I realized I never wrote about my time in Switzerland before I needed to come home…I’ll continue from Ronchamp…

I woke up at a reasonable time and began casually packing my bags to walk back to the train stop to catch the train back to Switzerland around 10:30. It was 8:00 am and something made me check my train again. It was leaving for Basel at 8:30, not 10:30. How did I completely forget that this was an early train? I packed my bags as fast as humanly possible and ran downstairs to tell Emmanuel goodbye and that I needed to hurry to catch the train–about a fifteen minute walk away.

“Would you like us to drive you? It’s no problem. Really. And I can pack you a pastry to have for breakfast. Would you like that?”

“Yes, that would be great, thank you so much!”

We hurry out the door and Emmanuel’s partner drives me back through town to the train station with about eight minutes to spare.

To give you an idea, the train is about the size of a bus. Maybe two or three cars long. So small. I ride back through to the next stations.

At some point, I can’t remember exactly where we were, but still in France, riding along, and suddenly hit something. I hear the rocks around the tracks scatter around and the train stops immediately. After several minutes of silence, the conductor comes over the speaker and gives a message in French. I hear the folks in the car around me groan, look around, and get comfortable in their seats. I turn around to some older French ladies and ask if they speak English.

“Yes we do…”

A young guy jumps in and says he speaks English too and he can tell me what’s going on. Cool.

“He says we hit someone on the tracks.”

“Someone? Like we hit a person on the tracks?”

The ladies and the young guy say yes, a person.

Holy smokes.

The ladies tell me it will be a while, they have to wait for the police and the paramedics.

“…Does this…happen often? Like frequently?”

One of the ladies says, “Yes, you see it in the news. It is a full moon. People do…” and she makes the crazy motion circling the side of her head with her finger. I guess that sign must be universal.

A full moon, huh? I check the lunar phases (because I have literally nothing else to do) and sure enough it’s a full moon this night. Interesting.

I’m so thankful Emmanuel packed me a breakfast to go.

A guy comes back and is counting us. A paramedic comes back to our car and says something in French. At some point another paramedic comes back and says a few things and leaves. Each time I turn around to my new friends/translators– “they are just counting everyone on the train for the report,” “they are making sure we are ok,” etc.

Finally someone comes back and says something and the other people on the train start packing their things and making their way to the front of the train. The one lady who has made it her job to make sure I’m ok and know what’s going on says we have to move to the front of the train where they have the air on, because if we overheat back here, there’s nothing they can do for us…I have no idea what this means, but I follow them to the front.

It’s much cooler, but we are all packed together. I watch the police out the window as they step through the tall grass taking report.

At some point they come on the train to tell us they are getting us a bus that will take us to the station. I have no idea how we are getting to said bus because the tracks appear to be deep in the French countryside.

Eventually they start letting everyone off the train. The nice ladies come find me to see if I need help with my backpack. It’s become a bit of a joke to everyone around me. I have to tell them I’m here for three months. We start talking about everywhere I’ve been and everywhere I’m going. They get so excited. They are on their way to Austria to see one of their daughters.

We eventually jump off the train and walk along the tracks until we get to a clearing to get to the bus, the nice ladies guiding me along to make sure I don’t fall off the tracks or something. I assure them i’m pretty sturdy and I’ll be fine. They give us water and we all pile on a very nice charter bus.

We drive through a lovely town (I don’t remember the name now) and get back to the station. Though I know how to read the screens to catch the next train, the ladies make sure I’m able to find my way–so kind.

I walk down to the next train and look across to the other platform, the ladies see me and start waving like crazy like a couple of moms. It makes me laugh and I wave back. They wave again as their train rolls in. Nice folks all around, I swear.

I navigate my way to where I’m going since my app is messed up from the delays–pretty proud of myself about that.

I ride to Ilanz, Switzerland where I have to catch a bus to drive me up through the Swiss Alps to Vals. All of the buses are lined up waiting for the train to come through the station to take folks where they’re going.

A few of us board the bus for Vals and we start winding our way through the Alps.

