The Travelling Life of Silvan Colani


July/August 2004 - Switzerland

As regular readers of my website know, I'm not Switzerland's greatest fan (to say the least). Spending two weeks of my precious time in the country of cows and chocolate is really pushing it to the limit for me. But this trip was mostly about visiting family and friends. Here are a few impressions:

First of all, I got a decent car. This is the only way to make this trip bearable. Also, in my own defense, since I covered a lot of ground from Munich to Ticino to St. Moritz to Zurich to Crans Montana and back to Zurich, it did make sense to have a good car. I wanted to test its limit on the German autobahn, but the rental car people limited the speed at 220km/h! Cheaters!

In Munich we celebrated an undisclosed round birthday of Gabi (pictured here with me and my "little" brother Andre) with plenty of beer and hearty German food with unpronounceable names. Other than that Gabi took me on an excellent bicycle tour around town with plenty of beer and brezen in between. All in one day.

Leaving Munich in the early morning I picked up Nenita in Zurich (she almost overslept the station on the train) and we cruised down to Ticino where we arrived by evening in time for bratwurst and more beer. With ten people at the time packed into the Condo Pagadache it was far from a holiday resort. We spent the days hiking (including heli-hiking, see pictures below), at the public pool (with a gazillion other people) and playing Cho Dai Dee (check the new punishments!). The week ended with the official housewarming party for Jimmy's condo with me performing a feng shui ceremony that involved throwing a life chicken into the house. All very exciting!




From here I was off to St Moritz for a few days together with my mother. Still enjoying brilliant bright weather, we spent the days hiking - including a Super Hike up and down the Rosegg Valley, which somebody had seriously underestimated. My mother virtually crawled home.

Then it was back to Zurich in time for a party with whatever friends I might have left there. I really wasn't sure if anybody would turn up at all (apart from Martin, whom I paid to do so). Eventually a small crowd gathered nevertheless, including some old friends from school (KV) and the apprenticeship at SBC which I have not seen for over ten years. Funny enough, they all still looked the same. We had many laughs on the good old days.



Next morning I picked up Andre at the train station and we headed for Crans Montana to celebrate my uncle's undisclosed round birthday as well as the Swiss National Day on August 1st. More hiking, more drinking (out of ridiculously small and expensive 25cl Heineken bottles), more eating before I headed back to Zurich and off home to Hong Kong, where they serve beer in proper bottles (at still ridiculously expensive prices)!


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