:58. To room at 3:08, Ken out. Take last of 10.5 minute videotape in the room and battery starts blinking! Lose ONE glove?? Go to pool at 3:27, ignoring the girl with watery boobs and the guy with nice tits and hairy legs and a floppy black bathing suit, and after floating while they were there, I went to where they were enjoying the water-blowers, and push the white buttons to turn them on, and then other buttons produce more widespread blowers, and one in the corner makes a real ORGY of blasts of water, including ones obviously intended as douches. Pause now at 6:31 to shit, AGAIN, to 6:41, spots of blood still, even after my swim, though STILL not frequent enough to risk taking Imodium. Then, magically, the jacuzzi is on, and I enjoy that, too, even though I catch sight of my fat, gray, bobbing head in the mirror across the hall. Have enough of that, and see what the Dampfbad is like, and it turns out to be a steam-room, though at a relatively low temperature. Then try the sauna, and as the lights go on the sauna was already heated (though I didn't believe the thermometer which showed a Fahrenheit temperature over 200° and a Centigrade only about 5° short of boiling!), with VERY new-Age music playing, featuring birdcalls, and the next selection was in the night with crickets, and the next was more birds, all quite soporific, so I lay down and idly watched the hourglass trickle away more than 15 minutes, which I figured was enough---oh, forgot the shower after the pool (thankfully, the guy took my bunched up towel at the edge of the pool, but a folded towel was still there), with that Dove cream soap, and my new swimming suit was weirdly loose in the outside material. Also tried the Tropic and Fresh, which turned out to be cold showers with the ceiling lights changing color accordingly (red and warm hues for Tropic, blue and cold hues for Fresh, but both too cold), which reminds me that at one point the lights came on in an adjoining room AND the "star lights" came on in the swimming pool roof, odd since the roof was SO low that I couldn't stand upright on the edge of the pool before going down the ladder. Laughed at the sign, in English, saying "Don't play with the balls." Almost dried out in the sauna, but felt vaguely overheated so I got a "Facts" magazine and leafed through it while I came to room temperature, then wrappd my towel around me, slipped into my shoes, and made my way back unseen except for the surprised Japanese husband who was coming into the annex as I passed by, and the rather shocked women behind the reception desk who said that the key for 202 had been taken. Back to the room at 5, take #29 of the Matterhorn at 5:05PM which Ken said "looked like marble," and when I look out now at 6:52 the top is beginning to be wreathed in cloud. Put on clothes except for a shirt, and Ken said the temperature here today was 77°, and Lugano tomorrow is supposed to be the same! Wonderful! Read Ken's Tribune and work the puzzles to 6:10. Finish filling up File 2 at 6:16 and move to File 3, which is about perfect: 1/4 the trip for 1/4 the files. Ken's lying down, as usual, having finished the free bottle of water which I didn't want any of because I overdosed with the free orange juice in the fitness center, which had two women, and very pretty ones, sunning themselves on lounges outside, but when I passed at the end not only THEY, but the LOUNGES, were gone. Now 6:55 and can't think of much else to say, except that today was a WELCOME break from rain and lack of visibility---and I wonder if the too-frequent skipping of letters, mostly vowels, mayn't be a sign that the batteries in this thing are going. Good thing we're in civilization where I could be sure of replacing them. Ken said earlier, when he heard I had no more than the soup for lunch, that we COULD go to the restaurant he'd reserved in by 7, and then said we should pay our bar bill before we go, so I guess now at 6:58 it's time enough to quit and start the evening. Pay the bill downstairs of 55F, then walk across the river to the Jeraldine Restaurant, through an elegant lobby, up a marble staircase to a beautifully wooded room where we get a choice corner table where I have to take most of my plates from the bosomy waitress. We don't want the 85F menu of the day, and our whitefish mousse amuse bouche is indicative of a good place. I have the mini vol au vent of veal sweetbreads and oyster mushrooms with an intense delicious sauce, while Ken has the natural and smoked salmon, very good. He picks a 58F bottle of wine that's no great shakes and that the waitress has constantly to be reminded to pour. The Klimt presentation plates, so labeled on the bottom, are impressive, which is good, since they remain to the very end. Ken is sadly disappointed with his red snapper, and he doesn't like my thick and chewy veal escalope, but the sauce, with a replacement cruet, is good, and the rostis, well-cooked as requested, are the sensation of the meal. Finish at 9:35 and I get directions to the old-house street, and it's VERY impressive, with a few having their lights on. Back to the room at 9:55 to pee, get Ken's lectures on the Villa Favorita and Lugano, and undress and get to bed at 10:27. Lay a bit under the duvet but it's just TOO hot, so I struggle in the dark to remove the cover and throw the core onto the floor, then get to sleep.

