So this account lacks the usual rambling airport prelude, the Psion it was on died the first day and all these hand written notes got transcribed from scrap paper. 

First day made it in, hostel, dropped off stuff then out again, wandered, went into old town, some nice shops, scientific instruments antiques, bits and bob. newer town pretty conventional. Much like NYC really though consistently tighter pants, and Jim claims I don't notice these things. Wandered some more, did some drawing, went to the church which was sort of interesting climbed the tower some nice views and a lot of interesting looking massive internal beams. Was worth the $1.5 with nothing else to do did the mandatory excavation under the church which were like most of their kind. Though a bit bigger than most. Sat around more, having missed lunch sprang for a full dinner couscous which was ok but not incredible considering it cost as much as my room for the night. Have decided I don't like traveling on my own, though it may just be that Geneva is boring, or a bit of both. 
5/29/02

Another day wandering the Psion seems to have definitely given out, irritating, just lines on the screen. First wandered down by the odd copy of the veronese monument, Id seen a picture of the chimera on 1 side, there's a griffon on the other. Drew it. Then walked along water in other direction, along where there are a lot of boats, swans on the water, watched a bird of prey circling for 15 min waiting in hopes of seeing it eat something till it got chased off by a crow. Walked over to the art museum some nice stuff in the applied arts, the fine art kind of mediocre. Had some nice art noveau stuff and couple nice modern pieces in 20 th century jewelry exhibit, interesting ideas for future. After some more wandering, then to natural history museum, quite diverse collection, bit poorly mounted animals, they did have a two headed live tortoise kind of neat in a morbid way, both heads happily chewing, but it moves in a kind of pathetic crippled way. Going to art museum passed through a high school, the pants are clearly universal, kind of scary, the school itself kind of scary itself, monolithic industrial gothic granite. More wandering noticed that restaurants were bit more crowded, than has seemed night before, looked at time and realized it was 9:00, that would be the reason. Made it in at 10 having been walking with a stop for lunch and couple times to sketch for 14 hours. 
5/30/02

So today wandered up to botanical gardens, was pretty nice, of course the greenhouses were closed Friday but was a nice place, pretty extensive alpine garden, some birds. Had an exhibit of rather cheery abstract mobiles and paintings by some local artist, big colorful semi-abstract stuff, sort of interesting. Passed by UN on way to red cross, saw the giant shattered chair installed outside for a landmines forum. Then red cross museum which was ok-but not to exciting, bit grim. -Everyone is responsible to everyone for everything. Ate in the cafeteria there, kind of expensive 14fr for a slice of curry vegetable quiche but it was pretty good. While walking from there noted as going past a medlar with pink flowers that appeared to be grafted on pear stock which was shooting up over it. The Arriane museum was kind of nice couple bits and bob some art noveau stuff that was kind of cool, didn't know you could cast glass lost wax, which some of the stuff was labeled as. Saw the bell in the garden, stopped back in botanical garden and drew a little, Then drew in the park near monument some more. Had pizza in a real restaurant, not sure it was worth it, then back to room. I have really decided this is not the best way to travel.
6/1/02

Up at 8ish ate my granola bar, packed up, a mostly new crop of people in the room when I woke up, nobody there when I'd gone to bed. Checked out retrieving my drivers license and making reservation for last night in Geneva. Got the bus ticket, went to sit by monument for a bit. It is quite nice. Took some more pics. On the bus hour .25 ride through pretty countryside, passed a quite pretty old bridge, went over a new one beside it looked like a castle, though it still seemed to be steel suspension, so may have been more the result of 19th century whimsy than history, Doug later said the cab driver told him everyone that wants to kill themselves in the whole area goes to that bridge to throw themselves off. Arrived in Annecy, hotel is nice but not 75-15 nicer. Doug showed up we walked for a while. Had lunch, crepes and cider. I took a long walk by myself, the guide map seems to claim its about 4km each way to next town I walked to but that doesn't sound right, walked along the lake, counter clockwise, a little beach, bunch of grass with topless bathers, some really pretty views of the mountains and lake, bunch of really pretty houses by the lakeshore. Kept walking till hit the next town over Servir, resort town, a lot of expensive looking houses. I'm kind of like a wind up toy, start me in a direction and I keep going till I hit something, so went till I hit the church in the center of the town (there was a wedding going on) and finally turned around made way back quicker, wandered the old town some more. It is very picturesque though places to sit and stop to draw the picturesque ness are kind of limited. Met back up with Doug, then left again for him to practice, wandered some more, drew some more, got asked for directions in French by an American. Ate at a good place, right near the canal, with the island old prison next to you, swans in the canal, and lights in windows as the sky darkens. Quite atmospheric, if only I'd been there with a beautiful woman-with a particular beautiful woman, instead of Doug, nice as he is. Pretty good food, though closest could get was only almost vegetarian, 
Sat 6/2/02

