Hell is a stairmaster

Well hello there everyone. Thank you for stopping by today. Today I have a harrowing tale of adventure on the high seas. High seas in Switzerland? you say. Yes, high seas. The high seas of the Swiss Alps.

So . . . no, not the high seas, per se. A harrowing tale, nonetheless, of an epic journey to the top of an epic mount reminiscent of that sacred mount upon which Moses was handed down the laws for a nation of outcasts by a man named "I am." This, my friends, was no ordinary hike. It was a covenant entered into by four willing and yet unable persons.

I feel like if I try to keep using that metaphor, the fact that I went on a hike on Wednesday and Thursday would be completely lost amidst my verbal self-indulgence. So on with the story!

Wednesday afternoon at 5 pm, Nichole, Jon, Greg (a new guy here who's staying with his wife and kids in a chalet just up the road), and I set out for a hike to the top of one of the mountains across the valley from Huemoz. Greg had mentioned it to me the first day he got here, and when we realized that the next Thursday would be bad because of weather we decided to make it happen this Thursday. Since the hike was such a long one, we had to leave on Wednesday afternoon to get a ride to the bottom of the mountain and hike up to a refuge (a little cabin type thing) to spend the night. Now, Greg is in pretty good shape and he told us before we started that it was going to be really strenuous, but I don't think any of us thought it would be as hard a hike as it turned out to be. The hike up to the refuge was an 800 meter climb over the course of about four kilometers laterally. It was steep. Almost all the time it was steep. By the halfway point of the hike up to the refuge, I was wiped out and wondering if I could keep going. Luckily, there was no turning back really, so I had to keep going. I say luckily because spending the night up at the refuge was one of the coolest things I've done since I've been here.

What is a refuge? Well, let me tell you. All throughout the mountains in Switzerland are these little (or not so little sometimes) cabins that are kept up by the districts in which they're located. Most of them are at a scenic point or strategic point for a through hike of some part of the mountains. The one we stayed at was one of the smallest and hardest to get to, but the views were outstanding and the place was just plain cool to stay at. It was basically just a little stone cabin with some tables and a kitchen downstairs and two rows of sleeping mats and comforters upstairs for people to sleep in. We took a bunch of food up with us that night and cooked tuna lemon pasta for dinner and had a nice bottle of wine and some beer that they had there. There were about four other people there besides the four of us, and they all spoke French exclusively. Fortunately for us, both Greg and Nichole are fluent in French and were able to translate for Jon and I.

So, we spent the night at the refuge and woke up the next morning slightly sore, but ready to set out for a day of hiking. The map we had said that our route would take us 14 hours, but we were pretty sure we could cut that by a third at least. We set out down the mountain (yes, we had to go all the way back down to where we started the day before so that we could pick up the other trail) at about 8:30 that morning. Going down was nice. Very nice.

The new trail at the bottom wasn't too bad at first. I actually started to think that maybe it wouldn't be hard at all and that Greg had just been exaggerating about the difficulty of the hike. Well, after about the first mile or two, things took a sharp turn vertically and we started up the first of two 500 meter ascents. It wouldn't have been so bad except that the ascents were 500 meters up over the course of only about 1000 meters laterally. This meant that most of the time, I could bend at the waist slightly and put both of my hands on the ground. It was steep. At points, I started to think that maybe it would be better just to "slip" and tumble down the mountain to the bottom instead of continuing up. After about an hour or so of climbing, we reached the top of the first ascent and had some cheese sandwiches and chocolate for lunch. It was the best tasting food and water I've ever had in my entire life. Alas, we only rested for about twenty minutes before setting out on the second ascent of 540 meters.

This ascent was ever harder than the first because it was mostly over a bunch of scree, just loose rocks and rubble, which forced you to concentrate on every single step you took so that you wouldn't just slide off somewhere down the mountain. About halfway up the second ascent we came across a little glacier area and stopped to chill out (pun only slightly intended) there for a little bit before heading up to the top which was about 45 minutes away. The last stretch was by far the hardest. Just like being in hell. It seemed like it would never end. Jon and Greg were about 10 minutes ahead of me most of the time and Nichole was about 10 minutes behind me so I used waiting for her as an excuse to stop a few times.