SATURDAY, MAY 24: 3:12 up to pee to 3:17, still FULL. Close the curtains tightly before going back to bed and sleep. Wake about 6:15 with a curious dream about Algernnon Blackwood, of all people, who was describing, either in person to me or in a magazine article, or to me who was WRITING a magazine article, about a particular story in which someone's "mesmerizing gaze" played a most important part, and it turned out to have been based on a real-life occurrence, and when he was casting about for a way to describe it, he decided on the "heroic monosyllable" form, which also had the benefit of "being easily understandable." I had a definite vision of the print in a New Yorker-type column of the last part of his narrative. While I was typing the above line, another entire dream returned to my memory: I was sorting through books in my apartment, and many of them had been put into blank storage for vidotapes which came in numbers of two, four, six, and eight, so that various series of books were stored in the appropriate-capacity containers. But some of the books I could definitely throw out, along with their now-obsolete containers, and I could actually see the possibility (to show how far the reality of a dream can deviate from the reality of reality) of condensing my book collecvtion from three rather disparate shelves to TWO condensed shelves in perfect order, but I recall thinking that I really didn't WANT to throw out "Totor et Tristan" because of the memories it brought back of my learning to read---somehow it wasn't in French in the dream---and to verify that thought I went back to the first few chapters, consciously ignoring the preface which I wouldn't have read as a kid, and enjoyed re-reading the phrases that taught me various new words, and again I could very clearly SEE the layout of the page, with "framing comments" in smaller print around the simple-sentence learning phrase in larger, bolder print. Lay a bit, thinking of the telephone RIGHT at my ear which would ring at 6:30, so at 6:26 I got up and shit a bit, not that pasty-yellow color that troubled me before, and washed my fface (not having to shower because of my swimming-pool shower yesterday afternoon), and put on the bed light much to Ken's dismay, and I said "They're late for the wake-up call, it's 6:36AM," and he grimly observed that the wakeup call was to be 6:45. But then he got up and started his cleaning while I typed this by the telephone, and observed to him at 6:49AM that my prophecy that they didn't phone on time had come TRUE. "I didn't know you were a prophet," he said, my clearly not understanding some joke he was trying to make. And he said that the baggage pickup was 7:30, not 7 as I'd thought, but I figured I got a quicker start on a day in which I don't feel that energetic. Now 6:52 and they haven't rung YET. Could it have been 7? Phone finally rings, twice yet, with recorded music, at 6:54 and 6:57. Pack quickly and fairly easily, not requiring Ken for the "end hold," but keep reminding myself that I have to buy a LOCK for it. Bags out at 7:12, and I put on a non-flannel shirt for what I hope is the WARMER part of the trip. Ready for breakfast. Down at 7:22, which may have gotten us there even BEFORE they said breakfast was to start at 7:30, so we saw a FULL water-heated container of scrambled eggs and bacon for the first time, and the jams were un-messed-up and the juices were all uniformly full. Ken started sitting on the outside of a table for 6 with the two women on one side, but then he sort of realized he'd be keeping the INNER seat from any use, so we moved to an empty table for four in the middle of the room, and then much later observed that everyone seemed to be avoiding us, to which my response was a smirk and a contented sigh, but I have the feeling he was NOT content with that situation, though I suspect (nay, HOPE) that the fault is to a large part HIS in that all he does is talk about his various ailments, as most of his interaction with people is to respond to their solicitous question "How's your back today?" But I was VERY aware that WE weren't talking and no one was talking to US, and at one point he said to me "Why are you looking so serious?" to which I responded in two ways "Would you prefer to see me sitting here tittering?" and "That's a typical pickup line in a bar," to which he replied "It's been a lng time since I've used a pickup line in a bar," and I came back with "It's been a long time since I've HEARD a pickup line in a bar." And then we lapsed into silence while he sipped his water and sipped his coffee and finished his roll and put his garbage in the large pot which I'd thought at first was primarily for eggshells but then seemed to be a general garbage container into which went the wrappers and containers and packaging around so many of the items at the table. I had NO milk for breakfast, hoping it would eliminate that need for a frequent toileting. Back to the room at 7:56, seeing that the departure time was indeed 8:30 as usual, and get to the room in time to see my bag conspicuous on the top of a golf cart being taken down to the bus, and to look at what Ken calls a "different light" on the Matterhorn, and I observed that the Y-snow and rightward streaks seemed much CLOSER to the top from this bottom-upward angle than they seemed yesterday from the vantage of Gornergrat which was much more of a straight-across view, when the Y and such looked MUCH lower down the peak. Typing now at 8:10 just to occupy time, having rooted out a toothpick from my A&K bag to get morsels from between my teeth, and Ken went downstairs to resolve whether the optional trip to Isola Bella might be when we PASSED Lake Maggiore on the WAY to Lugano, or AFTER we got to Lugano, but either way he seemed displeased with the "crowded day," though it didn't seem so bad to me. Decide to put this away now