So walked around the other side of the lake, was thinking I might try and find a reputed Italian mass at 10:30 but instead wound up walking. walked and walked and walked. some pretty scenery, some more beaches, the bird diving I saw yesterday, and saw a bunch today, is a great tufted-something or other, I've forgotten. Again a lot of nice houses. Kept going till hit next town, small neat vacationers town. Got sandwiches there and waked on a bit in hope of a boat to ride back. Did find a place that seemed to rent and do taxis service but seemed to be E60 for half hour which seemed a bit rich for me. So walked back. Doug rested, I sketched and back out to collect conference material including bright yellow nylon shoulder bag. wandered some more, ate, I having a baked sliced potato dish that seemed to have an entire cheese wheel melted over it, again almost vegetarian. How to people eat like this and fit into those pants? fiddled some with picture taking and to bed. 
Sun 6/3/02

First day of conference all a blur by now. Meet people you recall the names and vaguely what sort of paper you recall the names from. Opening address, short day, Meet some Scottish guys at lunch-which was pretty dismal from a veg standpoint. Now on my own, just grabbed a sandwich and walked around. Bit awkward trying to figure out who's a student and who's a professor, everyone seems to know everyone else. Saw some animation, bunnies and war, and music videoish fast moving digital montage of a head trying to escape through the hole in the sky, which was quite interestingly done. 
Mon 6/4/02

So the laptop didn't work with the projector so wound up working from someone else's super miniature vaio, the presentation a complete blur by now, but Doug claimed it went ok, that I did what he hadn't told me to because couldn't do it consciously, put all your nervous energy into making the talk better. which I take to mean I looked excited. Walked around bit with Doug and another student, Doug very cheery. Dinner on boat, which was odd, some guy sang briefly for no apparent reason. Sitting across from French guy and next to animation guy. Having signed up on list as a vegetarian seemed to have done no good (evidenced when the waiter came around and asked if I liked chicken, who knew chicken was a vegetable), the vegetarian option consisted of the same thing as the nonvegetarian minus the meat, plus a floret of broccoli. One o the waiters asked me and the French guy to draw something for him, apparently under the misapprehension we were all animators. I did a kind of feeble dragon, but it seemed to be reasonably received, actually I passed the waiter in the street the next day and he thanked me again and wanted to slap me five, which foreigners invariably seem to want to do to you if your American. Saw some more animation, one really cool piece of troglodyte guy and glowing mushrooms. 
tues 6/5/02

Last day of conference. Tried to check my mail but couldn't figure out how to get telnet on the macs (I hate macs) In a bit of a bad mood for no really good reason, pissy and completely sick of seeing beautiful women in tight pants. Director of ice age gave closing speech a bit rambly but some interesting stuff. Artist with some interesting stuff gave a talk as well, also rambly. Went to chateau, had special exhibit on some filmmaker, along with their paintings and sculpture, some interesting stuff but clearly a person with issues, weird assemblies of animal bones and whatnot. You can't quite let self exploration become be all and end all, it's sort of a trap in which you wind up never saying anything really meaningful. Then to church on hill behind it which is interesting, odd place architecturally, I take it to be a place of local pilgrimage, was complete with beggar sitting outside the door and a gift shop manned by a nun, not good with habits, might have been Carmelite. Interesting place, tried to calm myself down a bit, still out of sorts, lit a candle for B and the unlikely event of the world making sense. From the church it seemed like a good idea to peek around a corner to see what was up the road a bit.  From up the road, could see a trail sign so seemed one might as well see the woods and follow a trail for a couple minutes... after being lost in the woods for three hours (and admiring the giant maroon European slugs) made my way out and back rather tired but at least somewhat calmer.
Wed 6/6/02

