Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Mmmm, Cheese
Unfortunately, prior to my invite to the mountain chalet, I had agreed to a Sunday work trip, escorting the Algerians on their trip to Gruyere, Switzerland. The trip was going to include a tour of the cheese factory (including cheese samples!), a tour of the local castle, and a free lunch. When I made the commitment it seemed like a great idea; it was a trip I would have probably paid for one my own, and this way I could do it for free, and enjoy the company of the Algerians. Of course, the day after I committed to Gruyere I got the invite to Chandler's chalet, which was infinitely more enticing. Chandler told me at the concert on Friday night that his chalet was conveniently, just ten minutes from Gruyere, so they could just drop me off at the cheese factory on Sunday morning – how simple. Sadly, life can never be that simple. A week earlier two of the Algerians had fallen off of a train when the doors opened and the train continued to move (in the US they would now be millionaires, but people aren’t very litigious here.) Because of this incident, my boss was worried about other potential catastrophes, and refused to allow the Algerians to travel on the chartered bus without me. Hence, on Sunday morning, I woke up at 5:30 AM (three and half short hours after I had gone to bed), and got on a 6:00 AM train back to Geneva, so I could get on a bus to go back to where I had started. It took me three hours to complete a ten-minute trip.
But ridiculous travels aside, the trip was great. Spending time with the participants is always fun and the castle and the town of Gruyere were beautiful. The cheese factory was a little boring, but the cheese samples were stellar, making the factory visit completely worthwhile. I did admittedly get a little angry during the trip because everyone kept dispersing to take photos of everything. I had to try and rein in 29 stubborn adults who did not want to function on a Western time schedule – hence we were late everywhere we went. I finally started leveraging my control over lunch, threatening to leave them behind without telling them where we were going to eat. Food was a very effective tool to keep them all moving. Once at lunch, I had the pleasure of participating in one of my favorite kinds of conversations – what’s your culture like. Although I learned a lot about Algeria, I think the most important piece of information relayed was from me to one of the Algerians. He told me that he could never live in the US because our cheese was so bad. Now, judging by our current location in Gruyere, and the general quality of cheese in Switzerland, I wasn’t entirely shocked by this statement until it occurred to me that this man had never been to the US. How could he possibly know what kind of cheese we have available in the States? So I asked him how he knew about US cheese, and he said, “Well, I’ve had American cheese at McDonalds and it’s awful.” He was shocked when I explained that we had lots of other kinds of cheese in the US and that most of our food was quite different from what you get at McDonalds. Apparently Mickey Ds is giving us a bad culinary rap in developing countries.
After lunch and a little free time for the Algerians to spend far too much money on crappy Swiss souvenirs (they love that stuff, I don’t know why) we headed back home. I was exhausted, but spent the ride chatting with my favorite Algerian, Hassen (pictured in the 4th of July entry). By the time I got home, I was in a bit of daze, but I diligently set my alarm clock for 8:00 PM, so I could get up to watch the World Cup finals. Sadly, after setting my alarm, I failed to turn it on, and I slept from 6:00 until 11:00 when I woke up to the stupid Italians honking their horns. I was disappointed that I had missed the game, but not so upset that I couldn’t go back to sleep – I slept until 6:45 the next morning; it was great.
