2013-05-27 46 7

Location

A garden in Köniz.

Participants

Calamus
Crox

Plans

Train at 7.02pm from Zurich to Berne
S6 train at 8.06 leaving on platform 12C, arrive in Köniz at 8.14
Walk from Köniz station
Reach point at 8.20 (and maybe meet Crox at last!)
Don't forget to get those documents from my Bernese office on the way back
Probably run into someone I know and get dragged to the Reithalle

@Crox: Can you make it that late? With some (harsh but possible) sacrifices I could make it up to two hours earlier. --Calamus 18:02, 26 May 2013 (EDT)

One hour earlier (19:20@#) would be best for me. Can you make it? --Crox (talk) 07:57, 27 May 2013 (EDT)

Alright, see you then! --Calamus 09:57, 27 May 2013 (EDT)

Expedition

Calamus

Berne is considered by many to be the most tranquil town of Switzerland. For this reason, Calamus often came here when there was trouble. And there was a lot of trouble right now. The organisation he worked for had some (>1) not very nice legal issues, which would soon be cleared, as they had done nothing wrong, but meant a lot of work nonetheless. After spending a week on nothing else, Calamus was glad to have an excuse to go to Berne: a hashpoint lying right in the next commune, close to a railway station.

After setting up a planning page, the next nice surprise showed up: Calamus had read a lot of reports by Crox, and he announced to come to the hashpoint. Calamus had met complete strangers at hashpoints before, but never an established geohasher. Meaning somebody with a record of more than one expedition. So it was with great delight that Calamus took the train to Berne.

When he arrived there, he popped into his umbrella organization's headquarters, just as a friendly visit, but that was a bad idea. Half of his co-staff from Zurich was already there, discussing paragraphs. After about an hour of legal interpretation and advice, he left to inhale some of Berne's peace.

While Switzerland has no proper capital, which would violate the principle of federalism, Berne is usually regarded as the kind-of-capital, as it's located in a central position at the river Aar and host to the Federal Palace. Two of Berne's distinctive features are the arcades on both sides of every bigger street, and the cellars featured by almost every building. These cellars have their entrances in front of the buildings and are either used for storage or (more often) house a shop, a bar or a theatre. Right now the Marktgasse, one of the most beautiful streets, was being restored and therefore equaled a large building site, but Calamus knew its splendor by heart.

There wasn't much time to wander around, though. Calamus had an appointment. So he boarded the train to Köniz, where he arrived a few minutes later. After some erring around without sufficient satellite reception, Calamus reached the point. Crox had come by bike and was already there.

After introducing themselves to each other and taking some pictures of the spot, the two of them went to a pub. Much like Guga2112, Crox was so remarkably good at German that Calamus didn't dare to try his clumsy-by-comparison French, let alone Romansh. In general, Crox turned out to be such an interesting person that Calamus felt very boring compared to him. Crox had to catch his train back to Lausanne, so he hopped on his bike to get back to Berne, whereas lazy Calamus took the train again.

This meetup had transitively introduced Calamus to a bunch of crazy people all over the world, and Calamus was happy to be one of them.

In fact, he was happy enough to not want to discuss his organisation's problems any further today. For the first time in years, he aimlessly wandered around in Berne for a whole evening. The town was quiet, sometimes chorals sounded from a guild house window high above, Klezmer out of a bar door, or applause from a subterranean theatre. As the warm spring breeze tenderly carressed his face, he considered once again moving to Berne. And once again he rejected the thought, as the general slowness here would normally drive him crazy.

Obviously, he had to pay a visit to the bears. Every major city in Switzerland has an animal associated with it — Zurich has its lion, Geneva has its eagle, Basle has its basilisk, and Berne has its bear. And the Bernese like it so much that they keep live bears in a park. The slowly moving animals represent Berne perfectly and are rather entertaining to watch. If they're not sleeping, which is most of the time.

When he returned to the office to pick up his stuff, everybody had already left. Calamus took his bag and returned to the station. On the train, he started writing a defense strategy paper. It had been a nice chillout, but it was over now.