at 8:12, before he comes back. He blood-spotted his sheets AGAIN (as he did the NEXT day, too). Down at 8:18 and IMMEDIATELY into 7-passenger golfcart to bus transfer at 8:23. Off at 8:26 to 8:36, a longer ride than I remember. On bus 8:38, leaves 8:41. Each golfcart is 100,000SF! Off bus at Simplon Pass at 9:52, cool and windy and bus-packed, and #30 watch-eagle from distance at 7:58, and I walk down flower-strewn path to get closer at #31, and #32 Simplon top at 10:02AM, #33 intense violets (ultraviolets?) at 10:03, and #34 bellflowers at 10:10 and #35 blue/white/yellow flowers at 10:13. Lovely. MAGNIFICENT roads up and down. Off at 10:20, unstopped through Swiss exit and at 10:48 pass second, Italian, customs, where I THINK I heard Susan describe us as CANADIANS. VERY narrow gorge with sheer cliffs, clinging trees, many tunnels, almost-empty stream, grim-looking buildings in the grayness of what-they-say-is-fog-but-it-looks-like-smog-to-me-and-David. Out in Stresa at 11:41, told to be back at bus at shore at 2:45, and told we MUST be at Isola Bella at noon or we'll have to wait til 1:30 for tour, so we have to hurry. Long wait for boatman who says something about someone being his brother-in-law, and we might get in just after 12 anyway. To dock at 11:44, onto boat 11:50, leve 11;51, #36 Stresa, #37 Isola Bella at 11:52. Start roll 5. #1 Isola at 11:56, #2 11:57, arrive on island 11:58, to door at 12:01---and it's now open all day! Slit toilet, women use men's, Susan in at 12:06, but do we have a GUIDE? NO photos! Either 150 or 250 rooms, only 25 open to public and rest left for FAMILY who LIVE here for a few weeks each summer. Must be NICE! Tour 12:15-12:55, Patrizia rather ugly, with a rather ugly accent, but she DOES holler "Silence!" to a fuss-budget kid in the grottos. Magnificent rooms, especially central atrium which rivals Castle Howard, with doors "that family use" looking down from balconies, and some of the pieces: mosaic tabletops, a few of the larger paintings, are wonderful, but MOST paintings, and ESPECIALLY sculptures, are AWFUL, some little more than lumps of plaster. One room of stucco and paint copied entirely by the King of Belgium at the turn of last century. CAN photo gardens out windows, and Malayan does LOTS of inside photos surreptitiously. Down to gloomy grottos, archaeological remains, a fanastic black-coral fan, ugly stonework, and up a hanging spiral staircase to exit from tapestry-room, impressive, and gardens 12:57-1:30. ROSES. UGLY statues. Susan says there's almost NO ONE there. Photo lots, but sun is in wrong direction. White peacocks in tree at end unusual. Around side, HAVING to go through gift shop, and lovely flowers, good palm-room, greenhouse, and exits to souvenir shops at various places. They exit and I barely catch them at their exit, and we get to boat 1:41. To #19 in gardens, and onto boat 1:45. #20 leaving at 1:49. #21 landing at 1:54. To Bridget's at 2 for roast beef and guinness/harp for 27SF and two ice creams from across road, ONE cute guy passing with girl, for 6 Euros, which I got for 9SF from Bridget, with 20 euro-cents change. Ken's coconut and white chocolate (two scoops: he ALWAYS gets TWO of the SAME thing, maddening!) and my stracciatella and cherry good. Leave 2:47. Long boring ride on superhighway and then through town of Varese and stop at Porta Tresa at 4:32, and Estrella, stopping for TVA stamp at border, volunteers HER antibiotic eardrops and Ken is "Eternally grateful" and later asks if I heard that he was close to tears. Susan's back at 4;37, all pharmacies closed already. To town at 5:10 and drive around showing off the relations of various places to our hotel, to 5:20, and into room 122 at 5:30, both JC and David refusing Ken's treat of dinner, Estrella even saying: "We're staying away from you because we don't want to get sick ourselves," and Ken DOES say he's happy he doesn't seem to have infected me. Read "Isola Bella" til 6:30 and Ken gets his BAG, which wasn't labeled with a room number and he found sitting at the bottom of a flight of stairs which I refused to lug the luggage up. Finally a porter came and brought it into the room, but not onto the table-top. We walk, I suggest getting a drink not in the gloomy restaurant, but in some bright room overlooking the lake, and encounter the daughter and her Alzheimer mother, and I suggest trying the Hotel Splendid, and the doorman refers us to the desk clerk, who says we can certainly have a drink. Look into the side room and all the good window tables are taken, but I have the wit to look into the side room and there's NO ONE there! Heaven! Get the imaginative drink list and he has a Maitai and I have a Lago di Lugano, blue and tasty, and then he has an Ohio, of all things, and I had a brandy flip, not really very good. Enjoy the view so much that I suggest we look at a dinner menu, Ken agrees, and the fixed price is only 78SF! So we're next door, to another good table, where we have a not-so-great meal made much more interesting by a bareback woman with an old "Marlene Dietrich" voice with a younger woman with a "I'm so crushed I don't think I'll ever speak up for myself" voice, and when Ken finally asks what they're speaking, positive it wasn't the French I thought it was, they said IRANIAN! Wow. Through to 10:15PM and he doesn't want to walk, so I put everything away but the room-card and my driver's license and go out for a walk, crossing the non-busy street NOT at a pedestrian crossing, and finding few people until the middle of town, not very interesting, and find the public gardens that I'd thought were closed, and some of the paths are dark and at one point a bummy-looking guy comes out of a men's room and sort of looks at me, but other than that there's no cruising, except a passel of guys playing with a dog, attractive (guys, not dog). Walk to 11:34, and bed at 11:40.

