2013-01-12 47 7

Location

A field near Erlinsbach.

Participants

Plans

Catch train from Zurich to Aarau leaving 2.38pm, leaving a leasurly hour to reach the hashpoint by 4pm on foot. The Aar always makes for a nice walk. Spend the rest of the day in Aarau to be in place for 2013-01-13 47 8.

Expedition

The constellation was wonderful. Two consecutive hashpoints, so far apart that, due to the graticules' periodicity, they were in fact right next to each other. Two hashpoints on two days in two graticules, and both of them were on fields around the same village. This figuratively called for a double hash.

As the village looked close to Aarau on the map, that was where Calamus went. He estimated an hour to be easily enough to reach the hashpoint, so he arrived at 3pm and took a walk along the Aar, stopping at some points to admire his surroundings and take pictures.

However, Erlinsbach turned out to be quite a bit further from Aarau than it had looked, and also was a little bigger than expected. On a bridge in the middle of the village, Calamus encountered a canton border, and another gaze at the GPS revealed that the hashpoint was in the canton of Solothurn.

Solothurn shall remain undescribed here, just an almost representative tidbit: In the Germanoid Swiss Sign Language (DSGS), or at least in the Zurich dialect, the sign for Solothurn is the same as "not in a romantic relationship" (the only difference being the mouth, which dubs the city's name).

Later research on Erlinsbach led to the discovery that the Argovian part was protestant and the Solothurnian part was catholic. In earlier times, this had, along with the fact that the way to the churches ran along the border brook on both sides, led to the people spitting at each other over the brook weekly.

While Calamus was in Erlinsbach, the church already struck 4pm. Until he had found the hashpoint, which was on an open field, it had turned quarter past. Now one of the best things of being a teacher is the privilege to insert a ".15" into any fixed time, so Calamus decided to claim that right and consider it a hashtime hash anyway. It was going to take the next hashpoint eight hours to activate, so Calamus returned to Aarau.

Now, how to pass the time until the next hash? After getting himself something to eat, he approached a tourist information station and asked whether this town featured an opera or similar, wiping part of his long hair out of his face with the one hand that wasn't holding a kebap. If the clerk considered this even marginally strange, she hid it very well. Aarau appeared not only to lack an opera or a concert hall, but also had only one theatre worth mentioning, which was performing a children's play today. The only other cultural option the helpful clerk could name were a few mainstream cinemas, so Calamus thanked politely and ran off looking whether Aarau had at least a decent club. Half an hour later, he was seen fleeing back to the station again. He had really begun to like Argovia, but he understood now why so many Argovians came to Zurich to spend their evenings.

He sat down and waited until his afterhour ticket was valid, using what little power was left in his laptop battery to work a little. At the first occasion, he boarded the train and returned to Zurich. On the train, he had to give some emergency legal advice to the elderly American couple sitting opposite from to prevent them from suing "the internet" because they had managed to delete their only browser.

Back in his office, he charged his laptop and intended to work until it was time for the next hash. Yes, that was probably more entertaining than a club in Aarau.