Interlaken Finale X

Today was going to be a day of nothing. A day of absolute, fantastic, nothing. The reason? It was raining outside. Now having finished watching an television series that will still remain unnamed, I turned my attention to SG:U. That's Stargate Universe for the uninitiated. I forgot that it was even coming out this year. Good for me – by the time I remembered there were six delightful episodes waiting to be watched.

I have watched all ten seasons of SG1, as well as the five seasons of Atlantis. SG1 related to my teaching is an odd way. Living in Kingston for my year of teachers college I found myself going slightly mad in my tiny bachelor apartment, mini-fridge constantly humming and rattling away through all hours of the day and night. There was only so much J.A.G. that I could watch on the history channel before I became absolutely mental.

Now, some of you might suggest just going outside, enjoying life, having a go at things.

You have never been to Kingston in the winter. It's obvious why this was Canada's former capital. No one could stand those winters forever. The fort's neat though. So good for the fort.

Every few weeks I would treat myself to a season of Stargate: SG1 which I would watch, and found extremely satisfying. I had watched the first season when it was on television back in the day. I don't think I had even seen the movie in those days (though I received an action figure of one of the characters – Daniel Jackson, I believe – from my grandmother all those years past.) There was also a time when the SG1 DVDs first came on sale when a marathon was held. It lasted seven or eight hours deep into the night. We started singing the theme song. The theme song has no lyrics, Duh – Dun – duuuuh duuuh duuuh – de-de-de-de-de-de-de-de-duh-duh-duh-DUUUUN! Something to that effect. We were delirious.

Now, every episode (minus two, I believe – and why, I don't know?) of SG1 has a commentary track. One day I hope to do the impossible and listen to them all. However, I accidentally started one commentary and heard that there were “lyrics” to the song. I had, for years, feared tracking down this one commentary track – however it just dawned on my that the internet could be my friend here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2Ic7E-JR28 now you can all enjoy them!

It was this show that go me through the tedious boredom of teachers college. Or the Faculty of Education at Queen's University, as it's more importantly know. Two other things that got me through that year: so-do-ku's and Rough Guide to Canada. So there's another travel link.

So – Stargate Universe, it combines all the good aspect of Battlestar Galactica, Lost, and Voyager without the preachy “god rules everything”, “smoke monster impossibility” (it's already sci-fi. If a smoke monster showed up, and it did in the first episode, you just roll with it.), or “whine whine whine i wanna go home, but i'm putting no real effort into it.” So that was how I started my day. Around noon the rain cleared up. It even seemed a smidge sunny.

There was no hope for staying inside at this point. Off I went to the train station to pick up my ticket for tomorrow's trip. With that done, I jumped on a bus and headed as far east as Line 2 would take me. Overlooking the mountains, and lake, I look a moment to think about travel. More of this will be posted in a “month two recap” or something to that effect. I'd rather keep it separate. The short video at the beginning of this entry is enough of that for now, I think.

Once I'd seen all I thought there was to see, I headed back to the station, picked up lunch at the grocery store across the street (bread an potato salad – I'M BACK!) and then jumped on the number 3 bus, determined to go as east as that one would take me.

I saw a number of places along the lake to stop and take pictures, but wasn't sure where'd I'd pick up the return bus. After all, I was on a one way road heading away from town. The longer we travelled on the most terrifying one way road, near a hills edge, the more I questioned the one way nature of it. There were no turn offs, no way for local traffic to double back. And then it hit me. Sure, it was only wide enough for one way, but this was a two way through way.

When we nearly hit two old women driving their car, honking at them until they backed up around twists and turns to let us by (a feat that would have given me nightmares for years to come) my assumption as confirmed.

They took it in stride. Good for them.

At the end of the line, I thought that I would like to hop off and look around – but as there was only one bus an hour, I didn't really desire standing around in the cold in a town I could walk through in seven and a half minutes. And yes, it is finally starting to get cold. I'll have to do something about this. Later.



I did jump off the bus at the front of the lake, looking down at the mountains in the distance, and questioning if the people who lived here still found them amazing, or if they just kind of blended in to the background.

Many pictures were taken, and I said my goodbyes to this fabulous town. Jumping on the next bus, I returned back to the hostel to repack all my freshly laundered clothing, and make sure that I would leave nothing behind. I think I did a good job of this, but it's never until you're actually in the next town that you can be sure.

I thought back on the bus driver stopping to hassle the locals, and chat with them, as we drove along. This was not the type of place that I would want to leave. And yet the Lion's Lodge at Lucerne calls. With directions as good as “a fifteen minute walk from the train station” I'm sure to have no problem finding it. I've since learned it's near the lion statue.

This will, of course, mean something when I'm there. So much of the mystery is trying to figure out what all these little things that mean nothing now – but something then – is what brings travel to life.

Alright. That's all. With SG:U caught up on, I can finally shift me focus to Torchwood (A spin off from Dr. Who ... ... ... curses! I said his name.)

In other news – the larger the currency of a bill, the larger the physical bill. This is why a 100 franks note will not fit in your wallet. Thanks Switzerland. Thanks a lot. And how can anyone make fun of Canadian money when these bills are floating around on the world stage?