I know this bus driver man drives this route all day everyday, but being on the edge of a mountain, on roads that are only wide enough for this single bus in some places has me sweating. My hands are so sweaty. And my heart drops every time we have to honk the horn to go around a curve just to make sure whoever is around the corner knows we’re coming. When we get to where we’re going, I have a cramp in my hand from gripping the edge of the seat in front of me with all my strength for thirty minutes.

I hop off the bus and continue walking to my hotel. The town is tiny, but it’s still quite a walk. Luckily the weather is so beautiful and cool.

I finally get to the hotel literally at the end of the town and nobody is at the front desk. The door is locked. And all of the lights are off. What…..?

I sit on the bench and try to figure out what’s going on. I check my email and there is a message that says they left the key in the mailbox on the ground floor. I carry my bags back down the stairs to try to find the mailbox. I look inside and there’s a key card. I try it on the door and it doesn’t work. Ughhhh. Maybe I have to wait until 5:00, my original check-in time, before it activates. I drop my stuff and wait for another fifteen minutes. Try it again. Still nothing. Check my email again. Look around. There is literally not a soul around. I check another slot in the mailbox and there’s an envelope with my name on it–thank God.

I drop my stuff in my room and chill for a while.

That night I decide I can probably see stars here very clearly. I walk outside at about 11:30. You should know, for whatever reason, I have been deathly afraid of the dark since I was very young. I always thought I would grow out of it, but I haven’t. I walk outside and look up. Not super clear, and my eyes haven’t fully adjusted yet, but I freak myself out so bad being outside alone in the dark I run back in. It’s so quiet I’m convinced I’m the only person in the entire hotel.

The next day I grab some coffee and breakfast from a small cafe and make my way to Therme.

Peter Zumthor’s Therme Vals, the last of my legit architectural pilgrimages this trip. I have loved this place since I saw it. And I love Zumthor’s writing about phenomenology, memory, place in architecture. This is maybe his best-known work and a true architectural masterpiece.

I come to the signs on the side of the road and follow the stairs up the hill to the building.

I snake my way around and find the entrance. I have a day pass that starts at 11:00 am. It’s about 10:45 so the lady at the desk asks me to have a seat in the lobby until 11:00. I’m trying to calm myself down, my heart is beating so fast.

She comes over and says it’s time. She hands me a towel, a robe, and a key for the lockers. I walk through the glass doors and down a ramp to the pools.

It sounds like walking inside a waterfall.

You come to the locker rooms first. I walk into one, put everything in and speed walk like a crazy person to the pools.

I’m the first person there, and it’s just me for about 20 minutes.

Walking in you realize it’s just you, stone, water, and light set within the Alps. It’s breathtaking in a way I’ve never experienced. The landscape, the elements, the architecture, all working together to make this some kind of divine experience that I’ve never known could exist.

I get emotional. It’s unreal. And then I start exploring all the pools like a kid at an amusement park. Running from one to the next.

The space is organized around a large center pool with sixteen blue skylights over head. The water is a perfect 32°C. With stone volumes holding the other smaller specialty pools and rooms. I wade into it and look around. Then back out.

One stone volume holds the showers, another a meditation room with gongs sounding continuously. Another holds the flower pool–a very hot pool with flower petals floating in the water. Another, the fire pool, with a red painted floor and stone seat and water so hot I almost can’t stand it. Another volume holds the ice pool–a tiny room with a blue stone floor and water that is ice cold. It hurts my feet just standing in it on the first step. The next pool I wade into from the main space, swim down a concrete corridor, through a stone portal, and into another hot pool in a single stone room.

Back out where I wade into another pool and swim down another stone corridor to a chain curtain and out to the outdoor pool. The sky is perfect. The water is perfect. Views out to the Alps beyond are framed in stone. I float on my back for a while and stare up at the clear blue sky.

Eventually more people start trickling in. I float around in the various pools for a while and then find a lounge chair in one of the stone frames that feel almost like porches. I watch the birds and butterflies and clouds with the Alps as the backdrop until I close my eyes. Somehow I think this cannot be real, and whenever I open my eyes, I’m going to be back in Memphis at the Y pool. I open my eyes and see the blanket of green on the mountains, the birds flying across, diving and circling around, and the butterflies fluttering across occasionally. Somehow it really is real. I close my eyes again and fall asleep, I’m not sure for how long.