SUNDAY, MAY 25: Pee at 4:20, after Ken, and wake at 7:58, shit at 8:03, and to bath for a shower at 8:26, and breakfast 8:46-9:20. Out at 9:52, buy 5F day-pass at 10AM, finding stairs and crosswalks before Ken even LOOKS for them. 10:30-11:25 at the Ethnographic Museum after walking and finding the Villa Favorita CLOSED for the WHOLE YEAR 2003 after our desk assured us it was open, and walk farther hoping that the GARDENS might be open, but find nothing, and continue, over Ken's protests, to a brown sign that points to the Ethnographic Museum, and it's well worth the visit, thankfully Ken having read that it was worth it: lots of penises, some paint-jobs much more intricate than anything at the Metropolitan's Rockefeller collection, and to wait for bus at 12:05. To the bottom of Monte Bre at 12:17. Sit on funicular to first stop at 12:35. #22 and 23 on top at 12:54, blessedly cooler. 26F inclusive lunch and funicular. Fat frank, salad, and fries to 1:40, not a good view because of the clouds, no possibility of seeing any mountains other than the closest. Lots of lizards, one the owner called Catherine! A 3dl beer is 4F, a 4dl beer is 5F, a liter is 11F, which would have been the better bargain had I known. Nothing to sit around for; walk up to the panoramic tower and it's closed. Look at the impressive house with a self-involved kid playing inside its fence, then go to the termiinal to pee and sit reading and comparing the three different maps of Lugano on offer, feelng tired and almost like doing nothing, and down 2:07-2:22 to middle stop, and the final ride, with the same obnoxious little girl and her vaguely sexy father with big feet and gloriously veined forearms riding both up and down with me. Eyes drooping shut. Bus 2:49-3:02 slow, with stop for the "schedule catchup" where the driver shuts off the bus and leaves for a longer or shorter time. Off the next stop and around the block to find the Museo Cantonal d'Arte, but the main exhibit is closed and only the east wing is open with minimal videos and prints and drawings by Jedlicka, punctuated by the incessant heel-clicks of the female attendant, and I glance at the stuff for sale, taking only from 3:05-3:20, then look at the interior of the San Rocco Church with a quick video; down to the lakeshore in the heat for #24 San Carlo of Four Fountains of Rome up close at 3:38. #26 paddle boat at 3:43. #27 fountain 3:45. #29 Castagnola from St. Lorenzo Cathedral at 4:07, where I took a video after perusing the best map and climbing some stairway to paradise (no, that's in the south) and doubling back for the facade-under-reconstruction cathedral, where the side altar was more impressive than the main altar. Down a long slanting road, down steps, debating urinating in all sorts of unsuitable places, then around to San Carlo on the Via Nassa, with the car exhibit still in full bloom but with nothing worth taking a picture of, and could find nothing interesting in San Carlo, either. Leave at 4:16 and continue to the end of Nassa for the Luini Chapel and video the frescoes to 4:27, again taking #30 and #31 of Castagnola, hoping to capture the look of the Villa Favorita from a distance, at 4:30. Walk down the block to buy a ticket for the Shiele for 6F, or was it 8F?, with an entry-time that I later used to see when I entered, and up the block again for the "reserved entrance" tickets, and when I put in my admission card to be punched, and she starts telling me how to use the elevator, I say "Prima: dove toiletti?" And she smiles and points down the stairs. Down to pee an enormous quantity with an enormous quality of relief, drink lots of cold water from the tap, and then go back to her to say "Now that I can hear you---?" And she directs me to the elevator that Ken said he was absolutely forbidden to use, and the stairs killed him, tired as he was from the walk in the suburbs. But I go up to 3 to find there's no exhibit there, but when I look down the stairs I find they're blocked just before 2, so I go back to the elevator as a man comes out who says something to me, and I just shrug and point to the stairs and use the elevator to get to floor 2, which was a good idea since that had the good paintings, starting with his early works, which were good to see before his more unpolished work on the first floor. At first glance, exiting the elevator, I thought they were displaying SLIDES of the paintings, since each specific-sized square on display glowed as if from within, but each had, seemingly, been reframed with absolutely no individuality, and then lit painstakingly within the exact dimensions of the paintings or drawings. Explanations only in Italian seemed to give a reason why that was done, but I couldn't decipher it. Fantastic brushwork, bright striking colors, exact framing outlines, sometimes dark bodies haloed with white on brown paper or canvas, all with his tortured faces and reddened nipples and genitalia, all sullen and reluctant to see goodness in anything, and lots of his previously-unknown-to-me Dead Cities beginnings, as well as some more traditional work when he was in the Academy at 17 and 18 before falling under the colorful and erotic influence of Klimt, who was "a friend." Shiele's friends seemed singularly handsome and erotic, even the businessman in a suit. Ken said he was forbidden to go in "the wrong direction," but I doubled back once or twice, and more to work around the two tour-guides in Italian and her entourages, and stopped for a bit in the romantically photographed videoshow that seemed more interested in photographic techniques than in his actual paintings. Many noted were NOT in the exhibit; only one of his charged male-female-nude pairings was on exhibit, with what one could take as a fat penis shaded against her thigh. Looked and looked, not too big a crowd, but though I was tempted to go back to the second floor, I really figured I'd had enough, so I went back for another pee and long drink of water, and saw that my in-ticket was marked 4:38 and I left at 5:35. To the hotel at 5:45, unpacking my heavy shoulder bag and resting and reading part of the Tribune and excusing myself for not "sympathizing" with his various conditions, but I retorted with "I'm NOT one to say, 'Oh, you poor thing,' but I DO, as you may remember (and he didn't) ask how you are and compliment you and encourage you with ANY positive results." Later, when he talked about his problems getting to Sheile, having mistaken the name of the villa the exhibit was in, I DID say "OH, POOR Ken," and he got the point. He said he'd reserved for dinner at 7 (since we were to be called at 6:30AM the next day) at Leopoldo on the hill, for which we'd have to call a cab, and we left at 6:45, he in his awful brown denims and blue jacket, me in my khaki outfit, and the taxi was incredibly luxurious, but with a minimum charge of 15F rather expensive, and he gave 2F tip, saying that anyone going to that restauraant shouldn't be cheap. Enter the palatial doorway, across the patio to the edge to see them setting up tables en plein air, and at 7 we were shown to our table and forbidden to BOTH look at the Lake, so I sat gotchwise during much of the meal. The fixed-price was 130 or somewhat, and we both decided on ala carte. A good amuse bouche of a tiny (tough for me, tender to him) breaded slice of rabbit breast on couscous, and we looked at the wines and I decided on a kir, and was rather nonplussed when I was served a (very tasty) kir royale (and at 18, I next got a "regular" which was only TEN). Also annoyed when we SAID we wanted tap water and they opened and poured a bottle of Evian---but blessedly they didn't charge us. A family with a baby sat down nearby and the baby started to make a fuss, but then it vanished---with the family. I later asked the waiter about it, who said "They probably decided to dine in their room," and Ken said "Even if they had TOLD them to leave, they wouldn't have told YOU." Ken's scampi and lobster-tail appetizer was good with a rich butter sauce, and my goose liver paté was rich with an unusual complementary pineapple confit. But my duck breast was ridiculously tough and underdone to be considered medium rare, and he didn't care for his curried fish dish at all. The white wine he had was no great shakes either, while my regular kir paled in comparison with the beginning royale. But his idea of ordering the whisky crepe with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce, which the waiter and maitre d' insisted had to be made INSIDE, since the flames couldn't be trusted outside, and which took a LONG time to come out, didn't work because he thought it was MUCH too sweet and overcooked, and though I didn't think the sauce tasted like whisky (thank goodness) but more like Cointreau or Grand Marnier, and I ate every bit of it, not bothering to finish his because I was quite full anyway. The final bill was a nice round 300F, and the taxi back was rather a cheat because he drove up with 11+F on the meter and ended up asking for 17+F, but when I gave him 100 and he gave me 83F back, I just left it alone, and coincidentally paid the same amount coming down that Ken paid going up. Down at 9, I read 9:15-10:30 and get to bed.