A somewhat gray last day in Annecy, rainy. Saw the island which was unimpressive but only 80 cents. Walked by the art museum but was closed for lunch, typical. Sketched ineffectually, had sandwich. Watched some more animation, couple TV shows, sketched some more, plagued by strange daemons. A humor segment entirely in French put me in a bad mood. Really raining, that and general misery made me get a real meal, same French place, sat outside under umbrella, watching the couple at the next table, the rain coming down in the darkness, feeling sorry for myself and trying not to look at the waitresses rather inescapable cleavage. Had the exact same thing as with Doug semi-vegetarian lasagna, typical French service took 2 hours, still waiting for change and will undoubtedly not get seat for last show, actually turns out is pretty empty, very weird week
Thurs 6/7/02

Now waiting for bus to Geneva to train to Lausanne which is supposed to be nice. So got there without issue, that's when fun began, stupid of me really thought I'd ask in station, but didn't since there weren't any signs saying they did hostel reservations, though of course they probably do. So schlepped to place mentioned in guide which was closed. Reception not opening till 3, a sign outside the place labeled it a hotel. The guide called it a guest house, whatever it is it's clearly Christian themed, walked down the hill trying to find other hostel + realized belatedly how far away it was, so schlepped back up the hill toward station, stopping by low end hotel on way. After walking along street 3 times and giving up, ran across sign for it and went past but it was closed till 3 as well so gave up rather disgusted with touristing in general. Went back to station, dropped bag in locker for 7 fr. Noted Mr. McClean toilet place where it will cost you 12 fr for a shower, 2 fr for the toilet. So walked up to Cathedral which is quite nice although a bit tattered in places, still can't go wrong with big and gothic. Climbed the tower, some of it was closed for the extensive renovations going on. but got a nice view of the town and could get right up close to the bells. A pigeon was huddled on one step of the spiral staircase, and twitched a bit as you went past but didn't shift, either very sick or picked a very strange place to build a nest There did seem to be a bit of twig sticking out from under it. 3 ish back to the hostel where the man after not understanding me the first time told me the didn't have room. I was out the door before thinking to check if they had room the next day so ducked back to check. somehow this time they did have room from the day, in fact wound up paying F 40 for a 4 person room in which I was the only person for the 3 nights, he said something about a 15 f fee for warmth one time, which I didn't understand. But got key, and headed out again. Went to Outsider art museum "art brut" Was a cool place, kind of twilight zoneish some of the stuff was beautiful, a lot was ugly, a lot by lunatics, literally or near enough but was interesting to see expression making it's way out in the face of so many crushing trials. The English labels were pretty bad all in the progressive. Even the lousy stuff you had to respect because this wasn't stuff done with the expectation that the art world would applaud it as genius, it doesn't expect to be taken seriously as 'high' art. It's just people compelled to make something and they did. The Henry Darger giant watercolors of crowds of little girls with penises were truly, truly strange. Goodness knows what the 16000 page book they were illustrations for must have been like. Striking because though a bit crude in drawing they're so well composed and graceful despite their oddness. One is also struck that they are completely innocent in intention. Everything else closed by time done so sat near cathedral for a bit sketching wandered a bit more ate essentially a greasy hash brown but came with the first vegetables think I've had since here so can't complain. Back to station and got bag, back to hostel , explorations shows it to not have a laundry. A very odd place, Christian inspirational posters in French and German everywhere, music playing from rooms, a peek indoors seemed to show people really living there. I'm completely at a loss as to what kind of place this is besides the obvious fact that its one with a train track next to it which will be fun at night I'm sure (It was) Friday 6/8/02