At about 3:00 I decide I’m hungry and I grab a few things at the local market and make my way back to my hotel. I begin packing my things because I’m staying at the Therme Vals at the House of Architects the next night.

Around dinner time I hear something outside. I open my window and look down. Some guys are standing below my window playing Alphorns. I keep my window open, reading and listening until dark. The rest of the hotel is still quiet. I realize my brain is finally quiet. Peaceful. Somehow I feel so happy right now. I think I finally found it. A peace and happiness with myself. A contentment. A mental, emotional quietness. But, I mean, how could you not find that here. I go back to reading.

The next morning, as I’m getting myself together, I hear bells. But they sound smaller than the church bells I heard earlier. I look out the window and see in the distance cows being lead across town, each with a cowbell. Damn, how beautiful.

I grab my things and go downstairs to see if anyone is going to be at the desk for me to check out or if I have to drop my card back in the mailbox.

Someone is at the front desk. I tell him I need to check out and he asks how my stay was.

“It was great! It was so quiet, I must have been the only person here the past two nights,” I say jokingly.

“Oh yeah, you were. We had a wedding last weekend, and my mom had a meeting in town yesterday. So we just blocked off all the rooms except yours.”

Wow. Ok. So I really was the only person in a hotel at the end of this town at the base of the Swiss Alps.

I walk back down to Therme Vals to check in for the night. I leave my things at the front desk for them to take up to my room when it’s ready because I have another appointment at the pools today.

Again I’m the first person there, so I sneak a few quick photos. No cameras or phones allowed, but I couldn’t resist.

This day I float in all the pools again and then lay in the meditation room for a while. I go back upstairs to my room to be in there for a while.

The rooms at the House of Architects are all designed by world-renowned architects: Ando, Zumthor, Mayne, Kuma. I choose the room designed by Tadao Ando. The thought of it still makes me emotional. I get my key card from the desk and head down to my room.

I open the door and decide that if I died right there in that spot, it probably wouldn’t be so bad. I hope I can hold the image of this entire place in my brain forever.

I take a shower and sit by the window listening to the birds and sketching and writing. I have reservations for the restaurant at 6:30.

The restaurant is incredible. I sit by a window and watch as a storm blows through. Add food to all of this and I really am in my happiest place.

I am almost finished with dessert when Emily calls me. She told me several days before that my grandmother wasn’t doing well. I asked if I needed to come home and she said not yet, that she would let me know. This day, however, the nurse said probably 7-10 days. And that I needed to come home and say goodbye.

I love my grandmother. It sounds so cliche, but she made me the person I am today. I have to go home. And I have to be there for Emily.

Plot twist.

I finish dinner and head back up to the room to change my flight and figure out how to get back home. A weird panic. But I also don’t want to lose what I just found. So I tell myself I’m going to hold on to it as tightly as I can and face whatever is ahead with it.

That night I go back down to the pools for the night swim. It’s a beautifully cool night. Only a few people are at the pools. I swim out to the outdoor pool and float on my back looking at the stars. I can’t believe I’m here. And can’t believe I’m leaving tomorrow. And can’t believe all the things. But I float there and try to just be. Me and the stars.

The next day I pack up and wait again for the bus to take me back to the train, back to Zurich to fly out. Back home. It is 65° outside and sunny as I’m waiting for the bus. A string of curse words run across my brain. I do not want to leave this adventure.

I spend the night across the street from the airport in Zurich. It’s really a nice place.

But that freaking airport is the most confusing place I’ve ever been in my life. Several levels with escalators that skip floors so you find yourself going up two floors to circle back around and go back down to another and then over to another terminal and up an escalator, but I couldn’t have gotten there when I was originally on that floor. I almost feel like crying.

I finally get to the AirFrance terminal to check in because for some reason I can’t do it on my phone.

The guy at the desk tells me when I booked my flights through Delta they didn’t book the one from Zurich to Paris. But my other connecting flights are fine. I just don’t have one for the first leg of the flight. Another string of curse words.

