Brad and Diana's Journal of the H.R. Giger  Art Exhibition, Switzerland         6-17-06 www.inthehouseofthedrawingmaster.com We’ve been home for a week now.  We’re finally over our jet lag.  It wasn’t so bad going, but coming home has been hard. On Thursday, June 15th we boarded a plane in St. Louis MO.  We had one stopover in Toronto.  It was pretty short considering we had to go through customs.  From Toronto, we flew to Zurich, Switzerland.  We landed there at about 9am their time.  They are 6 hours ahead of us.  Once we got through customs there, we boarded our first Swiss train.   It seemed pretty empty and we couldn’t figure out why.  After the train started moving, the conductor came by to check the tickets.  Ours were for second class and we were sitting in first class.  We had to move.  Second class is where all the people were.  We learned that you have to look at the number on the cars, 1 or 2.  We had to sit on a 2 car for our rides. We were on the train for about an hour.  We traveled through several villages.  We saw mountains almost immediately.  It was very beautiful.  We stopped at a city called Lucerne.  We stowed our baggage in a locker and walked around some.  We mostly just sat by the lake.  It was kind of a “take a breath” time.  It was a lot warmer than we thought it would be, and even humid.  After about an hour of wandering around and looking at the old architecture we boarded another train for Interlaken. We were on the train again, for about an hour.  Interlaken is where we spent our first night.  It was completely surrounded by mountains.  Some of them were even still snow capped.  We got checked in to our hotel and then went to eat some dinner.  We sat at an outdoor café.  It was overcast and it started to sprinkle.  We weren’t out in the open we were in a covered area, so we enjoyed our dinner with a little rain.  By the time we finished eating the rain had stopped.  We wandered around a little bit, and stopped by a bar called Café Runft.  I don’t know what that stood for.  I can tell you that for a rum and coke the cost was 9 francs, which is about $7.25 in American money.  A little more than we pay here.  It was that same amount in every bar we stopped at.  At least it was consistent.  We had a couple of drinks and then headed back to the hotel.  By the time we got back it was pouring, a nice steady rain.  We bought a couple of bottles of wine from the front desk and went to our room.  We opened up the windows, there are no screens, and gazed out at the rain and the mountains.  It was beautiful.  We did watch a little TV, but the language was either German or French, so it’s a good thing it was a rerun of Law and Order that I had already seen.  We could follow along. We got up the next morning and went down to breakfast.  Every hotel we stayed at provided breakfast.  It was huge.   They had cereal, bread, cheeses, meats, fruit, croissants, several jelly’s and jam, spun honey which was out of this world, juice, coffee, tea, water, etc..  It was really great!!  The croissants were the best I have ever tasted.  When we were done with breakfast, we took our baggage to the train station and locked it up.  We had about an hour to explore Interlaken.  We went to the busy part of the city and just looked at the shops and all the marvelous architecture.  We did take several pictures.  There were hang gliders everywhere.  They looked so awesome against the mountains. We boarded the train which was going to eventually get us to Gruyeres, where the art show opening was being held.   We were going to have to transfer 2 times, with only about a 5 minute time period between trains.  The first transfer was very interesting.  We couldn’t tell which train to get on.  I finally got on a train to ask if it was the one we wanted by pointing to the town on my paper.  They train was leaving so Brad hopped on with all the luggage before we knew for sure.  They did finally tell me we were on the right train, but we were in a 1st class car.  We would have to get to a second class car.  We opened one door and there wasn’t a hallway.  It was just a couple pieces of metal connecting the cars with some metal on the sides.  You could see the track below.  The first thing I said was “I’m not doing that!!”  We went the other way because I thought it would be a different set-up with the next car.  No, it wasn’t.  We had to go through 2 first class cars with all our luggage and the train moving.  The sliding doors between the cars didn’t stay open very long.  On the second car, I got caught in the door with one leg through, part of a suitcase and my face smashed against the glass and couldn’t get it open.  I had to yell to Brad to help me.  