~we will never meet this young again~

January 20th, 2008

“Look! It’s the Alps!” Ali said as we began our descent to Italy. I was photographing the clouds through the tiny airplane window. They looked like this:

The Alps looked like this:

Ali said, “Next time we come to Europe I’m going to take you there. You’ll love it.” Thirteen weeks to the day we touchdown in Geneva, Switzerland, and begin a nine-month alpine adventure.

This is first view we see, from the train station.

We have left our NY jobs, sublet our apartment, given away our car, and packed all we will own into two suitcases apiece, which collectively weigh about 80 kilo (roughly 160 lbs).

We have said goodbye to family and friends over late dinners, long brunches, and on the dance floor (aka our kitchen). Our farewell soiree felt like a wake, or a wedding reception–our New York chosen family coming out on a very cold week night to wish us well and slurp lethal German honey liquor. Peter slings the devil’s brew, hip-style:

Over the course of a sorrow-filled and exhausting year, everyone beloved that seemed hanging in the balance has slipped this mortal coil. This deeply infuses the choice to go, tinges it with a feeling of finality.

There are crows everywhere, very busy, very talkative.

Between us we have 18 years of history in New York. As San Francisco was my twenties, Brooklyn was my thirties, and tho we have agreed only to ninth months, I know that a chapter has closed no matter what exactly happens next.

There is a German toast that is We will never meet this young again. This has been the undercurrent of all I have felt this week, in the thrill, anxiety, solitude, frustration, joy of a new beginning.

Here is the report from WEEK ONE, NEUCHATEL.

It’s a lot like camping in your own house. In our one-room studio, the furniture is spare and modern. Blond wood, white fabric, lots and lots of light. The kitchen is equipped with all a hardworking bachelor would need to make dinner: one pan, one pot, two Tupperware bowls. A trip to Ikea–where all college students and feckless world-travelers go—is clearly at hand. In the meantime, I push the couch and tables around and cook with what is here.

Shopping is also a new challenge, or will be until I find my places. Much of the consumables in Neuchâtel are heart-stoppingly expensive, even for a New Yorker. I venture out each day and try a new store, looking for the one that carries pints of Häagen-Dazs for under 10.90 Franc (about the same as dollars).

There are two major shop chains in Switzerland, Migros and Co-op. Both have grocery stores and stores selling everything else—clothing, household goods, cafes, etc. Every store closes around 6pm, except Thursday night, when they stay open a bit longer.

In town the best shop is Migros, a three-story windowless affair with an escalator for you and a separate one for your cart. Down by the lake (a distance to carry groceries, as I am trying to be careful with my back) is the best of all, a mega Co-op that sells essentially everything (and the only shop I have found with real Parmesan–critical when living with an eye-talian).

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Everyday I try a new shop and bring home as much as I can carry, stocking the kitchen with spices, vinegar, oil, tea, staples. When we finally have the basics, I explore the smaller shops on my street–an interesting mix of cobble-stone and graffiti, churches and disco balls. We live in the so-called “ethnic area”—seemingly about three blocks long–that has Thai, Indian, and Chinese shops and restaurants. There I find exotics such as dried porcini, rice vinegar, chai, and make a mental note about fresh ginger and lemon grass.

Vivat Crescat Floreat!~May we live, grow, and flourish! don’t know the story behind this mural yet, it’s on our block.

Seems to me much of Neuchâtel’s population is from elsewhere–they’ve invited an international workforce and to a degree cater to them, including a handful of hootchie-coo clubs that are most incongruous in the otherwise placid landscape.

This is the approach from the shopping area up to our street.

One thing I love is walking. The city has car traffic mostly only on the outskirts, the rest is pedestrian heaven.

Over the days I vacillate between a kind of low hum of excitement, and a dull panic that I try to notice and let pass. This is in part about the lack of familiar, comfort, control, and in part about leaving the Manhattan rhythm behind. I try to just float, no expectation.

In the shower I remember that scene in that camp film with Bill Murry–Meatballs?
No fresh thyme? It just doesn’t matter!
No bathtub? It just doesn’t matter!
No internet or other means of communication? It just doesn’t matter!
Creepy terrycloth bed linens? It just doesn’t matter!