MONDAY, MAY 26: Dreams: MANY this morning: latest, in this strange new Dance Theater Workshop building, you can either be on one of five floors from the elevator, or you can be on an EXTENDED fifth floor, covering a large area where you have to walk to find someone. I'm returning to the elevator to go down and Kevin Bacon, older and plumper, comes out of a building and looks at me in a sexually intriguing way, and I think something may happen here. Before that, we were rehearsing for what may have been a revival of "Oklahoma," since the songs seem to have been already known, so that a review could depend only on HOW WELL a song was done, and we were all hoping for GREAT reviews which would launch our little semi-amateur company into the big leagues. Flocks of reviewers collected their cameras and fled to the phones to call in thir reviews after a particularly successful number, but I thought a meditative single sung by a not very talented older woman slowed things down, and though I realized it was part of the score, I thought it could have been cut anyway. Other details of this dream have been forgotten, as were the dreams from yesterday, some rather sexual, about some teasing ways to cum, but they're gone now. Finish this on the pot, having shit, at 6:27AM, ready to start this early day. When I go to wipe myself, it appears that I urinated over the top of the rim, so I wiped and wiped with toilet paper, finding more and more wet, and finally laid down my used towel and came out at 6:30 to find Ken awake and tell him what happened, saying that it was 6:30, and asked him how his sheet was, and he said much better, and then the phone rang which I picked up to hear a recorded "trente due," which announced 6:32AM, which it was. Typed until putting out the luggage at 7:05, then down to breakfast until 7:35, and continue typing. Pack rather furiously to 6:55, 299F left. Leave at 7:50. #32 INCOMPARABLE roses at 7:54. Off at 8:04. #33 and 34, Mesox Valley views to 8:59. End roll #5: Valley to 9:03, roll 6: #1 double waterfall at 9:05. To San Bernardino tunnel at 9:30, only ONE WAY for reconstruction 1998-2006! Actually in the tunnel 9:24-9:30, 6 min/6.6 km. Stop 9:32-10:03, I do puzzle, Ken's annoyed and goes to another table, but there was nothing to see outside. Julier Pass at 2284 meters from 11:32-11:58, #2 pass at 11:44, with flowers, and #3 backward at 11:47. Video of 4-5 DISTANT ibex or steinbucks, which I hope came out because I really couldn't see them through the video viewfinder, though I got a decent view of the huge horns with my binoculars. #4 and 5 of Silvaplana at 12:05, around beautiful lake. #6 distant hotel at Chamfer at 12:09. To St. Moritz at 12;15, leave for tour 12:29 after Susan takes those 13 NOT going on Bernina Pass tour at Hotel Monopol. Off bus in Pontrasena at 12:40, due back on bus at 1:55. Banhof Restaurant lunch of rosti with egg and bacon and RED Veltliner, later told that we thought we were getting GRUNER Veltliner, but there was another kind! 66F not bad, to 1:45, warmish, onto train at 2, train off at 2:12. #10 Piz Bernina at 2:32. Interesting, but not great, trip. Off at 3:37. Back onto bus at 3:45, almost more interesting ride back on BUS, sweeping grandly around the narrow curves, and get told we're in room #112, dinner is at 7, wakeup is at 7:15, luggage out at 8PM, leave at 8:45AM. Back to hotel at 4:38 and wait for Susan to get train tickets for tomorrow, she apologizing for it taking so long. Into hotel at 4:59, Ken going out immediately to find pharmacy for his 130F(?) of medications, and I desultorily unpack, having felt very TIRED on bus, closing eyes and hoping for more sleep tonight, The beds are TOGETHER again, and, as I separate one, the top flips up and I tell Ken it may help him. Finish the WONDERFUL (Sunday?) Times puzzle with the GREAT par/one of "one under par" occurring EIGHTEEN TIMES! Type about 6-6:50 to get a lot done before dressing for dinner and going down from 7 to 8:30, sitting in a nice corner with JC and Song, talking of travels, food, restaurants, the group, and other nice things through good Grison barley soup, OK chicken with potatoes and ratatouille, and pretty good chocolate and strawberry mousses with a Neuchatel wine that NO ONE knew how to "pour into a star" as Ken's Michelin said. Have to try again. I pay the wine bill of 38F with a credit card and come up to finish this up to date from the farthest behind on this trip, at 8:53, ready to pee and go out to walk the streets to help digest dinner. Out at 9, walk up the street, note only a canopy over the sidewalk from the church, interesting, and the town essentially ends just past the perilously leaning, yet lit, church tower. Walk back down, avoiding a cell-phone user, pass a late-night shop with a cute youngman attending, and across the street are three men, one with some kind of camera, but the parking lot would make a perfect cruising area, so I turn back. Down to the bottom of a lovely cascade and go up a set of stairs, automatic lghts coming on all the time, to find it's only a private residence. Note a bridge over the cascade far above. Back to central square and walk up a set of steps to an upper street, and it turns out to lead to the bridge, impressive cascade, but then a sign says "Privat" though there are obviously a number of houses beyond. Convinced there's nothing more to see, I go back to the hotel, checking the Traiture's opening at 7:30, the ship-models in the Bucherer windows, and our 7:15 wakeup call. Back upstairs at 9:50, pee, close the curtains better, hang up clothes to dry from my dampness, and type this til 10:02, ready to take pills and get to bed before 10:15 (more like 10:07), leaving more than 9 hours to sleep before the 7:15 wakeup call. Then get into bed WITHOUT taking pills, so up again to take them.

