13/06/07
It's a long distance apart between Salzburg to Zurich.
I took a train at half past ten.
Inside of the cabin, there sat a girl, possibily a university student, placing a large folder on her lap.
On my right, a woman was sleeping horizontally, boldly using two seats.
Diagonally opposite of me sat a mother and her child.
When the train arrived at Innsbruck, located in the far west of Austria, the two women got off the train,
leaving myself and the mother and a child in the cabin.
The landscape continued to change, gradually becoming hilly, then mountains started to appear.
The boy, moving his seat to my direct opposite, was gazing outside with great curiosity.
My thoughts sunk deeply inside the story of the Magic Mountain,
and like the landscape, it was going through a rapid change.
The boy and the mother got off at Inst-Pitztal, leaving me alone in the cabin.
Soon before reaching Landeck-Zams, snow-capped mountains began to fill the scene.
I conjured up a feeling, which I imagined to be similar to that of Hans Castorp,
when he was approaching the Magic Mountain.
I always wanted to see the mountains in Europe.
I didn't mind being in the train indefinately.
But every journey has its end.
After a long six hour ride, the train arrived in Zurich just before five o'clock.
Arriving at Zurich, the very first thing I did was to change my money into Swiss Francs at a bank in the station.
Then I went into the tourist informaion centre to find out how to get to my youthhostel, which I had it prebooked.
I showed the guy at the desk my paper.
Then, he told me something unexpected.
'Umm, Avenches? that's three hours away from here'
It looked like I misbooked my youth hostel.
'Haha, that's why you have to becareful" he said, quite lightly.
He found for me an alternative hostel, this time in Zurich.
I thanked him and said goodbye.
I thought, how silly for me to misbook a hostel,
I guess I have to cancel my old one and go to this new one.
But before coming to this obvious conclusion, I let my brain to wonder,
where is Avenches anyway?
I asked a lady at the ticket booth,
'could you tell me how to get to Avenches?'
Then she goes,
'It leaves at five o'clock from platform four, and you need to change at Berns'
Five? there was only five minutes to make up my mind.
But without actually making up my mind, I got on the train and the door was shut, oops.
It was one of the biggest oops in my life.
I asked a guy who sat opposite me, 'whereabouts is Avenches?' showing him the map of Switzerland.
Then he pointed, with his thick pointing finger, vaguely, pretty much the whole of Switzerland (my map was a very small one).
So where is Avenches? I was thinking as the train went on, to towards the direction I did not know.
So that was my exciting visit to Zurich, where I only managed to change my money.
As instructed, I got off at Berns and rang up my hostel, as I was anxious whether I really booked it in the first place.
'yes yes, we're expecting you Mr Umakoshi. What time will you be arriving?'
'umm about eight?'
Sounded like I had it properly booked, but booked at where?
The question remained unanswered.
It is quite amazing living in this modern era that you don't really have to know where you're going to get there.
In the old days, you, or at least your horses, had to know where exactly you wanted to go.
Information seems to take precedence over direction.
From Berns, the train kept running for another an hour and half.
The landscape looked worryingly beautiful.
Finally, I arrived in Avenches at just before eight.
At the station, I asked the train officer where the youth hostel is.
He pointed with finger, and said, 'city centre'.
So still covered in mystery, I walked towards the city centre, asking people here and there,
and I finally arrived in this small house-like youth hostel.
When I arrived, there was nobody at the reception.
There was a girl in the TV lounge, I asked her, in English,
'umm, isn't there anybody around?'
She replied in French-like German or German like French something,
and at the end of her short speech, she said, in English,
'I don't know' shrugging her shoulder a little.
I realised that there was a doorbell, so I pressed it.
After a while, a middle-aged lady came out, with an apologetic smile.
She told me that my room is number 7, and informed me the breakfast was from nine and emphasised not to be late.
She also told me that the front entrance will be locked at ten and asked me if that was okay, without giving me the chance to say otherwise.
I asked, half jokingly to alleviate my sounding silly, her my long waited question,
'This might sound strange, but where actually am I in Switzerland?'
I showed her my map Switzerland.
She scoffed, looking at my small map, and took out a larger map of the country and goes,
'so here is Bern, here is Lausane, and there, where it says number one'
Quite rightly, there was a black dot inscripted number one on the map.
Aha, I figured that I must have booked a hostel that comes up at the very top of the list of all the youth hostels in Switzerland.
The name Avenches does starts with an 'A'.
The words of the man at the information centre in Zurich 'that's why you have to becareful' resonated in my ear...
I asked the lady if I can have the key for my room. Then the lady goes,
'There is no key, it's always open!' (she said this with a great smile, which I cannot forget).
Coming to this stage, I decided not to give heed to the details anymore, life, after all, will turn out okay somehow.
So, I went up stairs and found my room at the end of the corridor.
There were two bunk-beds in the room.
Outside, I could here the sound of streaming water, dogs barking,
horse pacing down the road, and birds chirping in the woods.
I took a shower, unpacked my things and before it got dark (there was only a small light bulb in my room), I read the Magic Mountain.
Just before I went to bed, a man came inside.
He was a geologist from Amsterdam and "came to do some research" of this area.
'So, what are you here for? (with accent in 'you')' asked the guy from Amsterdam.
I gave him a vague reply saying 'I like taking photographs'.
So what should I do tomorrow?
I went to bed before it was dark.