Finally, after five hours of hiking, I made it to the top, and let me assure you, it was totally worth it. The top was at 2520 meters elevation so the views were spectacular of the entire valley. We stopped and took a little break to enjoy the view and take a bunch of pictures and videos of the top before setting off down the mountain.

The hike down was almost as tough as the hike up just because we had been going and going for sooooooo long that everyone's knees and feet started to hurt. After another three hours of hiking down, however, we made it to a little village where we got a few cold beers and called a cab. Mission complete. Greg told us afterwards that this hike is the second hardest hike he's ever done. So, yeah. We were all proud of ourselves and each other and we all had great stories to tell when we got back to L'Abri that night. It was a great time with great people and it made me really glad I decided to come back for a second time.

I'm typing this post on my laptop so I don't know how much I'll be able to get done today, but hopefully I will have posted some pictures or a video or both. If I post pictures then I'll put some comments on each picture to give it some context (to see how to work the slideshow, check out this post) and if I post the video (more likely since pictures take longer to upload) then here's the context: the first clip was taken when we had hiked into the middle of the mountains and were in a little bowl sort of place with a bunch of cows; it's right before we started climbing. The second clip is of us at the top of the mountain. Enjoy!

In other news, if you watched the video I posted yesterday then you'll know that they've been having a big vintage car race from Ollon to Villars. It was neat to see the old school cars the first couple times, but now it's just really really loud and obnoxious. Today is the last day of the race. I think I'll post some pictures of the cars coming by at the bottom of this post. That means that I'll for sure be posting the video and not the pictures of the hike. So, I'll post the pictures on Tuesday when I've got some time (for free) on the internet.

Also, the weather here has been awesome for the last week or so. Every day is sunny and 70 and at night it drops to about 50. I'm hoping this keeps up for the rest of the month.

What else? Jon and I have decided to hitchhike east for the break. We haven't quite decided where to go yet. We're thinking southern Italy or Greece. I think if we can make it down to southern Italy, we might be able to get a boat ride to Greece somehow. The big thing, at least at this point, is just making it back to Switzerland to do the bungee jumping on the last day of the break. If you want to see what the jump is like, go here, and be impressed. We're also thinking about compiling a list of "challenges" for us to try to complete while we're out. So far we don't have much, just to get to an island at some point, bungee jump, and get free rides on scooters somewhere. If you have any ideas, please chime in. We're not trying to make the challenges unreachable, but so far I think we only have things that can be pretty easily accomplished, so give us something actually challenging.

I need to stop typing now. This has been my longest post yet, I think. Thanks for sticking around.

Later.

PS I am now on the computer, and I forgot to put pictures on my USB drive so all we have for right now is the video of the top of the mountain. I'll put lots of pictures up on Tuesday.

Awesome Vehicularity

In keeping with the trend towards awesome vehicularity in and around Huemoz, I present to you a video of the Ollon-Villars Car Race. It's held once every four years and it goes from Ollon (the big town beneath us) to Villars (the big town above us). It's mostly old cars from Europe, but I've got some pictures of a couple of Mustangs and even a Corvette. I'll post some pictures tomorrow, but for now, here's a little video I took of some of the cars going by. I hope you enjoy.

Post-self-fluxitudinal Semiotic Buddhism

Hey everybody. Thanks for tuning in again. Let's see . . . what can I tell you about this week?

Well, for starters I went on the best hike so far this past Thurday. Thomas, one of the workers here, got the car for the day and he drove us (me, him, Nichole, Valerie, and Jon) to a place called Solalex (pronounced 'Soul-ah-lay') from whence we hiked to a place called Azendaz (pronounced 'Ah-zen-dahz'). Now, dispensing with the parentheticals, I will tell you about the hike.

