Switzerland with Brad

NOTE: I added a few pictures a few hours after I first published this entry.

After London, I flew back to Switzerland where Brad was staying in the northern city of Basel.

Basel would be a nice place to work and live. It has clean streets, excellent trams and a cosmopolitan environment. I sat at a Kebab restaurant on my first afternoon and heard a jazz trio perform with a female voice in the neighbouring cafe. I walked around and noticed at least three restaurants selling Japanese bento (lunch boxes). I didn't get to go to any bars or clubs, but two of the girls in my hostel went to a pitch black restaurant where a blind hostess leads you to your table where you are order a meal and then eat it in the dark.

As for landmarks; I saw a few half-timbered shops; although most buddings were made of stone brick or concrete. The city hall was painted a bright red and had painted murals and a stature in it's courtyard. Somewhere downtown there was a fountain made by an artist called Jean Tinguely. Tinguely was known for taking broken things lade of metal and turning them into works of art. His fountain in Basel is a menagerie of junkyard metal shaped into moving fountain parts. You can pick out old bicycle wheels, watering can spouts, pistons and the like.

Brad spent his days at a lab affiliated with his in Australia. His work was taking considerably less time then he anticipated, so he was looking to see more of Switzerland than he thought he had time for.

We spent our two evenings with grocery store food and beer in the kitchen in my hostel chatting; being stupid and formulating plans for the following days. We decided to head to Luzern which was supposed to be scenic in a typical Swiss way.

The next day in Luzern was a blast. After dropping out bags at the hostel we headed out into town. There were clouds up in the mountains, but we decided to head up one of them rather than wait for a cloudy day. Pilatus is a famous mountain right next to Luzern. At 60 dollars to get up and down, it is also one of the cheaper mountains to get up. We took a train to the base of it and then waited for the Funicular, which Brad read was the steepest one in the world (it was too expensive to make a longer and less steep track). The engineers found a way around the dangerousness of a steeper track, and added an extra set of teeth on the tracks so that two sets of gears could pull the carriage up the mountain.






Once at the top of the mountain we spent about three hours running around taking pictures. The clouds persisted for most of the time but we got a few good breaks in the clouds (which was fog at that height). There was one path that was too close a steep drop for my liking and being afraid of heights, I chickened out before we could get anywhere.



At the end of the trip something amazing happened. For the first time in 3 months, I got excited about souvenirs and actually bought something. I got a Swiss army mug for Sunny (teacher in Korea) and a knife and poster for myself.

There was a bit of mythology about the mountain too. I was too distracted to read atop the mountain; but brad was into the multi lingual displays. Apparently, the local townsfolk have though a dragon lived atop this mountain for a long time. A few people went missing, so that dragon lust have gotten them, right? Brad also read that the mountain was named Pilatus because Pontius Pilate was believed to be exiled or buried there after the whole Jesus mess. He could have been thrown in a lake too.. I'll have to ask Brad. The last amazing thing is that Odea Shupe, originally from Caledonia, NS stayed in the hotel on the mountain when she was checking out a tour that her employer, Travel Cuts, sells.

Heading down the mountain on a series of Gondolas, Brad and I took some shots of us walking around and sitting in the grass. He found a dry spot to sit on, I was busy setting the timer on my calendar and sat a soggy patch of dead grass.








Back in town, Brad and I wandered around the quiet streets (it was the night before a holiday so shops were closed). Climbing up the old city walls we could see over the town and across the lake to the mountains beyond.

We stopped by the river and had cheese fondue; it had wine in the sauce and Brad was feeling it.





We then headed to

The dying Lion of Lucerne [Which], is one of the world's most famous monuments. It was carved out of natural rock in memory of the heroic deaths of the Swiss mercenaries at the Tuileries in 1792. Mark Twain described the Lion of Lucerne as "the saddest and most moving piece of rock in the world".

Mark Twain was right, it was pretty sad.


I said goodbye to brad before we went to bed and then got up early (while he slept) to make an early start for Grenoble, France. I took the long way around and managed to stop in the Interlaken region for a few hours. The train ride and the stop were beautiful.

