Adventures with Dondi

On Friday I left Bern around 1pm to head to my flatmate Dominik's house in the Alps for the evening and night. Boy does that feel like forever ago.  Dominik (his friends call him Dondi) needed to do some work for his civil engineering job on a site near his home where a rockfall had caused a recent death, and graciously combined that with me being able to visit his beautiful home in the mountains and watch some beach volleyball world championships.

Dominik has always referred to his home as "Schtald." Or at least, that what it sounds like to me, with the "l" having a slight "r" sound. He mentioned how lots of sporting events take place there, including Federer playing in a few weeks since he didn't do so hot at Wimbledon. He also talked about the wealthy tourists and how his family is different from the new money that is now poured into the town.

Until we got on the highway yesterday, I wondered how I could have never heard of this town before. Then we kept following signs for "Gstaad" and it all made sense. I felt like such an idiot for not putting two and two together, and for not hearing the "g" in the beginning of the word.

So there I was, an hour and a half and much nausea later (I just knew some windy European mountain passes would be involved in the drive...) in downtown Gstaad, music blaring from the volleyball court, and Dominik magically whipping out a VIP pass for me to watch the games before driving off to his work site.

The US women playing Brazil 

The Dutch players are stereotypically the tallest of the tall.
They played Germany who stereotypically yelled "Scheiße" a lot. 

The kids who helped out were so cute! I think being blonde may have been a prerequisite. 

Enthusiastic fans during the Swiss-Italy match. 

That evening, we went to his home town of Lauenen, the next village over, to meet his family and have dinner with them-- the beginning of me being absolutely verwöhnt (spoiled). I tried to help cook, and his mom wouldn't let me. And then I tried to do the dishes, and she still wouldn't let me. 

Dinner was hilarious. Swiss German, High German, French, and English were all spoken. Dominik's mom was only okay at speaking English but was amazing at understanding everything I said--I could tell because she laughed a lot, even when I said something only subtly funny. His dad, however, did not really understand or speak any English but knew High German. His wife would occasionally chastise him when he went on and on to me in Swiss German, and then all of a sudden he would switch to High German, I would smile and announce to the table that he had changed languages. Everyone thought it was hilarious each time I caught the transition. Much of the dinner conversation revolved around all the people they know who would make good interview subjects for me, and even though it was in gobbledigook Swiss German, I could understand much of what they were talking about (hearing my name and the word Klimawandel a lot helped...). But there were also many minutes of tuning out, head down, focusing on eating my food while pretending to be absolutely fascinated by the blur of nonsense that was passing through their lips (hi Mother, I totally sympathize with all those Dutch meals now). Dominik got a kick out of each time when I did look up from my plate and smile--he knew I understood. He was also gracious about translating (or not translating when he said it was quite boring and wouldn't be of interest to me. I just trusted that was the case and that they weren't saying anything bad about me ;)

After dinner, we headed back into Gstaad to check out the night scene. So far, this is what I have learned about partying outside of college:

• It is very expensive.

And this is what I have learned about partying in Europe:

• There are even more cigarettes than in frat basements. 

This part of my time in Gstaad was definitely not the highlight. The smoke really got to me, but fortunately it all took place outside so I was never far from a fresh gasp of mountain air. Dominik knew lots of people so he went from person to person, catching up with them and introducing me (he seems to be much less shy in his home town). And, unlike in frat basements,

• it is actually at a reasonable enough sound level that you can talk without shouting AND people are interested in introducing themselves and getting to know you.

This part was rather hilarious. It became a joke that I was asked the same three questions over and over again: 1. Where are you from? 2. What are you doing here? and 3. For how long are you in Switzerland? Occasionally I would be asked two more questions: 4. So how do you like it here? and 5. How did you find these guys (i.e. my flatmates)?

At one point, one guy asked all five questions interspersed with normal conversation, and after each question Dominik and I would laugh and he would graciously answer for me in Swiss German as to shortcut any necessary translations. I turned to the man and said that "er ist in die Falle gefallen" (he fell into the trap).

Dondi and I taking on what he calls a Majorca-like scene

Partying with really really rich people: check. 

The following morning was definitely the highlight. I woke up to sunshine and a fresh breeze blowing through my bedroom window that looks out onto a mountain and the distance. Dominik and I set out to mountain bike up and down said mountain. Here is the Strava link for you Strava nerds out there: http://app.strava.com/activities/66820990

Every mountain bike ride in Switzerland essentially involves going up a heck of a lot of switchbacks on a narrow paved road until the road ends, then going up more on a trail until the trail ends and you are on the top of a mountain. Then you go down. Since the bike I normally ride at home has full suspension, and the bike I was riding here was like a piece of metal with some very worn-out rim brakes, there were a few times I thought I was going to go over the handlebars, roll down the mountain, and perhaps meet my maker. Fortunately this never happened, but on the steepest sections when I tried to brake, I ended up skidding to find myself suddenly facing perpendicular to the mountain instead of downhill. Also fortunately, Dominik knew the trails on the back of his hand (this is his backyard after all), so he knew where the least sketchy trails were (including what is used as a luge run in the winter) and gave me much encouragement near the top of the mountain ("only 50 more m to go! only 20 more m!"). At one point near the top, his cell phone went off and he managed to carry on a 5 min conversation while riding. Meanwhile I was completely out of breath, but managed to yell "you're crazy!!" when he hung up. 

At the top! 

Happy to be finished with the climb. Or so I thought- there was a bit more to come. 

These cows are very well known in the area for their delicious cheese. 

Near the bottom of the descent- the Lauenen "See" (more like a big pond). 

When we returned to his family's house, I continued to be spoiled. We had a delicious lunch outside consisting of mellon, prosciutto, and cheese from the area:

Dominik then needed to head to Lausanne to watch the end of a stage race his company had a team in. Just when I thought my life couldn't get any better, he told me he could drop me off in Montreux to go to the famous jazz festival there, since it is on the way. Of course I said sure, and announced that I was questioning the reality of my life right now--it all seemed too good to be true. 

During the car ride there I fell asleep and woke up to Peter Peter's "Tergiverse" playing and a view of this: 

Montreux is right on the Lake of Geneva. 

And back to Bern, my home sweet home. Wow that was an intensely amazingness-filled 30 hours. And the weekend's not even over :-)