He tries to get someone from Delta on the phone, they put him on hold. He asks if I can step out of line and try to call somebody at Delta. Sure…..but if you, Mr. Airport Man, can’t get someone on the phone, how am I going to??

I call Delta and hear that my wait time is four hours. FOUR HOURS. I hang up and get back in line.

I finally get back up to the man and ask him if there is anything else I can do before I buy another ticket. He says no, so I ask him if I can buy a ticket for this flight from Zurich to Paris to get where I need to be. He makes another phone call, gives them my credit card number, and I have a ticket. He tells me he can’t print my other boarding passes and I’ll have to do it at the gate at the next airport, that they should have a kiosk at my gate. Perfect. And I have to check my bag. He tells me to make sure to tell the people at my next gate that it has to go all the way to Memphis. I don’t know what this means, but I have a feeling my bag is about to be lost forever.

I get to Paris and walk through what feels like the entire airport, through passport check, through to my gate. I get there and see no kiosks, so I ask someone doing some work at one of the gates if they are able to print my boarding pass here.

She says no, that I will have to go all the way back out to the entrance of the airport to the check-in. OR I can wait until about 45 minutes before the flight when people show up at the gate. But either one is a risk.

What….?

She says if I go back out, I have to go back through border security and passport check (both going back into France and then coming back to the gate) and I have to go back through TSA security. And the lines for passport check have been over an hour wait the past couple of days. My layover is three hours. I feel like I’m going to throw up.

I walk back through. And just before I walk out through border security I ask someone if there is any way to print my boarding pass without going back to the very beginning.

“What? Of course, yes, they can print your boarding pass!”

“Seriously? Because someone else said I have to go alllllll the way back out.”

“No! Don’t do that. Go back up to the AirFrance helpdesk.”

“Ok… You promise?”

“What? Yes, I promise…”

I realize in that moment I did ask an airport employee to promise I could get a boarding pass. I didn’t even think. Almost like I was talking to one of my friends. Anyway.

Back up to the helpdesk. Oh yes, they can definitely print my stupid boarding pass. But for some reason she can’t find my ticket number. Again I feel like I’m going to barf. Everywhere.

She types a bunch of things in, calls somebody, types some more things in, and finally she finds it. Thank you, God. I tell her that part about my bags, but I don’t really know that it means anything.

I fly back to Atlanta. Oh…back in the states.

The flight is delayed a bit, but we finally start boarding. I go up to scan my boarding pass but it won’t scan. You have got to be kidding me.

The lady at the desk asks me to step aside. She tries to print another boarding pass, but it won’t let her. She types a bunch of things in, tries to scan it multiple times, nothing. I almost start crying.

She says they have me on a flight for in the morning too. No. No, I don’t need to fly anywhere in the morning. Memphis is my destination.

She deletes the flight and a new boarding pass prints and I’m on. Thank you thank you thank you.

Finally back home. And my bag made it!

I drive my jeep home. So strange to have been where I was and then to now be home.

And then as a treat for being home, the Supreme Court takes the right to my own body away. Needless to say I’ve been losing my mind for various reasons since I got home, but that is certainly the biggest one. I can’t actually write anything about it right at this moment without getting very upset. So I won’t for now. I’m angry. And devastated for all of the women who’s lives are going to be destroyed by this. Angry. Unreal.

Oh and I also get to watch the January 6 hearings. Another treat. And a reminder of the nightmare we lived through for four years. And somehow it’s not over. And spilling over into everything, especially the Supreme Court. The nightmare continues.

My brother-in-law said I should keep writing my blog while I’m home–that’s content! But nobody really wants to hear about what’s going on right now. Like I accidentally stepped into a sling shot that sent me back to where I was.

But I do feel different. I feel better. And I feel more peace. And confidence.

And I get to spend time with all my favorite people. That’s been the best part. And driving my jeep. And eating Peach Truck peaches. But the rest completely sucks. Completely, fully, totally, absolutely sucks.

I’m still going out West. So I’ll pick back up eventually. Until then.