London the First Time

I really like London a lot. I liked it so much that I am going back a
second time. i actually have to come back because that´s where my
flight leaves from, but I am coming back early to spend more time in
the city.

The reason I came to London now instead of waiting was to see Seonghee
(my ex turned friend) before he went back to Korea at the end of his
school year. Flights in Europe are cheap so I flew from Prague to
London and then from there to Basel where I am with Brad right now.





My First day in london I got in late walked through Hyde Park to
Buckingham palace where I saw the guards changing shift (not the big
ceremonial changing of the guards though). I walked from there to
Victoria station where I went to Pulborough in the afternoon (see
other post). When I got back, I went to Leicester square and bought
discount tickets to see the west end production of The Producers. I
had high expectations for the musical, but warmed up to it after a few
scenes and loved it by the end of the first act.

The next day I slept in and then met up with Seonghee in the
afternoon. He was looking happy and healthy and it was nice to see him
in his new hometown. We had lunch at a cafe and then shopped for a bit
(didn´t buy anything) before he dropped me off to get at a barber to
get my haircut.

After the barber I walked around and explored London a bit and then
went to bed early.

The next morning I was out of the door at 9 am. I first headed to the
Tower of London where I saw the crown jewels. There are videos playing
on the way in, one showing Queen Elizabeth#s coronation in a shortened
version put to music. I was feeling patriotic and energetic by the
time I saw the jewels including the royal scepter that has the world#s
biggest diamond. It was lifted from the Taj Mahal, and I remember the
tour guide I had when I was there in October was a little cranky about
losing so much to the British.








i explored the armories of the tower saw a working porticaulis (I love
those) and a reproduction of a rack and other torture devices. Then it
was off to the tower bridge, globe theatre and Waterloo station where
I headed on my epic journey to Stonehenge.

Why epic you say? Well, it seems that the British are constantly
upgrading their rail and underground lines on weekends disrupting
serviced. instead o taking 1.5 hours to get to Salisbury... it took
2.5 hours. I left at 3 pm and was in bed just before 3 am. It was
quite a public transport nightmare.

Stonehenge itself was wonderful. I applied six weeks ago for an
appointment to go INTO the citric and run int he grass around the
stones. I took about 100 hundred pictures and have posted a lot of
them here.













After catching a lift to Amsbury nearby Stonehenge, I was stuck
waiting for a Bus. I went to a Chinese take away who#s proprietor was
really interested in where I was from. I said Canada, to which he
replied "I´m Canadian, too." He moved to Vancouver from China years
ago with his wife and was now living in England. Soon enough his wife
and Son came in. The man yelled "He´s from Nova Scotia" and we started
chatting about everything. The mom was impressed that I am going to
SFU in Vancouver, thinking that it is hard to get into. She hoped her
son would go there when he was older. The son had his nose in a novel,
but the few times he spoke it was strange to heard a British accent
where his parents have Canadian ones.

After a long sleep, I woke up and went to St. Paul's Cathedral for
church. The Liturgy was beautiful and the choir was amazing. I was
happy that I knew the first hymn, but all the rest were new to me.

I met Seonghee in the afternoon and we ate and went shopping for his
niece at Baby Gap and other places. We were stuck trying to decided
which sandals to get her, so I suggested that he call her sister in
Korea, who probably knew exactly what she wanted.

After shopping seonghee and I went to the British museum for a bit, I
started to feel sick so he headed off to get his stuff so he could go
to the airport and I headed back to my hostel for a nap.

After my nap I met up with a friend of a friend named Meaghan who is a
Canadian teaching in London. We decided on eating Indian when we met
in Soho and had a great meal. We got along really well, and I would
write more, but I have to catch a train back to Basel to meet brad (I
came to Germany today where the Internet is 4 times cheaper).

Morgan, I will write all about meeting Meaghan when I respond to the
nice e-mail you sent... :-) )

European Roots, Part 2: The English

The last place that I have to mention in my Genealogical travel itinerary is the origin of the Freemans. Rather than re-inventing the wheel, here a really good entry on the first Freeman to come to North America.