We started up at about 10:15 am and the air was chilly. The sun was out, however, and they day looked promising. I can already tell that I'm not going to be able to keep up this style of writing for much longer. In fact, I think two sentences is enough. Details are overrated and a picture says a thousand words so there are some pictures down at the bottom. Just in case you didn't venture to drag your cursor over the pictures on this blog--at which point you would be rewarded for your effort by seeing the little pointy hand which would have tipped you off to exactly what I'm about to tell you--you can click on any of the pictures here to see a bigger version. Anyway, I'll tell you a little bit more about the hike. The hike was cool because on the way up it was very rocky and craggy (think of the Aggro-Crag from Global Guts) and on the way down there were tons of boulders to jump around on, and let's face it, the most fun thing for any person to do in this world is climb up a rock, stand triumphantly on top, shout at the people beneath you, and then jump off and do a roll for good measure.

It wasn't a long hike, maybe four hours round trip. Afterwards we went back to L'Abri for a few minutes to change into our bathing suits and then we went to the Turkish baths down at the bottom of the mountain. The baths are pretty cool as well. Not as cool (not even close really) as jumping up and down on rocks but nice. There's a big pool with a bunch of fountains in it. There's also a sauna, Turkish baths (which is like a sauna but with thick fog inside), an aroma therapy room, and a weird room that just has black lights in it and slow chill techno music playing. We stayed at the baths and destressed for about three hours and then headed back up to L'Abri for a nice dinner of the week's leftovers. It was a day well spent. Possibly, no, definitely my favorite Thursday so far.

In other news, my tutor Greg assigned me two new books this week. The titles are "Seeing Through Cynicism" and "Interpreting God and the Postmodern Self" and if you care to investigate them further, you'll notice the updated "What I'm Reading" list over there on the right. "Seeing Through Cynicism" is easy enough, but "Interpreting God" is as obtuse as the title suggests. Let me give you a little quote, just one sentence, from the introduction to give you an idea of what it's like: "An adequate account of the self and of personhood cannot stop with its situatedness in some instantaneous moment within processes of shifting flux." If that's not enough for you, try this baby on for size: "This is an approach which combines the Buddhist negation of a stable differentiation between levels or between opposites with a postmodernist theory of signs as semiotic system." So, yeah. If I decipher what in the world he's talking about I'll let you all know.

I think it has something to do with post-self-fluxitudinal semiotic Buddhism.

PICTURES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here we are about to cross over the river. In the spring, all of the rocks are where the water is.

King of the hill....stump.

We are walking.

King of the hill....crag. "Let's check out the leaderboard, Moe!"

And finally, here I am getting back into the car to go to the baths.

TastiBurger

Yes, I'll still do an update tomorrow (and it's going to be a good one), but I've got a few minutes on my hands right now while a file is saving (I'm editing audio files for my work time today). I found this video on some random website and I thought that all 18 of you (avg number of visits to the blog per day) should see it.

The caption was: "Ever wonder why fast food employees seem so sad? Joey and David have a prediction."

Enjoy!

Ze Plane, Ze Plane

Yesterday and the day before were amazing here. Not because of any awesome lectures or any great discussions or any good conversations, though there were many. No, these past two days have been amazing here at L'Abri, perched amidst the Swiss Alps, because the Swiss Air Force has been having practice in the valley right outside my door. The past two mornings at about 11 am groups of 2-7 fighter planes have made their way into the valley and practiced flying in formation. But not just flying in a straight line. These guys were doing backflips, barrel rolls, nose dives, and sharp banking turns all while flying what looked like five meters apart. At some points they would come screaming past L'Abri within 200 meters of our heads. It makes for a loud day, but every time you hear and feel the jet sound wash over the mountain, you know you're about to see something awesome.

I'm not sure what kind of planes they're flying. When they're flying in formation they have some smaller planes, but after flying in formation for a couple of hours they send in one huge jet at a time to really show off. The guys in these jets were doing some amazing stuff. At one point I saw one of them fly straight up into the air, seemingly stall out, and then roll over backwards and go into a full-throttle nose dive, pulling up at the last second. A girl up on the mountain we hiked today said that the Air Force does this every month at the end of the month to use most of their resources so that they can get the same amount next month. Whatever reason they have for doing it, it is so freakin cool.

