Switzerland & Germany

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Europe: June 1-12

In June of 1994 we had a trip to Switzerland where Kate and Cindy attended the 20th KBS (Kettil Bruun Society) conference in Rüschlikon (that's a suburb of  Zurich in the German Canton of Switzerland). From Switzerland we visited Hamburg, Cologne and the Mainz area of Germany.

This would have been our first experience in a country where English was not the first language. We studied ahead of time to learn some of the language ("gutten tag", "ein bier bitte", "danke", "auf wiedersehen" and especially "Ich bin kein Seeman" which will be explained shortly) but we often struggled.

We had European Rail Passes which made it possible for us to see a lot of Switzerland and Germany. Train travel would take you to pretty much anywhere you wanted to go, trains were frequent and we had lots of fun.

Things we like about Switzerland

• The toilet flusher that you pull up.
• The metal covers for helping you rip the toilet paper.
• The plentiful biffies that are nice and perfumed.
• The toilet at the conference center that says "you are beautiful" on the mirror (in the men's room it says "you are powerful")
• Unbleached toilet paper.
• The trains, boats and transit systems.
• Train windows that open.
• Glassware marked with deciliter or millilitre fill lines.
• The cities are clean with no, or very few, street people.
• The greenery of the countryside.
• The Alps and Cog-Trains.
• Alpen Horns & Yodeling.
• Benches to rest on.
• Trees pruned to provide shade in the parks.
• Coffee, cafes and outdoor restaurants.

After the KBS conference in Switzerland we took an overnight train to Hamburg in Germany for another conference (the XIV World Congress for Social Psychiatry). Our visit to Hamburg was brief and we weren't particularly impressed. From there we took a train to Cologne with a quick return train trip up the Rhine to Mainz. From Cologne we returned to Mainz on a fast hydrofoil on the Rhine. We stayed a couple of nights in Mainz and visited with our friend Martin, his wife Veronika and their two young twerps Chris and Ines in nearby Nierstein where we tramped the vineyards (see photo above) for a wine festival tasting. 

We returned to Canada on the Sunday from Frankfurt.

Slides scanned and notes composed during the Russian Invasion of Ukraine, March 2022 — as if living through the OMIGOD! COVID variant wasn't bad enough! The diary entries which follow were composed by Cindy, Kate and Reg at the time.