Edmund Freeman Jr came from Pulborough, County Sussex, England in the 'Abigail' in 1635 with his wife and four children. They settled at Saugus, Mass., moved to Duxbury, Mass. in 1637 . He was a freeman in 1637, was leader of the ten to settle Sandwich, Mass. in 1639, and received the largest land grant there. He was deputy at PlymouthColony in 1641, assistant to Gov. Bradford from 1645 to 1647, member of the Council of War in 1642, presiding officer of a court of three'To hear and determine controversies and cawses' and was later selected judge.

He, with his four children, in company with several other individuals of the same family name, whose relationship is not yet established. engaged passage for New England on the "Abigail," Robert Hackwell, Master, early in July, 1635, and arrived in October following. It is said that "he was a man of consideration in England and brought with him much valuable plate". He settled first at Lynn, in Massachusetts Bay Colony, for a short time. During his residence there he presented to the Colony twenty corslets or suits of plate armor. These he doubtless brought over in view of the Indian Menace. For some reason ! he and others of Lynn wished to remove to Cape Cod and asked Plymouth Colony for a grant of land there. On April 3, 1637, it was ordered "that these ten men of Saugus" {Lynn}, including EDMOND , " shall have liberty to view a place to sitt downe & haue sufficients lands for three score famylies ...." The present location of Sandwich was chosen and a number of men, many of whom had families, removed there from Lynn in, or perhaps even before, 1637. Certain conditions were to be met before an absolute deed would be given to them by the Colony and in 1847 this document was mads out to EDMOND as agent, who in turn devised the lands to the town and to its various proprietors on their repaymant to him of money invested and their promise to complete the requirements, the matter not being closed
until 1651. As a consequence of this agency he is called :the original proprietor of Sandwich."

Some of the Freemans left Massachusetts for Nova Scotia about one hundred years later in the wake of the American revolution. My family descended from these Freemans who operated mainly as millers on the South Shore of Nova Scotia. When Greenfield was founded in 1830, my great great great grandfather Gorham Freeman built a mill there. The present mill owned by the family is the latest in a long line of mills for grinding grain, making shingles and sawing lumber. My Grandfather likes to chant this poem to any willing audience:

The Freeman boys the built a mill
most of the time it did stand still
but when it went, it made no noise
Cause it was made by freeman boys.

I'll have to ask him where he got that one from.

So all of that was a bit unnecessary as I won't be going to Sandwich, Massachusetts on this trip. I did, however, go to Pulborough, England.



Only a short train ride from London, Pulborough is in the rolling hills of West Sussex county. I got off the train in the middle of the afternoon and headed to the nearby fish and chips take away. I got the biggest piece of fish I have ever seen, and some chips wrapped up in paper. The shop owner sent me down the road toward the centre of town which he said was a mile away.

I was looking for a spot to eat the fish and ships when it started to rain. The heavy wind blew the wetness right through me so that I had to search for a sheltered road to walk along. A public walkway led me through a field to a public bridle path leading through small homes. There were trees and bushes on one side which sheltered me a bit form the prevailing winds. I tried to rest in a few places to eat my fish and chips but found it impossible to dig in with rain dripping on me.

The shelter of the trees eventually ended, laving me to open full force of the wind and rain that was less than it had been. One thing that stuck me as odd was that all the detached houses, no mater how small, had a name. I didn't jot any down (it was raining), but they were names like Stonewood or Thistlehollow and one that I did remeber was oriental in design and called Green Jade with the Chinese characters above the English.

At the end of the road expose to the weather I found shelter in a phone booth and ate my fish. I also enjoyed a can of cream soda which reminded me of having ice cream floats at my grandparents as a kid.




When I got outof the booth the rain was almost gone and I headed out of th eother side of town thinking I had seen it all. I went down another public walking path, which seemed to be everywhere. This one lef through soem fields and a muky holow near a swamp. I stopped at a garden centre and a pub for a pint before realizing that I had made a huge detour around the centre of town.



Back into town, I saw the main street and a few buildings that would have been aroudn when Edmund Freeman, and Edmund Freeman Jr. lived there. Visits to the two small buchers turend out to be fruitless as everytrhing was raw and needed to be cooked. I managed to find some noticably old postcards which I sent home after wrting in the library. The town was cute and I was happy to speak with a few locals at shops and the library. With my accent they gave me a freidnlz searching look, while I could sense in their head the questiosn of "what is he doing here?".