I took some pictures so you could see. They'll be at the bottom. I only got a couple of the formation flying, but I got some good ones of the single jets. If you guys know what kind of jets they are, post and fill me in.

In other news, I got my first real outsider comment on my blog the other day. Yep, after I posted the video of Miss Teen South Carolina at the Miss Teen USA competition and made a little comment about South Carolina's education system, I got a nice long comment from some guy or girl from Oregon. So that's exciting. I didn't think real people (ie people who don't know me) read this blog. It turns out I was wrong.

Also, I'm starting to plan out what I'm going to do for the break we have here from October 11-21. I was thinking about going to England to visit some people that were here last term, but it turns out that they won't be available during the break. That's okay though because I had already started to formulate another plan with a guy here named Jon. We're going to try to hitchhike somewhere in Europe or maybe even to Africa. Africa? Yes, Africa. We think we might be able to get to Morocco in the 11 days we have off. Actually, I'm pretty sure we could get to Morocco in three days, but then getting around there might be a little more difficult. I don't know what it's like to hitchhike in Africa. But, it's a predominantly Muslim country and they're pretty hospitable people, so maybe it'll be easy. Who knows.

We're in the planning stages right now so we only have one for-sure stop. That stop is right outside Locarno, Switzerland, at the Vascazo (sp?) Dam. It's the home to the world's second-tallest bungee jump. It measures in at 220 meters. If you've ever seen Goldeneye (the 007 movie) then you may remember the scene where Bond bungee jumps off of a dam. This is the dam. This is the jump he did. It's going to be awesome. So, since that is east of where we are now, we may end up going down to Greece and trying to get to one or more of the Greek isles. We just aren't sure yet. If you have any suggestions, let me know.

Let's see . . . what else is there to tell you . . . I went on another great hike today. Today Nichole, Renea, and I hiked to a little town called Bretaye. It was really cloudy at the top when we got there but the temperature was nice and the company was good. Plus, our waitress at a little cafe we stopped at up there was from Goldsboro, North Carolina. She came backpacking through Europe after she graduated from UNC six years ago and never left. Her French is actually better than her English now.

As for the temperature here, it's still pretty warm. I'd say an average of 70 each day, but the nights are getting cooler and cooler. From what I've read and heard, the temperature should drop about 10 degrees each month. Actually, this Tuesday it's supposed to be pretty chilly. In the 40s I think.

So, comment, email, whatever, I'd love to hear from you guys. Lata.

Just in case you can't see it in the picture (above), the guy is doing a nose dive.

The Iraq

Well, right now I'm sitting at my laptop in an office at L'Abri. For my work period today, I'm starting work on designing a book cover for this guy that lives down the road from L'Abri. He's an American who moved here about five years ago I think, and he's sort of involved with L'Abri. I think all he really does is write books. I don't know that much about him. But word got to him that I was a Media Arts major and he asked if I would try to design some book covers for him. So I'm about to start that.

But right now my computer is updating itself and that takes awhile. So, I went to YouTube and I found the most amazing video that any of you has ever seen. This video is a testament to the education system in South Carolina. I am almost speechless at how ridiculous this video is. For some background info, this is the Miss South Carolina contestant at the Miss Teen USA competition.

Enjoy!

Jigga What?

***The title of this post has nothing whatsoever to do with the content. I just couldn't think of a better title***

Hey guys and gals. Thanks for coming back to read my blog even though I'm updating it sporadically at best. I should decide on a day that I'll definitely update it every week. Let's see . . . how about Sunday. I'll do my best to update this blog for sure every Sunday. I'll probably update it on other days as well. But now you know that if you can only check back once a week, there'll be an update for you on Sundays.