So getting up at 8:30 consulted guide and found nothing opened till 11, walked down to the waterfront, notable for its lack of fascination. Some pretty views of the lake and some pretty buildings though. Somewhat foggy, Passed the botanical garden on way, didn't open till 10, so on way back up hill stopped there. Again a pretty elaborate alpine garden, quite elaborate really, for a place that size, some carnivorous plants, a greenhouse of cacti, worth a visit, at least if you're into plants. To the big museum a little after 1, Got falafel on the way and regretted it when I arrived, since the square in front had a market going on with a lot of good looking food. So made up for it by getting a big piece of some kind of cream/custard pie, incredibly sweet incredibly good. best 3.80 F I've spent on this trip. A complex of museums all for one relatively small entry price (4F student), or could pay separately, I got them all. The art museum was a wash. It's entire (relatively small) space devoted to an exhibition about one of its own avant guard exhibits during the 60's. I was tempted to have a seizure in the lobby in protest, clearly overstepping even the most generous bounds for acceptable self referentialism. Most exciting moment was one room where a giant plywood staircase was installed going up from one door along a platform across the room and down to the other door. You could just manage to step over it to walk along the floor, but not easily, stood for half a minute uneasily deciding if the staircase was an exhibit or if you were supposed to walk on it, before edging up it step by step, with an eye on the guard to see if she'd yell at me. Best museum was the archeology, no labels in English, but two of the most beautiful bronze swords I've ever seen, interesting dagger, Also a creepy exhibit, reconstruction of some kind of warrior arrayed for burial, this lifelike waxwork laid out in a cart in this darkened room. Pretty nice geology collection, fossils, though a lot of reproductions, like the natural history museum in Geneva this place also had quite a collection of UV fluorescent stuff from Franklin NJ. Who knew I'd visited someplace so famous so close to home? Natural history, some moth eaten poorly mounted specimens along with a smattering of two headed and six legged goats, a kitten who's deformity escapes my recollection, and a couple human feti thrown in for good measure, enough to turn me off going to natural history museums. Speculating that I might do the griffon in gyrfalcon colors, subject never far from my mind. From there to the hermitage, which of course had an exhibit of American impressionists, it was good but smallish and half from someplace in NY I hadn't head of, the cherry hill or berry hill gallery. The camera is now acting up again, seems to have eaten its batteries and be stuck open, To history museum, which was free for students and had some interesting stuff, though nothing that exciting. Did a little sketching after finally ate at beer place that advertised something vegetarian, couldn't figure out what it was but said the hell with it and went in. Turned out to be a pizza like thing on a sort of tortilla. Accidentally wound up with a half liter of beer so along with dessert the most expensive meal I've had on my own here though still only ~$16. I have to say I see why people take up drinking. I'd eaten too which always helps put me in a better mood but after the beer I was feeling much better about this whole touristing thing. Wandered out of there and past a stage on the street so stopped to write this in hope of some music, however people are now doing some kind of comedy sketch which I'm sure would be incredibly funny if I understood French, or maybe not. I caught the gist of the woman stopping to answer her cell phone during childbirth. There are also people wandering around in 19th century garb, or some approximation,  for reasons unknown, plus tents selling beer, really no clue what's going on. Back to hotel which I now note says youth home, foyer de geunsse, or something like that whatever it means. I come to realize that I have no resistance to temptation , I'm just not tempted by as many things as some other people. How does one resist temptation, by not giving into even a little bit I suppose. That you'll fail completely sooner or later makes you human, but if you allow yourself to fail little by little over and over, you become complicit in it 
Sat 6/9/02