An interesting experiment and a kind of relief. Let’s see how long that lasts…

An example of ‘old meets new’ that is most prevalent downtown. The lake beyond.

A trick I learned from years of hotel living in Washington and Philly is that for coziness, lighting is everything. In an almost superstitious way, I brought the candelabra I inherited from my friend Michelle many moons ago–that is three-tired metal, with vines and flowers crawling around it. I took it to MacDowell and it served me well, so it was the one decorative indulgence from our old house.

It takes four days of searching to find candles, but I do and I buy two pillars too, that fit perfectly in the little glass jars our pot-au-chocolat came in. MacGyver meets Martha S…

I can’t focus on my book until I’ve feathered the nest and learned the lay of the land, so I give myself the week to just settle. When not shopping and wandering about, I spend time trying to squeeze internet connection from our kind neighbors (slow as molasses or non-existent) so I can search for extra-long gauzy curtains (for the glass doors that lead to the terrace) and something to hang on the walls. I find antique hand-painted maps on Ebay of Europe, Switzerland, France, and Italy.

We still await boxes with our bedding, my research books, and my little ipod dock/speaker to arrive. In the meantime I play music from my laptop, all of it rocking. Just like at MacDowell I need a strong beat to balance the stillness here. The dj list includes Iggy Pop, Velvet Underground, The Fall, Buzzcocks, Joy Division, all music from my distant past, the time before the time I just left. A reminder that no time is left behind, really.

Ali loves the euro TV, which comes in French, Italian, German, and British flavors. We are best with the not so heady stuff, a Steven Segal movie, for example, is hilarious in any language (esp. German), or Pimp My Ride dubbed in French.

Laundry is like an episode of I Love Lucy. It was an all-day affair to wash three loads of clothes. There is a chart one is expected to sign as well, reporting what machines were used, what time of day, what apartment number, and whether you sorted your darks and lights. Rebel Laundress does not.

Most of the week is spent achieving the smallest victories; interspersed is time spent walking by the lake, which is lovely in all kinds of light and weather.

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Much of the architecture is 16th Century, and it amazes Hollywood Girl (who once considered a bungalow from the 1920s still standing to be old) to be shuffling around it.

There are fountains all around the city for public drinking (not I, thanks). During festivals back in the day they flowed with wine. (don’t mind if I do!)

Neuchâtel is surrounded by vineyards in fact, and we have already sampled the local white, quiet lovely (they measure wine in deciliters here, the average glass is 1dl, the equivalent of 3 ounces). The trout from the lake is also delish.

Everything closes all day on Sunday and the first half of Monday too, so the Saturday shopping–including a farmer’s market at Place des Halles–is a frenzy. I bought a big straw bag for provisions and we sampled everything–tiny arugula, potatoes, carrots, beets, pears, apples, homemade sausage, olives, cheese, bread. From a sweet Swiss grandma we bought bitter orange preserves.

We also headed to Ikea, which involved two trains and a bus, and took us to Bern and beyond. Quiet a schlep, but we achieved much in making the household more functional. Step by step…

The view from our balcony~tucked behind, the building on the left is the castle, the one on the right with spires is the church.

It’s a little monk-like actually: a plate, a cup, a bowl, a knife and fork. You set them out, use them, wash them, put them away…that and the nearness to the church (whose bells chime like mad on Sunday) help to underline the asceticism of this adventure.

The view of our house from the church—we are actually one floor below this. The back end of the arrow is at the point where the train passes by every so often.

We visited the Collegiale (Collegiate Church), Cloitre (Cloister), and the nearby Chateau (Castle) on Sunday.
I think this will be my daily walk—lots of hills, winding streets, the expanse of lake below.

We also found the surreal grounds of the Musee d’Ethnographie where we discovered a lion-faced fountain covered in dripping moss, a pond with carp, a very friendly kitty who instantly pegged me as starved for feline companionship, and a café that is open on Sunday(!).

We sat with tiny glasses of Chardonnay and had a solitary afternoon respite of time expanding, watching the light on the lake in the distance, listening to the crows caw and the planes making slow arcs in the sky. The air was just vivilling with a calm, electric presence.

Not in Brooklyn anymore.