TUESDAY, MAY 27: Pee at 1AM. 4:15AM wake with dream, recorded whil peeing: I'm in the Army, working in some sort of secretarial position, but I have an idea about how to improve things, and when some general comes to my boss's office, I say something like "We could improve channels of communication if the possibilities were WRITTEN DOWN so that anyone would know who to go to in order to communicate an idea to be implemented." The general beams and puts his hands on my arms, as if to embrace me, and I make some other comment, and he DOES embrace me, almost as a son, almost with the mysterious attraction that Colonel Davis in ROTC had for me, in that I could do no wrong, and any right was magnified beyond real merit. As in that situation, I felt increased confidence in my ability to advance, and said "People need to KNOW that they're appreciated, so that they can TRUST their superiors to hear ANY of their ideas, even those that might not work, without jeopardizing their superior's respect for them." Somehow I include an appreciation of HIS ability to accept such ideas, and our relationship becomes somehow INTIMATE with an ecstatic pleasure that transforms BOTH our abilities to function in our positions. Wake with a feeling of having had a GREAT, POSITIVE, ACTION-AFFIRMING experience. Finish typing this at 4;24AM. Trouble getting to sleep, so I desultorily start Actualism, but doze off and look at watch at 7:04, ready to pee again, and Ken is DRESSED and moving around, finished in the bathroom, so that when I come from my shower at 7:30 he gives me the alternative of his going to breakfast alone at 7:30, since I'm not ready, or his going to the store for sandwiches and juice at 7:30, so from saying "Anything" to saying "roast beef, meunster, mustard, one sandwich, and juice in order of black cherry, grapefruit, and orange," and he leaves at 7:30 as I type at 7:35. Breakfast 7:55-8:20, and up to watch TV and do my teeth, and Ricky Martin showering is very nice. Out to the bus at 8:40 and it was a real PAIN smashing his bag into the top rack, and I even complained loudly "He should leave most of this stuff HOME!" When Ken said "Hi" to the far table with Bob and Alison and Cheri and ???, they said something, and then I looked over to see Alison laughing OBSCENELY at us, and Ken said he HEARD Bob say something about us, and then they began comparing the other same-sex pairs on the trip, saying that the wrist-wrap and his friend lived in different cities, but they STILL could be "that way," and then Alison waved defensively at Cheri and herself and said that it certainly wasn't true of THEM. Well, Bob's pretty much a shit anyway, and I haven't spoken to Alison much and Cheri not since she stood up for my wanting more time in Gruyere. Leave 8:47 and get to the train about 9, board and do puzzles as train leaves at 9:26, and we're to ride until 2:05. Albula tunnel at 1800 meters altitude, and 3.5 miles long. #19 head-to-head trains with multiple intersecting wiring at 9:35. To #24 with 3-4 on high bridge taken in QUICKEST succession, hopefuly OK, at 10:34. #26 landslide debris riverbank formations at 12:01. They said it was the highest non-pinion run, but they used PINIONS a lot AFTER they passed the summit, so it was rather cheating. Cloudy skies at the start made it rather boring, but by #28 and 29 in Disentis, of monastery, at 12:37, it got better. We ate our sandwiches and the Sprite was tasty and the direction-switch KEPT David and Estrella across the way in the sun. #30 out of Disentis at 12:58. #31 dam at 1:27. The end of the trip was more spectaculsr, but I'd lost interest and didn't stand up as much as I should have to see the top-to-bottom landscape out the opposite window. Finally did to #37 at Andermatt at 1:55, giving Ken some bullshit answer about why I didn't take many pictures at the start but took many more at the end. To the bus at 2:01, taking some vidos from the front seat of the bus, but not very effectively. To Gotthard reststop 2:35-2:52, but could only buy TWO lipcares for 5F and THREE locks (all too big) for 8F, and so I passed them up, hoping to find ONE of each for less than half the price. Get into Interlaken after passing BOTH falls on the way, learning with depression that we're not even STOPPING at the second one, only breezing past. To lobby to watch the bags while Ken gets the room key for 106, which he doesn't believe is on the tenth floor, since I heard the girl tell Bob that he was on the seventh floor with 72. Up to a spectacular balcony over the central field from the tallest building in the Bernese Canton, and unpack a bit when the suitcases arrive afer a long time, and then out for a walk down to the Kursaal garden for the skimpy floral clock, MANY Indian tourists, and buy 6 postcards for 1.80F, the best bargain yet. Forgot what Ken said the airmail postcard postage was. Then he wants to walk back to have a drink upstairs, and we go up to order a kir royale and a kir, watch three paragliders land, look at a probable rainstorm coming, and THEN when we want to go down she says, "There's a fire, so you have to walk down," showing us to the emergency stairs. Ken freaks: "I have a bad back, I can't POSSIBLY walk down 18 flights." Finally a manager, cute with a wedding ring, comes WALKING up, panting, and says he'll take us down on the elevaor. We get to the lobby about 6:15, order two Monk's drinks for 19F, listen to the piano-only (after Ken demands that the bartender tell the pianist