RUNNING LIKE CLOCKWORK: Fribourg, Switzerland (July 06)
Troubadour TalesMy plane was delayed, so I missed my train from Geneva, and to top it all, I had lost my bank card and was carrying nearly £1000 in cash in my rucksack!! Having had the week from hell in my mad scramble to finish my paper where everything possible went wrong, (possibly due to the sheer marathon of continuous sleeplessness) I arrived at last in Fribourg thinking ‘at least nothing else can go wrong’.
Rule no 1, never, NEVER! NEVER!!!, even think that!
So I promptly found out that there were no taxi’s at that time of the night, and the Hotel I had booked on the web didn’t exist, and the locals didn’t speak much English. Finally I scrambled on a bus in the direction (I hoped!) of the address I had wildly clutched in hand, only to realise that I should have purchased a ticket from Lord knows where, but clearly NOT from the driver. The exasperated bus driver let me on, only because he clearly did not have the patience to try decipher my non existent French. And as we careered round a steep mountain bend, the lights of Fribourg cheerfully disappearing behind me, I panicked!!
The Kuriousum nestled among the mountains of Fibourg
My sheer terror must have shown on my face because a rather clear voice behind me said “you look like you need help!”. I decided to ignore the multiple layered implications and asked for directions. He explained that there was no such Hotel, but a monastery/ Gallery (Kuriosum) that might possibly be renting out rooms. He also explained that my stop was right next to the Prison. My visuals of a fairy tale monastery immediately disappeared to be replaced by a Dickensian nightmare. The kind stranger offered to get down at my stop and guide me up the mountain. Given it was well past midnight, my uncharitable suspicions about handsome psychopathic Samaritans were tying my stomach in knots. Nevertheless we got off near the Prison (which in the dark was a frightening shadowy hunk) to find that the Swiss mean precisely what they say in their address lines. Mt. Sonnenberg WAS a mountain (OK!! so it was a very VERY TALL hill) on which the monastery/ Kuriousum was placed. I only had to drag my trolley bag and rucksack up the curiously cobbled and dysfunctionaly steep Mt. S.
The strange Swiss Samaritan gallantly offered to carry my bags, and I kept offering feeble fragments of explanation (I didn’t dare say "not on your life mate! that is a sizable part of my bank deposit"), as to why I would rather struggle one inch at a time, out of breath and clearly about to knuckle down under the weight. Finally, fatigue and sheer frustration with the situation, made me surrender my bags with a hiss of a prayer to divine providence (which distinctly sounded like "let YOUR will be done if YOUR WILL is to have me mugged on an alpine abscess!!"). I was tired and bedraggled and extremely exasperated with ‘divine providence’ which was not being terribly compassionate or cooperative, I thought!!
Rule no 1, never, NEVER! NEVER!!!, even think that!
So I promptly found out that there were no taxi’s at that time of the night, and the Hotel I had booked on the web didn’t exist, and the locals didn’t speak much English. Finally I scrambled on a bus in the direction (I hoped!) of the address I had wildly clutched in hand, only to realise that I should have purchased a ticket from Lord knows where, but clearly NOT from the driver. The exasperated bus driver let me on, only because he clearly did not have the patience to try decipher my non existent French. And as we careered round a steep mountain bend, the lights of Fribourg cheerfully disappearing behind me, I panicked!!
The Kuriousum nestled among the mountains of FibourgMy sheer terror must have shown on my face because a rather clear voice behind me said “you look like you need help!”. I decided to ignore the multiple layered implications and asked for directions. He explained that there was no such Hotel, but a monastery/ Gallery (Kuriosum) that might possibly be renting out rooms. He also explained that my stop was right next to the Prison. My visuals of a fairy tale monastery immediately disappeared to be replaced by a Dickensian nightmare. The kind stranger offered to get down at my stop and guide me up the mountain. Given it was well past midnight, my uncharitable suspicions about handsome psychopathic Samaritans were tying my stomach in knots. Nevertheless we got off near the Prison (which in the dark was a frightening shadowy hunk) to find that the Swiss mean precisely what they say in their address lines. Mt. Sonnenberg WAS a mountain (OK!! so it was a very VERY TALL hill) on which the monastery/ Kuriousum was placed. I only had to drag my trolley bag and rucksack up the curiously cobbled and dysfunctionaly steep Mt. S.
The strange Swiss Samaritan gallantly offered to carry my bags, and I kept offering feeble fragments of explanation (I didn’t dare say "not on your life mate! that is a sizable part of my bank deposit"), as to why I would rather struggle one inch at a time, out of breath and clearly about to knuckle down under the weight. Finally, fatigue and sheer frustration with the situation, made me surrender my bags with a hiss of a prayer to divine providence (which distinctly sounded like "let YOUR will be done if YOUR WILL is to have me mugged on an alpine abscess!!"). I was tired and bedraggled and extremely exasperated with ‘divine providence’ which was not being terribly compassionate or cooperative, I thought!!
The Kuriousum nestled among the mountains of Fibourg
Despite my intuitive mistrust in Divine Grace (rumour has it that we inherited this from Eve), his image bearers in creation (can you blame me in post modern humanity) the stranger turned out to be a friend of the chair of the conference I was attending, and a Philosophy lecturer at the University of Fribourg. He managed to wake up the son of the warden, find my keys, deposit me safely in my hostel, explain my linguistic difficulties to the ‘inn keeper’, and give him his contact details incase there were further complications, and disappear before I found out his name or thanked him properly.
As the charming music of the chiming steeples that echoed around the mountains sang me to sleep, tired and drowsy, wrapped in a snowy robe after an intoxicating lavender bath, I incoherently decided Divine Providence was rather like time. Not everything runs like clock work, but time is not as anal and precise as we would have it be, and yet resolves everything in its own rhythm and place.
posted by Sanjee Perera at 1:13 pm
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