I couldn’t do anything.  After we finally found a seat, we had a good laugh.  It was almost like Indiana Jones.  We immediately had a glass of wine to wind down.  We were on this train for about an hour.  This one was the scenic train.  We went up through the mountains and then back down.  We saw several waterfalls from the snow caps.  It was really beautiful. The next train we boarded was only about a 15 minute ride.  This would actually take us to Gruyeres.  You could see the castle from the train, it really stood out.  It was on a hill, so of course it was uphill to the town.  Luckily, there was a little train, kind of like at the state fair, but smaller, that was headed up to the castle.  She dropped us off at our hotel.   Once we got checked in and freshened up, it was time to be at the art show.  We walked up to towards the castle.  It was all uphill, with a little flat place where the restaurants were.  The show was actually held in the HR Giger museum.   When we got there, Brad was mesmerized by all of Giger’s paintings and drawings.  There were 2 floors of them.   There were also models of the Alien and Species.  The Art of Imagination Show was across a balcony on the second floor.  It was a pretty small space, but there were only 40 artists chosen by Giger himself to participate.  There were 3 rooms plus the hallways for the art.  After we got there, we found out that Giger was going to make an appearance at 5pm.  It was around 3:30 when we got there.  They had the wine flowing and snacks.  I went around taking pictures and Brad networked with the other artists.  Only artists were there for the private showing.  It wouldn’t be open to the public until the next day.  We met lots of people.  There were some spouses there, so I had people to talk to also.  I didn’t have to talk art, I could talk about other stuff with them.   Giger finally arrived at about 5:45pm.  He immediately went in to the Giger Bar which is right next to his museum.  The décor of the place looks like an Alien set.  It was done very well.  Finally after about 15 minutes, one of the people in charge of the show went down to get him.  He came up, and was instantly overwhelmed.  He didn’t understand why everyone wanted to see him, talk to him, take his picture.  He was pretty much mobbed.  I did get a few good photos though.  He talked to some of the artists, and then retreated to the third floor where his private collection is.  There were about 6 of us who went up with him.  Brad talked to him about some of the artists that were in his collection.  He didn’t mind talking about other artists, he just didn’t want the focus on him.  At one point he even played the piano.  It was very interesting for me. After a while, we went down to the Giger bar with a couple from England we had just met.  We had a couple of drinks, took a lot of pictures of the inside of the bar and were deciding where to eat dinner.  Brad and I hadn’t had lunch and had been drinking wine for a couple of hours.  We were ready to eat.  They other couple had one of their mother’s with them so they went ahead and left.  We told them we’d meet them at the restaurant.  Brad just couldn’t seem to pull himself away from the bar.  He was fascinated with it.  We left shortly after.  It was about twilight.  We decided to take a look at the castle before we went to eat.  The main gate was open, so we went in.  The view was beautiful and we took several pictures.  It started to rain, and we didn’t care.  We walked around a little bit and saw there was a herd of sheep.  Brad decided to take a picture of them.  He said “smile boys” and they all at once went “baaaaa”.  It was pretty funny.   We finally went down to the restaurant.  We had wasted so much time, that our friends from England weren’t there any more.  We sat at a table for six.  There was one guy sitting there, but he said we could join him.  He didn’t speak any English.  He was from Switzerland, around Zurich, but spoke German.  We were able to converse.  He helped us order from the menu.  I tried the fondue.  It was very good.  They give you small potatoes, dill pickles and pearl onions to dip.  I only tried the potatoes.  Brad tried the dill pickles and a couple of the onions.  He said they were too strong.  While talking to this guy at our table we were able to make him understand that Brad was an artist.  Brad took out one of his color prints of the painting that was in the show, autographed it and gave it to him.  He was very excited.  He told us he was there for a wedding.  When his friends finally arrived, one of them spoke English.  She told us that friends of theirs got married on 6/06/06 and were celebrating in Gruyeres.  There were about 20 people in their party.   