So started out at 8:30 for station where was told next train for gruyeres was at 10:25 checked the schedule myself and double checked with guy at information desk (who spoke quite good English) that could take 9:25 to Parliziu and wait for the next connection to Gruyere, he warned me there was nothing to do there, and was right, though I did it anyway, probably just as well since I never saw the later train from Lausanne come in before the Gruyeres train left. Walked in circles through Parleziu for about 45 min which was about as much entertainment as it was good for. Pretty but nothing there, 2 streets or so not even a church. An interesting experience of what happens if you give into the temptation I often feel but have never yielded to, to get off a train at one of those random stations you pass, interesting in their own way, but only 45 min worth of interesting. That's kind of the feeling of Switzerland in general. Nervous that the connecting train had 2 cars and two people on it, 1 guy in what must have been some kind of traditional jacket, very short puffed sleeves, the front embroidered with stelle alpine. Slightly reassured when what seemed to be German tourists and some Asian people got on though of course as it turns out they didn't get off in gruyere, probably getting off in Fribourg. A very pretty ride, through green rolling fields, saw a bird of prey taking off from the field as we passed by. Got out, wended my way up the path to the town, So for once the guide didn't let me down, On occasion had the feeling it might as well have started out by saying don't bother coming to Switzerland unless you have a good reason. But this was impressive, more or less two rows of houses along a road that lies along the crest of a hill, at the end of the street a large chateaux/castle not huge but bigger than say the Castello di itri by at least a bit. But was everything you'd expect from a castle. So walked along the street a bit peeked in a few shops all selling tourist junk and some cheese. Walked around the outside of the chateau and visited the graveyard and church off to the side, Despite the guides statement the most out of place element there wasn't the Geiger museum (a close second) but the graveyard there were one or two old wrought iron crosses left, but for the most part was a tribute to tacky contemporary cut granite monuments, proof that real people still live in the place I suppose. The church was simple another one with stained glass clearly dating from 1930-50. A place you don't have to worry about looking like a tourist in because clearly almost everyone you see is one as well. So the château was quite nice. The fantasy art if once in its own space according to the guide, was now clearly scattered around the chateau and a bit thin on the ground. Odd first glimpse, two absolutely huge circular bronze plagues by Patrick Woodruffe one of his allegory of war, which I'd seen as a print, decaying monster corpses locked in a circle by chains driving swords through each other reasonable enough as an allegory of war. The second love, or something like that. Cavorting nymphs wearing panties, even I who can't lay claim to any huge maturity am not sure that is an appropriate central theme for an allegory of love. A tower full of transparency reproductions of Woodruffe's work. Some medieval rooms and some clearly dating from latter all very beautiful and you could look off the battlements and see the mountains and the green fields and hear the tinkle of cow bells in the distance. Walked through twice to make sure didn't miss too much. Pretty little formal garden as well. Went out and ate melted cheese, so at least had some cheese, though never did get to have fondue. Kind of silly to pay good money for something you could get at home for almost nothing and make in 2 min. Of course, other half of me regretted I became ashamed to make a pig of myself in a nice restaurant and didn't go for the all you can eat cheese. So, sat and drew a little, getting marginally better at drawing quaint buildings, though still more or less suck. Had an audience, this little girl that stood behind me the whole time. Spanish it seemed from her talking to her mother. Though she told me the picture was pretty and goodbye in French. Flattering as it is I was kind of wishing I was rid of her by the time I was done, not that I don't appreciate the attention, and want to inspire the young with a love of art. But people watching me draw make me nervous added to my crazy paranoia about being taken for some kind of child molester. 
Since I was there went to Geiger museum, bit steep at 7F student. A lot of stuff, much of which I'd seen in reproduction at one point or another. I do have to admire the Geiger pattern linoleum on the floors. Didn't realize how big a lot of the stuff is. Like the guide says it's pretty bad, his abstract organic stuff is quite cool but on the whole leaves one feeling he has many many problems better worked out in therapy than on canvas. Funnily I've never liked his subject matter, but always accepted that he was at least a technical expert, seeing the stuff close up, he is a masterful soft edge airbrush artist, but also sort of wonder if he can actually paint. Like my struggling with quaint medieval buildings, wonder if aside from the same mutant cyborg woman having sex with the same vacuum cleaner or whatever the hell it is, can he actually paint? Dunno. Looked through his art collection, bit of a range of pieces, a insect like skeleton on the floor, life size, one particularly unpleasant painting I'm not even going to describe but will probably hold the nastiest painting I've seen record for the foreseeable future. Peered in the window of unfinished Geiger bar, spine arches kind of cool, the quality of the casts seems low, poor alignment and a lot of voiding. Wandered and doodled a bit and sat some. Off by 7:15 train which of course to keep things interesting didn't go to parlizeu but stopped at St Dennise. The conductor pointed to the next train to Parlizeux at 9:06 I'm just hoping there's a connection to Lausanne or I'm stuck, looks like only 20 km on the map so I guess I could get a cab if need be. Should have checked the bloody schedule better, but the regional trains schedules are an incomprehensible format. Having an hour to kill walked to church in the middle of town and through a couple streets, Then nerves and enthusiasm gave out so ensconced myself on the platform steps with a variety of vending machine junk food (you can get quite a bit for about $ 3.00. Indeed the train (the last to parlizeu) came and made connection to Lausanne, Tho wound up in a smoking car. Arriving 9:50 gave in to siren call of the golden arches across from the train station, a McVeg fried veggie patty with peas and whatnot in it, Which I don't think they have in US, though it's been so long since I've been in one who knows. Not bad, better than the leathery overpriced veggie burger I remember as my last NY McD's experience. Fr 4.50 ~2.50 no idea what stuff costs at home. 
Sunday
6/10/ 02