Things at L'Abri are going swimmingly. I've had my first meeting of the term with Greg Laughery, my tutor. We picked up pretty easily where we left off. We're talking about a bunch of different things, but I'll try to outline here two of the main things that I'll be studying and thinking about and talking about with Greg this term:

1. What's the point of Christianity? By this I mean . . . well, I mean what's the point. Is it all about getting to heaven? Is the most important thing about Christianity believing the right thing or is it doing the right thing? Are they equally important? It's a hard question because the answer obviously isn't just one thing, but that's the way that it's presented in most churches and books. Take the Four Spiritual Laws, for instance. Seeing that tract makes it pretty clear that Campus Crusade for Christ believes that if you know only one thing about Christianity, it should be how to get to heaven. If the most important thing about Christianity is how to get to heaven and the only way to get to heaven is to believe the right thing, then it is pretty important to make sure you believe the right things. Throw into the mix the idea that if you do believe the right things then you'll want to act a certain way--even have certain emotional responses to things like sin and worship and God, himself--and it becomes very easy--at least for me--to worry constantly about whether or not you get it. So, I'm trying to figure out what the point is. Should I be so worried about what I believe and feel about God or is that just one point? Is it more objective than subjective? I've been reading a book by an Anglican bishop named N.T. Wright called "Simply Christian" to help me think about that some. I highly recommend this book because of it's casual style and original thought. It's been really helpful to me as I've read it some last term and come back to it this term. Of course, I've been reading the Bible as well.

2. Well, I guess this sort of runs in with the other point. I'll also be studying doubt and faith. I think I may have written about this a little bit the other day. I'm reading a book by Os Guinness called "God in the Dark" that outlines seven different types of doubt. It's been a really interesting book so far as well, simply because it's easy to apply to your own life. Reading each chapter takes you into a slightly different form of doubt stemming from different issues. I'm studying this to supplement the first topic and give me a way to interpret some of the doubts that I've been having about the reality of Christianity.

So there you have it. If you've got any questions or comments about any of that or you just want to hear how the studies are going, feel free to shoot me an email.


In other news, I went for an awesome hike this past Thursday. We started at L'Abri and hiked to a mountain peak called Roc D'Orsay. It was about a four hour hike up, and when I say "up," I mean straight up. There were a couple of fields along the way that gave our legs a break, but for the most part, it was just straight up incline the whole way. Below I've put some pictures for your viewing enjoyment.

Also, I've been asked by a local expatriate in town to design some book covers for him. He does this self-publishing thing and writes a bunch of pulp fiction books. He's loosely affiliated with L'Abri because he's arranged to have one or two of Greg Laughery's books published and we were introduced at chapel last Sunday. The books aren't very good and he's not paying me to do it, but they've worked it into my work schedule so I'm not having to take any of my spare time to work on it. Plus, I've never done a book cover before so it'll be a challenge. If I think what I make is good at all I'll post one of the covers on here for you guys to see.

Anything else? I don't think so.

Here we are hiking hardcore style. If you're wondering who those people are, here's the list, starting from behind me: Rhett from Alabama, Jon from New Hampshire, Molly from Connecticut, and Renea from Texas.


That's the mountain peak we were about to hike up. The last bit, going up to the very top, almost killed me.


I didn't really take many pictures at the top because it's just the same thing all over this country. Mountain, valley, mountain, valley, vineyard, mountain. The picture up at the top of the post is at the top of Roc D'Orsay, but you can't really see that much except me. I figured I'd put that one up there so you'd have a visual of me on mountain saying all of this to you. Anyway, here's a pic of our gondola ride down. We decided that it was worth it to grab a ride down. Also, they weren't checking tickets so we just kind of snuck on one.

I am victorious

Well, I'm not sick anymore. Yippee! I battled my bowels and I won. I am now in control of my body. It was a tough fight, but I am always and ever victorious!

There's not really too much to say since I was in bed from Thursday until today (Sunday). I read a lot. Well, I tried to read a lot. I fell asleep a lot because just climbing in and out of my top bunk felt like running a marathon so I was constantly exhausted. I actually thought I might have mono for a while, but I guess it was some other mystery disease that Mr. Pansy Bowels picked up.

