Our little town

That's where we live. It's a little town called Baden, at the edge of Switzerland, just next to Germany. Or nearly so. The river that runs through it comes for Zürich and later on joins (hang on, I have to check the map) the Aare (I knew it!), which a couple of miles later joins the Rhine (at least that one you should know by name). The great thing about Baden is its medieval character. It starts with the remains of a proper fortress, from where you have a splendid view of the old part of the town, with lots of little alleys and houses which would be great to live in (if you can a) afford it, b) don't mind the dark rooms and c) happen to find an empty one (which is the difficult part)), and goes on with lots of places that are just, well, nice to visit. And so we just walk through the little alleys, buy an ice cream in one of the local bakeries (which happens to sell ice cream as well), and head for the lower quarter of the town, the "Bäderquartier".
That's where the town got its name from. The springs with healing powers! Lots of old hotels host even older ladies with arthritis and other illnesses that need treatments that only Baden can provide. In between the old hotels, you find peculiar second hand shops and completely refurbished buildings where old and new fuse in great architecture. Finally, you choose one of the bridges to cross the Limmat to the other side, which is called "Ennetbaden" (other-side-of-Baden, they weren't really creative back then), and walk back up.
And there it is! Tada! The youth hostel of Baden, hurray! It seems to be an ex-shed or so, large windows, a fountain in front of it and suddenly, there it is again, the inner voice that urges you to buy two plane tickets to Auckland one way... But we resist (collective sigh in New Zealand) and head back to town, up to the lime tree place and back to our flat. Which we feature another time...

Silo8

They call themselves "Karls Kühne Gassenschau" (Carl's bold streetshow), and that's what they are indeed. It's street theatre blown up to incredible proportions, lots of action, pyrotechnical stunts, any stunts you wish, actually, spectacular sound and good humour. Karls Kühne Gassenschau are always worth a visit.

Their current play is called Silo8 and tells a story from the future, where there are way to many elderly people, so they wipe out their memory, stuff them into container villages, and store them like rabbits until they die. But the senior citizens fight back. They try to escape, get hold of a little bit of their memory again and overturn the dictatorship of an evil doctor. Finally, Alfredo remembers Aurora again and together they fly into the night.

The story so far. But then there are the special effects! A quad racing against a motorized wheelchair, a fully fledged washing machine for humans, exploding (and collapsing) buildings (twin towers, actually...), a flying merry-go-round and a dream ship propelled by a jelly fish. The great thing about the show is that they always overdo it a little bit. No, not a little bit. A lot. Where a senseful person would stop pouring petrol, they add another bathtub full. Where you would strongly suggest to tighten the screws, they don't. And if you have the feeling that the length of the rope will not ensure their security, for them it's just fine. Like that they keep the anarchy in their show. And that is good. The first row reveives blankets together with the instruction to use them for protection, and yes, they will not tell when, it will be obvious.

Last week we went to Olten to watch them. Of course, after all the years the whole show has become big. Heaps of visitors, catering, shuttle busses etc., but there is still the boss welcoming you, ushering people to free seats and when 20 of them had no place to sit, they told the audiencence on the benches to shift a little bit, and voila: everybody was seated and happy.

And now, we will go for a stroll, and later on feature some pictures of where we live...

Gere

...is the name of a incredibly tiny village. It consists of about roughly 6 huts or so, but look for yourself:

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Its claim to fame is that one of the huts used to be the retreat of Dr. Bircher-Benner. The inventor of the Birchermüsli. Oh yeah. Not too bad ey?
Well, and this is the place were a friend of us, with good connections, has access to a hut. It comes complete with running cold water, a stove and all the crockery/cutlery/whatsoevery that you need to hang out for a couple of day.
Already the way that takes you there is spectacular: up to the Gotthardpass, with the famous church of Wassen (that's another story that will be told another day), Urseren, Furkapass, the whole shebang. And if you are lucky, your friends even pick you up at the trainstation of Oberwald and bring you up to Gere. And I tell you, its spectular! Meadows full of alpine flower, honest old-fashioned farmers making hay and smiling at you (and they will also smash the window of your car if you don't have the permission to use their road, we had the permission), marmots galore playing in the sunshine, a well with ice-cold water (our bathroom for the next three days) and finally, the hut. Two tents, ready for those that want to be even closer to nature, steep mountain on all sides and a view that contains not a single hint of civilisation. The beer is already in the well, nicely chilled, there is red wine (Dole, from further down the valley), a selection local cheese, the local rye bread with nuts, we bring some cake. Heaven.
It is incredible. It takes roughly 2 minutes and you are completely relaxed and nothing else is important than just the here and now. As Andy commented: "...and the things you have to do are instinctual. The reward is immediate. You don't HAVE to do do anything. I can see how god is created in these places."
The next day is 1. August, the Swiss National Day. And the weather is bad. But we are fiercely determined to have a BBQ. So we go and collect some stones, set up a fireplace and after a little bit of fiddling a nice fire is burning. As you can see, we really took care of the fire and were rewarded with some nice steaks and sausages. And you get thoroughly smoked. Back home it took two showers to get rid of the smell! But who cares? (well, the people in train back maybe did). We served the meat with potato salad, some fried veggies, oh my god, I love food. And up there, in Gere, it all tastes better!
Every morning you have to fire up the stove (another moment to catch some smoke), which is a little bit tricky and really something for boys (i.e. for me), cook water for the coffee, move the large rock to access the "fridge" outside of the house, cut some cheese and bacon, warm up some more to wash the dishes, maybe fry some eggs... Funny, its like normal life, I guess, but its fun. Even washing the dishes is an event.
Later we did some hiking, playing in the stream (building dams, breaking down old ones, flooding empty beds, watching the water finding its new way, they had to drag me away after two hours).
We will definitely come back. Did I say that one of the huts there is splendidly renovated and refurbished? 700 Swiss francs per week, place for 6 people. I don't know the phone number...