So some relief that didn't find room full of people and myself without a bed when I'd gotten back, not sure that guy had understood 3 nights still don't know why I was the only person all that time in a 4 person room. Got to Bern ok and proceeded to do the exactly the same thing I did in Lausanne, here however the hostel reception closed at an astonishing 10:00. Found random woman who seemed to work there and she thought there was plenty of room so on strength of that left my bag in common room and went out to return at 3:00 Wandered around, Monday most everything closed, saw the outside of the cathedral (even in Italy churches don't taken a day off, well big ones) Got as sandwich, continuing to fail to take guides advice to do lunch specials, though it's a little hard if you're vegetarian. (though it was the first time someone has ever claimed to be giving me a student discount on a sandwich) Also did my best to make myself ill by getting a large basket of strawberries at a stand and eating the whole thing as I walked, they were good. Went by natural history museum which didn't open till 2, had some interesting stuff mix of older and newer educational type exhibits all in German though, it was pretty big, but minus labels only took an hour. They had all their birds mounted in diorama displays and an ant farm. I always like those, as always there was a lone ant wandering on the top rim of the case I furtively brushed him back in . Nice collection of minerals and the like, first time I've seen beach glass cut as a gemstone. So headed to hostel and they did indeed have space, got my room and even managed to get into it after enough effort, (my own fault I was turning the knob in the wrong direction) So first wandered to botanical garden not listed in guide but it's on the map, bit hard to find, had to go down dingy tunnel with some uncertainty, had this girl a bit younger than me just behind me, both making me nervous and reassuring me that It couldn't be that dangerous a tunnel if she was going in just behind me. It led out to botanical part of local university and the garden. Reasonably big, nice, mandatory alpine garden, I need one of those. A medium sized palm and cactus house, quite large voodoo bulb which had just flowered. Went down to river which is quite swollen, the guide says there was very bad flooding in '99. Could believe it, water is pretty high on the banks which in places are above street level. Saw couple official looking types that seemed to be surveying the river from the platform near the church. Ate the last of my vending machine booty, mmm caramel while strolling through the greenery, what more can you ask for in life,.. well a woman to eat caramel and stroll with I suppose, but beggars cant be choosers. wandered some more, saw the bears in their pit apparently they ate someone in '98, sketched, wandered some more, sat near the platform by the church, which the guide was dead on again about, a very popular place to sit and smoke pot. So went to train station to try and find vegetarian place the guide recommends but seems to have been replaced by an Italian place Should probably have just eaten there, but wound up with ok but kind of weird pizza from a clearly German place, made up for it by eating all my bread soaked in hot oil they provided a bottle of as some kind of condiment to add yet more grease to your pizza. On the way there I actually went into the Mr. McClean in the train station. 50 cents seems high to take a pee to me. Though could be worse, clear sex discrimination, men have the choice of a pee for 1F or the full deal for 2, while women don't get a choice, a problem of enforcement I suppose. kind of funny you go through a turn style into separate areas depending on your business, they are very clean very fancy public bathrooms I have to admit, so you get something for the exorbitant price. Bit more wandering and back to hostel, walked along the swollen river a bit, saw a girl with striking red hair sitting on the bank next to a guy, the guy got out a lighter and started setting fire to a sheaf of notebook paper, holding it out over the river while they sat there. Who knows why, but a tremendously striking image A little further on a guy had just pulled a fish out of the stream and was measuring it against a metal thing of some sort, apparently finding it big enough started banging its head against the railing, as I walked by. That's what's cool about walking, almost always something different and odd to see. Walked along a bit more, funny I wonder why it is that swollen rivers are always that opaqueish green gray color. Monday 6/11/2002