Hmmmm . . . I can't think of much else to write. Maybe I'll just tell you what books I've been reading in bed. I've started reading 'Pilgrim at Tinker Creek' by Annie Dillard, and although it took me a chapter or two to get into her writing style, I've been enjoying it ever since. It's a very wordy and descriptive (but not fluffy) book describing the author's year-long stay by Tinker Creek in Virginia. It's one of my roommate Nate's favorite books.

I know that's not a very good description, but I don't really feel like writing much more about it.

I'm also reading a book called 'God in the Dark' by Os Guinness. It's a really well-written and interesting book discussing doubt in God. Guinness (awesome surname) was a worker at L'Abri in England for awhile and has written a ton of books. This one was recommended to me by a guy named Nico from Argentina in March, but I'm just now getting around to it. So far I'm only through the first two chapters. In those chapters he outlines the purpose of the book and defines 'doubt' as he will be using it. In the next seven chapters he's going to go through the seven main "families" of doubt. It should be good.

I'm not very good at doing book reviews.

I can't think of anything else to write. I'll post again later.

My Mom was right

Yep, my Mom was right. I have a weak stomach/immune system. Just a few days before I left to come to Switzerland, my Mom made a joke about how I get sick everywhere I go (horrible bloody food poisoning in Beirut, horrible projectile vomiting food poisoning in Buenos Aires, etc). Of course, I told her that I had a superman stomach that was impervious to all but the most mishandled of foods, and I also reminded her that I didn't get sick once while I was at L'Abri over the summer.

Well, I was wrong. Something horrible exploded in my bowels yesterday (Thursday), and it has had me reeling for the past 36 hours. I woke up yesterday feeling kind of nauseous but I figured it was just from being worn out from travelling a quarter of the way around the world. By lunch I was feeling green. By dinner I was violently ejecting all liquids and solids from my system . . . from both ends. I was sitting on a toilet with a trash can in front of me for about an hour, praying to the gastrointestinal gods for mercy. Alas, they have not granted it.

Last night I slept about three hours because of this demon inside me. I think I had a pretty high fever, and I couldn't stop shivering and sweating profusely. I would go to sleep for an hour and then wake up dehydrated and urgently needing a toilet. Today has been similar though slightly better. I think the fever is almost gone, and I'm not puking anymore, but as far as my guts being back on track, I think I have a long way to go. I'm also a little bit achy in my muscles and bones which makes me worried that it could be the flu, but I'll hold out hope until tomorrow morning.

Another girl here is sick as well. The same symptoms as me and we both started puking within an hour of each other. My roommate says he's starting to feel a little sick as well. Let's just hope that I start to feel better by tomorrow morning because being confined to my room today made it the most boring day of my life.

In other news, I made it here safely and aside from the sickness things are going well so far. Since there's only one guy helper this term, they've put me in charge of two of the grounds crews each week. Because of my bacteria-laden bowels, I had to abdicate my position for the day. My roommate is Tim, the one guy helper, and he's pretty cool. He's from Denver (although he grew up in France because his parents are missionaries) and he was at L'Abri in the summer of '06. Pretty much all of the students here this term are here for the whole term which is nice because it'll give us a chance to get to know each other really well. Everyone seems really cool. The weather's great here: 65-75 and sunny. It's a nice break from the triple-digit temps we had back in South Carolina.

Anyway, I can't think of much else to write so I guess I'll conclude this post. Thanks for reading and shoot me an email sometime because I love to hear from you guys. I miss y'all.

Yo man let's get out of here.

Word to your mother.

Yep, I'm leaving tomorrow for Switzerland. My sister's driving me to Charlotte tomorrow morning and my flight leaves at 2:50 in the afternoon. I'll be in Geneva by 8 am Tuesday morning and to L'Abri by 11 that afternoon. Soooo...I'll see you guys in a few months. Three-and-a-half to be exact. I'll be back in the states on December 4th. I'll miss you guys.

As far as my blog goes, I'm going to try to update it at least once a week. Once I get over there, I'll probably decide on a day or two that I will definitely post. Another thing is that since I'll have my computer with me, I'll be able to write blog posts offline and then post them once or twice a week. So look forward to that. It's going to be awesome.

Bye guys.