to can the canned synthesizer backup) music, and get to the dining room to sit with Faus and Dori (SISTERS, incredibly) (or whoever) and the mother and daughter, both WONDERFUL talkers, and particularly when daughter's some medical officer for Vancouver and I told all about IBM paying for my LSD in 1968. FINALLY Ken releases me at 8:50, and I get up to type to 9:14, woman coming to the door with a new bill for Ken to sign. Then we're out for a walk. Walk away from the casino and see lots of shops and an OLD town square, then right down another interesting street, with a square we hadn't seen, which, after we pass, we return to to listen, rapt, to a polyphonic choir rehearsing with great skill upstairs from a small souvenir shop. Wonderful, and a few others stopped to listen with us. Then Ken consented to continue to the Chinese take-out for a menu for the Koreans, and then INSISTED on going back, so I said he should DEMAND he be taken to his room so the key could be left for me. Which it was; Ken was conducted by a cutie, too! I crossed the fast-flowing river, wonderful, then got to the boat canal, even better: a quiet walk, old shops and houses, a colorful mansion, then two modern conversions with ENORMOUS glass windows that permitted me to view the single guy in one house, the married couple in the next, watching VERY large-screen TVs. LOVED the walk, the silence, the crickets, the small sounds of the water, the CLARITY of the watr to about six feet. Cross a narrow footbridge, continue on a river walk on the near side, then walk back along the Kursaal road, seeing people gambling, along the main street to the end, seeing a SUPER body in bronze with an unknown inscription. Back along the park, with lights from the tops of close hills and only fog obscuring the far mounains. Back in, get my key, up surprised to find Ken STILL awake, he saying he COULD have stayed with me had he known I was going to be out for such a short time, and we chat, I take my pills, and finish this at 10:24, to bed for the 6:15 wakeup call he left automatically.

WEDNESDAY, MAY 28: 2:40 up to pee. dream forgotten, as I forgot to say I SHIT before our walk last evening, first in 2 days? Eyes VERY itchy! 4:41: Wake after VERY seductive dream, in a world I wouldn't mind living in forever: I was in some kind of organization, and some woman's father died, and she was TERRIBLY distraught, but everyone considered it perfectly normal that I would hug her, hold her close, and even SLEEP with her to comfort her in her time of loss, and her affection back to me was sweet, but not nearly so sweet as when her HUSBAND entered the picture and so appreciated my consoling his wife that he was very happy to suggest that HE come and sleep with the two of us, but ending up BETWEEN us, yet allowing me to spoon into him and put my hand on his wonderful soft-yet-stong chest while his wife cuddled him from the other side. I had the wit to sense where her hands were and not compete with my hands anywhere on his body, but he seemed perfectly open to lying with me almost openly sexually. Somehow without transition, maybe including the both of them, I was saying something like, "It's easy to verify that a man has become homosexual, because he actively enjoys sex with another man; a woman has become a lesbian when she actively enjoys sex with another woman; but when a man SAYS he's changed from being homosexual to heterosexual, it's slightly more complicated: even though he may even ENJOY sleeping with a woman, does he enjoy---or does he fantasize about enjoying---going to bed with a man?" They all seemed to listen to me with respect and affection---I'm, in typing, reminded of the aspect of RESPECT in a previous dream, too, both obviously engendered by Bob and Alison and Cheri talking---and SMIRKING---about Ken and me being gay, as if they didn't RESPECT us, as, for instance, David and Estrella might know we're gay, but they enjoy interacting with us and RESPECT us, where the others seem to DISRESPECT us for that reason. Pee again and finish this at 4:54. Thankfully, washing my face before seems to have relieved the itchiness in my eyes, though maybe David has some kind of allergy making his eyes red, rather than the "good pot smoking" I suggested as a joke to Ken yesterday. I hear the phone ring at 6:15 and he goes into the bathroom immediately, so I lay until he gets out about 6:25 and figure THIS is the day, rather than tomorrow, to shower, so I take a quick one and get out at 6:45, Ken waiting for breakfast, so I dress quick and we get down at 6:50-7:15, sitting with the taciturn hand-wrapped couple, talking mainly about Cass Gilbert, and he probably did NOT do the Chrysler Building and DID do some other thing, but I'll have to wait for EB to tell me what [he did the WOOLWORTH Building and the Customs House, as well as the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C.). Ken gives what turns out to be a partly KOREAN menu to the two Koreans, who say they're pleased, and when I ask Cheri if she's just taken cold milk she seems to give me the briefest, curtest, "Yes" possible, but I may be getting as paranoid as Ken, who wanted to go inside the LOCKED door at breakfast to LOCK his suitcase "But it has money in it!" for breakfast. I said "HONESTLY" and he only closed the top of it. How much worse can it GET! Susan says it's CLEAR on Channel 1 atop the mountains, and cold at zero. MAY be a good day after all! Finish typing at 7:25, bus parked outside waiting for 7:45. Down 7:35. THEY don't know how to walk on CROSSWALK. SUNNY in parts, but zero and 18 kph winds. Bus 7:44-8:12. #2 map at 8:13. #3 kids. #4 stream/car/mountain at 8:18. BOARD train at 8:25. VERY STEEP train 8:26-8:57 to Kleine Scheidegg. #7 north face of Eiger at 8:59. #8 Jungfrau top to bottom at 9:06. 