So started off with history museum, which as it turns out was closed for renovation with the exception of a special exhibit on tapestries, which was quite nice and renewed my sporadic intention to do medieval style, modern dress biblical scenes. Would have bought the catalog but it was all in German. Also made me think about doing something with multiple times in one picture, always something cool about medieval pictures with someone doing something then right nearby them again, doing something else, all as part of the same crowd scene. Rifle museum didn't open till 2 so wended my way through muster, beautiful church, windows, a lot of nice gothic flourishes, of course the bell tower was closed so couldn't go up. Then the big art museum, which wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It's not all contemporary, or maybe the medieval stuff was part of the 'time machine' special exhibit which I never did quite understand from the poetic but uninformative English description. Couple nice big paintings, guy who's name I've forgotten, black figure crouched on chest of a terrified guy in a crowd of sleepers. Some nice medieval stuff, tendency to scatter contemporary stuff in randomly. actually the most impressive thing about the place was the bathroom. Going in I said to myself it looked like a star wars set, just much cleaner. Got the shock of my life when I got up from the toilet, the entire seat started to rotate in a way that made it hard to tell if it was just rotating or if it was distorting as well, it must have. So it sterilized itself after each use by rotating 360 degrees under this head, whether the head used UV or disinfectant I didn't note. I couldn't believe it. The really funny thing being that after this display of shocking high technology you then still had to flush it yourself, undoubtedly covering the seat with an aerosol of toilet water so what's actually been accomplished is probably close to nothing. Out, looked for it but seemed the women's art gallery reputed to be around the corner has ceased to be one and was now some other kind of gallery. After that wandered across the street to see the squatters arts center, wandered in just to see what there was to see. Brief battle with disinclination to enter graffiti covered abandoned buildings smelling strongly of pot that describe themselves as police no go zones, no matter how safe the guide claims it is. Passed a crowd of rather disreputable looking types hanging out on street corner outside of it, reminded that the guide said dealers weren't welcome inside but hung out just outside. Nothing too exciting inside, couple graffiti covered buildings and a bar with a bunch of pretty nonmenacing teens drinking Fanta. Almost got a drink but since I had my water bottle, figured the truly bohemian thing to do would be not to indulge. Nothing much else to do so wandered back to the Swiss rifle museum. Devoted primarily to saving everything any Swiss person has ever won in any shooting match, ever. A lot of silver tea sets and urns and the like. Also wall of Swiss shooting, rack of weapons covering everything between the longbow and the current model automatic rifle. Thought about going in other modern art gallery but poster outside didn't look thrilling so just left, wandered and drew a bit, wandered some more, realized belatedly that I'd forgotten to try and visit the Einstein museum, so missed out on where the theory of relativity was born, oh well, couldn't be that exciting, and leaves me something for if I'm ever in Bern again :). Briefly thought I'd discovered the key to eating cheaply and well, don't eat meals, just buy stuff continually as you pass something interesting, in effect Unfortunately was really just an excuse to eat a lot of pie throughout the day and by 8 when take out places were closed, still wanted something to eat. Went to the Manora self serve place near train station. Briefly discouraged by this guy, seemingly middle eastern, who as I was peering in the window, went in but before doing so stopped to shout at me "America is nothing, America is bullshit". I took the time tested approach of smiling and nodding like I hadn't understood him and thought he was wishing me good evening, I then went to the bathroom in the train station and came back a little later. The guide mentioned the chain vaguely in all the cities as an also ran in the cheap food options. But it was actually quite nice, Interesting half modernistic half traditional decor, simple businesslike atmosphere, Clearly marked vegetarian options, relatively cheap, the first meal I've had on this trip that I got up from full, giant baked macaroni with cheese containing (oh wonder) identifiable vegetable chunks, a coke and apple pie total 13.5 F ~$7. Clearly a popular place with the locals , couple people there kind of looked homeless, but a very clean Swiss sort of homeless look, so kind of hard to tell really. Overall I'd class it as one of my more pleasant dining experiences, and that's with the fact that I was looking around me every 5 min or so to make sure the "America is bullshit" guy wasn't sneaking up behind me with a steak knife and wondering if the old man and woman at the next table were splitting a $2.50 mini pizza because they were really not that hungry or too poor. So I'm not a gourmand or a high roller, so sue me. Noted these funny little 3 wheel cars, the kind the whole top hinges forward on, kind of funny watching slightly portly business man clambering out of one. Kind of reluctant to say bye to Bern, as boring as the rest of Switzerland but very civilized. I could see why people would want to live here, really quite leafy suburbs 10 min walk from a miniature medieval version of midtown Manhattan. Some drug problems it seems, bunch of people in hostel commented on being surprised at seeing people shooting up on the street though I didn't see any, still seems quite civilized overall, and everywhere, country or city has it's drug problems. Still I'm glad I only have 1 more day. 
Tues 6/12/02