Heading back to the station, I stopped by the local perish. I think I brished my hand agains poison Ivy along the way, leaving me with an itchy knuckle for a day and a half. I read a gravestone for someone dead in the 1750s but this was almost unlegable. Edmund Freeman senior was probably burred there in 1623, but there was no way I could have found his grave. It would have been unreadable.






Just by the station, I stopped by the old country bridge that would have served the road from London further southwest to Chitchester. In the station there were teenaged locals playfighting and running around being stupid. At home this would have been annoying, but with local Sussex county accents which were a bit hickish, it was fun to watch. I sat on the platform a bit wet and tired, but I felt accomplished for having finished tracking down the places where my ancestors left Europe from.

Prague

Prague is a beautiful city, but I am sure that there were nine tourists for every Czech person walking around the downtown core.

'The reason that I had rushed so much through Eastern Europe was to meet my friend Brad here. His lab had paid for a hotel room for him, and I got to crash for free. The first day, I was so exhausted that I could barely move. I slept and bought some groceries and then met Brad later before he went off to his conference's banquet.

'The next day, Brad gave me his badge and then went to the main desk to get himself a replacement pass for his lost one. Every drug company with osteoporosis medication was there. One had a free juice bar. Another had a free cafe and Internet terminals. All of them had free stuff to give away if you took a quiz or played a game (that showcased their product.) I went into the main conference hall with brad and sat through two or three presentations by researchers. All the assembled scientists were interested in calcified tissues also known as bones. I could follow along a bit, but sine I am not up with which protein does what and which mineral occurs where in bone formation, I was smiling and nodding a lot. Back out in the foyer, I did a quiz and got a really cool outlet converter that works for most world plugs (but not Korean plugs). I also one a pilates workout band.

In the Afternoon, Brad and his colleges wandered around downtown. The thing that is remarkable about Prague is that all of the architecture is uniformly baroque. The city's never been bombed and hadn't suffered massive expansion making for a very beautifully preserved downtown. We walked had lunch at an inexpensive Italian restaurant and then made are way across the river where we strolled through a park with a peacock in it (being chased by a toddler). Our goal was to make it to a baroque church called St. Nicolas south of the river. The church was so gaudy that it looked fake. It was covered in marble and wooden carving covered in gold leaf. I commented to brad that real marble looks like it's made of plastic. About five minutes later he read that the marble pulpit we were looking at was made of fake marble. If anyone knows how fake marble was made hundreds of years ago, let us know.





We saw that there was a concert going on later. I wasn't keen initially,. but was glad we went. it was a small concert with organ, trumpet and soprano. The strange thing was that they performed from balcony so that we were left looking at the decorated walls and ceiling paintings.




Over the next couple days brad and I had a lot of fun. We ate, we drank, we slept and wanered around. On our last full day we went on a day trip to the town of Kutna Hora about 60 km from the city. Kutna Hora is significant because of the silver mines found underneath is in the 13th century. King Wenceslas II decided that the mine made the place the perfect spot for the royal mint and closed the dozen or so mints around the kingdom. This mint began making sliver coins called Groschens that were used throughout Europe and made until 1547. The Groschen was replaced by the Tolar made elsewhere in Bohemia (Czech Republic), which became the new widespread currency in Europe and eventually became the word Dollar by which the British referred to any silver coins weren't British (and may be why so many former colonies used the name Dollar to describe their alternative currency to the pound.)




The other really cool place that brad and I visited near Kutna Hora (and the real reason I suggested we went) was to see the Sedlec Ossuary. Sometime after the plague and a bunch of wars, a lot of dead bodies were left around and buried in shallow mass graves. A priest at the local parish church in Sedlec though this was a shame and exhumed the bodies and arranging their bones in 6 pyramids in the basement of the church (the ossuary). A couple hundred years later, another guy decided to take the bones from two of the pyramids and decorate the ossuary with them. There are bone chandeliers, crests, and other wall displays.







We spent the rest of our last day getting soaked in the rain, shopping for shoes and taking pictures with statues in a square near where a bar we drank at.