9:23 first stop. Through #22 to first stop. #22 is MAP. Start 9:28. Good TV program IN tunnel. Through #27 at Eismeer Stop (halfway) 9:33-9:39. Jungfraujoch at 11,333 feet. Ten minute final leg. At top at 9:48. #27 Monk at 13,475 feet at 10:06. #31 Ken at 10:12 per his request. Fantastic views, I only hope the TV and photos capture it. #35 group on snow at 10:29. Roll 7(?) #1 huskies. To #9 to 11:15 all around, having done ice house and return. GOOD pork, noodles, mineral water with gas since they can't serve tap water, prosecco, and Ken's salad, in almost EMPTY Crystal Restaurant from 11:20-12. Thru #14 on plateau to 12:16. #16 hand-melts in ice palace at 12:25. No time to return to Sphynx at 12:35, but we go to train at 12:45, and Bill and Ann HAVE shown up, having been left in Interlaken by a crestfallen Sue. They SAW the bus GO! Long wait while I sneak ahead in tunnel and reserve left seat, as Alison and Cheri grabbed FOUR seats EACH. To Kleine Scheidegg at 1:48. Guy points us to wrong train, then into right train at 1:53. #24 BIG distant falls at 2:24. LOTS of waterfall shots before Lauterbrunnen at 2:51, most of filmy Staubbach, and back on bus at 3PM. Trimmelbach falls costs 10F, into dark funicular at 3:16, up stairs at 3:30, and back to bottom at 4:03. #34 FLOWERS and Staubbach at 4:06. I'm back to bus at 4:12, after the 4:10 I should have been there, having bought 10F Trimmelbach book and 7:5F good detailed map of the canyon into which ALL these spectacles fall, fully intending to RETURN and see them all again at LEISURE. Leave at 4:15, Lauterbrunnen means "nothing but waterfalls." Stop at Staubbach at 4:19, #35 Staubbach at 4:23, rationing shots because I've used up two rolls of film TODAY! #36 MANY falls, and bus goes at 4:30. Off in Grindelwald at 4:44. Buy a lock, a GOOD one, for 6.40F at lovely Eisenwaren in Grindelwald at 5:05PM. Bus goes 5:25-6, and Ken goes to reserve at La Terrase for 7PM. I wash face and change---and my shirt button comes off. Put in roll 8(!) of 13!! and clean dogshit off my SHOE, truly a stomach-turning smell. Leave late at 6:30, try walking where I did last night, but I thought to take a shortcut by going down the NEXT block from hotel, and get confused when we hit the CANAL before the RIVER. And it's BEYOND where I walked at ALL, and Ken's frustrated and disappointed, but there's no time left, so we can just walk back past the Kursaal and get to The Victoria to look at the lobby and try to find the long room leading to the pool in the back (and seeing a truly magnificent man leave the parking lot and go to the spa), and then meet the impatient Ken to enter La Terrase at 7, and thank goodness they ignore the sign that gentlemen wear jackets, because I don't have mine on. Seated NOT at a window, at a smallish table, and Ken looks at the wine list and can find only an expensive white wine, and I disappoint him AGAIN by saying that I'd much rather have a kir royale with my foie gras (forgetting that I'd ordered the Jambon de Parma, the Buffalo Mozzarella, and the funny tomato soup as an appetizer, making the young, attractive, definitely eager waitr wonder, I guess. Ken gets the Scorpion Fish, which I'd never seen on a menu before, and it translates as Rascase, which I think I HAVE seen, and it's rather the same meaty texture as monkfish. My appetizer isn't really very interesting, though the 20SF kir is good, with Moet, yet, and then my "slices of veal" turn into ossobuco, which isn't really what I wanted, and the risotto is almost inedibly tough and bad-tasting, and Ken's bass is OK. Then he can't think of ANYTHING he wants for dessert, prompting the waitress (who'd already gotten me two pieces of tomato bread after Ken took THREE from her, saying it was wonderful, which it wasn't, particularly) to say she'd see what additional desserts might be on offer, but comes back only with creme caramel and a chocolate mousse, but he only asks what flavors of sorbets and ice creams she has, and she goes through many fruits and caramel and sour cream and yogurt, and he has the nerve to ask WHICH are the sorbets, and she wisely replies "The fruits." He orders TWO balls of sour cream, which he deems to be merely lemon ice cream, and my rhubarb tart with strawberries isn't that great, so we get out with 289.50SF, of which 135.5 is mine and 154 is his. He refuses to walk, AND refuses to get someone to take him to the room at 9:20, so I have to go upstairs with him, get my jacket, and leave to walk the SAME way, thus finding that that strange barrier at the "mouth" of the rushing river is a DIVERSION of the ship-canal to one side, and I video some of the places that don't have the same magic, and the couple isn't watching their huge-screen TV, only the same solitary guy (with a woman in the background, working) in front of his LARGE TV set, and get through the Kursaal gardens to video it, then to the statue (of a general, no less) for a photo, then back to the hotel, videoing La Terrase after seeing a block-long white Lincoln taking some mucky-muck out of the Victoria entrance. Get in at 10:13 and Ken is STILL up, and I get to bed at 10:19 and fall asleep pretty quickly.