So last day, up breakfast, that they have breakfast even if only 7:30-9:30 AM almost makes up for the communal showers. Though that early in the morning I don't really have an appetite, that's probably the idea. Out by quarter to 9:00 made it to Neufchatel pretty early of course there were no luggage lockers so lugged pack to expo site, paid an exorbitant fee to get in fr 45 dropped off my bag, of course wound up on line behind the largest group of schoolgirls ever assembled all checking their huge backpacks individually. So I don't know if the other two were better but the Neufchatel site came over rather strongly of an over budgeted high school science fear, kind of weird wooden sphere which was probably the highlight of the place. It was full of a confusing medley of sound bites in 4 languages on the environment and sustainability. Funnily enough they mention at the end a sensible question, in the interests of environmentalism, where did they get al the wood, the answer it was recycled from the Swiss pavilion at a world expo in 2000, when I got back mentioned it and Bjorn in fact remembers being there, and the wood being in an equally cryptic and pointless, though different, format. There were lines to get into everything and usually what was inside didn't take as long as the line. I had patience for Biopolis, middle school level bioinformatics and a couple random Frenchmen spouting on bioethics. Plus a family oriented Geiger installation, just a giant steel cube etched with his patterns Gave up and went to see old town and museum. The art museum was closed for an installation but what was left was free for the expo. A room of paintings of the lake and the historical portion, usual bits and bob, some swords a suit of amour and the automata. Not too impressive visually, 3 oversized dolls but they had pictures of the workings, incredible to think about, how do you get clockwork to write a letter, much less make what it writes programmable. Fed a franc into machine that I think was supposed to play an explanation, but it just ate it instead. Wandered saw the natural history museum, also free for the expo, which for reasons I never did get had a plastic cow sitting in a box of sand in this weird instillation on the top floor, wandered following signs for quite a while, trying to find the botanical garden but gave up. Saw church which was pretty, walked the shopping district, had a griffon sculpture here as well, played to climb up the prison tower, lunch a sandwich and two pieces of pie, one custard one rhubarb. Bored by then so back to expo, went into Ada 'the intelligent environment' a little under whelming in that it appeared to consist of a touch sensitive floor that lit up in a couple ways when you stepped on it, and some video cameras, presumably doing tracking but if they were didn't seem to actually be used to do anything. Even I could have come up with something more exciting to do with a touch sensitive floor. I believe part of the wow factor was that there was supposed to be a neural network behind it somewhere, there's a neural network somewhere in Word isn't there, does that make it worthy of public exhibition?  Then the magic of power which was the one kind of neat one, a person doing a sort of dance/magic pantomime to a bunch of illuminated water jets. With a strobe on it somehow appeared to create a sinusoidal path of hovering droplets arcing overhead. Then had someone playing a number of household appliances hooked up to an organ keyboard, not well, but playing them. The robotics hall also something of a disappointment. Couple example robots doing nothing too exciting (or just plain nothing) and bunch of wandering robots you were supposed to interact with, like the museum guide robots I've seen presentations on, but a bit more low end. didn't as far as I could tell do anything interesting seemed from the write up that they sue some kind of condensation localization like I remember the  talk on. Color blob face tracker. Seemed like II needed to change in Lausanne for train to Geneva central but train didn't stop in Lausanne which was just as well because it  went to Geneva central not just the airport, checked in wandered a little debated whether to take a cab or if the first train would leave enough time. Decided tentative on train 1.5 hr seems more than sufficient to bed coached myself before that I had to get up at 4:30 
Wed

got up 4 by myself waking from a nightmare in which I was looking at some kind of silicon wafer, and hitting it against the desk then writing results, then a phase where I was narrating, saying I'd been doing automatic writing recalling some event "and when I realized the language was something like English and what it said, I began to scream " Dream had quite a Lovecraftian feel to it. So made it out, got train, even finally got chance to use some Italian, though not usefully a woman asked me in Italian if I thought the train for Milan was going to Milan or if she's have to transfer, I couldn't imagine that it said Milan if it wasn't going got Milan but who knows if I was right. hour late making connection in Amsterdam because of extra security at gate, instead of a stewardess doing it on line they now have a stern looking guy taking you aside individually to ask you if you packed your own luggage, took any ticking packages from that nice man Abdul, etc, makes me feel much safer. But made it back in one piece from yet another trip, so that's what's important