After we were done eating, Brad and I couldn’t wait to get back to the Giger Bar.  They had told us it would be closed for a private party, but we thought we’d give it a try.  When we walked by the windows, our friends from England were there.  We walked around the corner to the door and Giger was standing right there.  I asked him if it was a private party or if we could go in.  He said something to the effect that “we could go on in, there wasn’t a private party as far as we were concerned”.  We went up to Alex and Tina (Our new friends from England) and told them that Giger said it was ok to be there.  They had been told that they had to leave after they finished their drinks.   We actually stayed there until about 12:30. The next day, we had another wonderful breakfast, much like before.  We had decided to stay another night in Gruyeres.  We went to visit the Chateau de Gruyeres, (the castle).  There was a trail around the whole castle, so we walked that first.  There was an admission fee to actually go in the castle and they gave us an informational brochure.   While we were sitting on a bench admiring the view, the guy from dinner the night before was there with his group.  He took a picture of us.  He was very excited to see us.  We were probably at the castle for 4 or 5 hours doing the tour.   It was all fascinating.  Brad said it really inspired him to start painting.  He wished he had all his stuff with him so he could start right then. We went down and had lunch at one of the restaurants.  It was so peaceful and relaxing.  Then of course, we had to go back to Giger’s bar.  We just couldn’t stay away.  While we were there, we wrote our postcards.  There was also a guy at the bar that started talking to Brad when he found out he spoke English.   His name was Jeff.  He hadn’t spoken to anyone in 2 days that spoke English.  He was from England also.  He had just decided to hop on a motorbike and come see the art show.  He was a fan.  He had hoped to meet Giger, but was a day late.  We talked for a while. We decided to go down to the Cheese Factory.  We were able to take an audio tour.  You could actually look down and see where they made the cheese.  We got there too late to see them in action, but it was a very interesting process.  We were glad we did it.  Cherry the cow from England was our audio voice.  After we were done, it was whipping up quite a storm outside.  We made the last little train back up the hill. Now, it was time for dinner.  We were going to go to our hotel restaurant, but it wasn’t open for the season yet.  We went to another place and ordered beef.  I had to have meat.  Cheese was a little overpowering for me at that time.  I was almost sick of smelling it.  Gruyeres is famous for their cheese that they produce.  While we were eating, another couple from England that we met, Bryan and Anne, joined us.  They had already eaten, but they stayed to talk.   Shortly after that, Jeff appeared.  We had a good conversation while we were eating.  By now it was around 10:30pm so we went back to our hotel.  We had bought a couple of bottles of wine earlier in the day, so we watched TV and drank wine. The next day, we had to head back to Zurich.  That’s where we were going to spend the night before we boarded the plane.  We had breakfast and then started the process of heading back.  By now, I had learned to read the train schedules, so I was able to get us on the trains we needed to be on.  We had to take several and only had one 45 minute wait.  During that wait we were in Interlaken again.  It stormed something fierce for 30 minutes of that time.  By the time we got to Zurich, it was time for dinner.  We had dinner at an Italian place and while we were eating on the veranda, it started raining again.  We had wanted to do some sight seeing, but didn’t want to walk around in the rain.   We decided to go back to the hotel, and I got our bags ready for the next day so we would just have to get up and get on the train for the airport. We boarded the plane in Zurich and headed back to Toronto.  We had about an hour and a half layover after all the customs procedures.  Then we made it back to St. Louis.  We had to drive from there and finally made it home on Tuesday, June 20th at about 10pm. Overall it was a very great and relaxing trip.  Brad got to do a lot of networking.  We met a lot more artists than are mentioned here.  We didn’t do any of the real touristy things, we just kept it simple.  We drank tons of wine and I’m glad we’re back home.  It is a different place over there.  Life is at a much slower pace, but I guess you could say that for small towns here.  Well, thanks for sharing our trip with us. Diana and Brad.