Day 58

Ludiano, originally uploaded by Ryan Runs Europe.

48.9 Kilometers.
I might as well just put a shotgun to my knees. Almost 50 km of continuous hard surface running, the majority of which was downhill, was probably not the best thing for my already tired legs. I had found a place to stay in Ludiano, a small village near Biasca (the place I had intended on stopping) via couchsurfing, and on a map it appeared to be a bit closer to Airolo (where I was coming from). Closer doesn't mean much when there is a huge mountain ridge between you and your destination, so I had to run downhill to Biasca in one valley, and then back up another valley to Ludiano. Ludiano is beautiful--basically if you imagine a beautiful small Italian town and then cross that with the imagery of a mountain village in the Alps, then you have a good idea of what it is like. Alice (my host) made me some pasta for lunch, and we spent the afternoon talking (in Italian) until it was dinner time and Alice made a pizza from scratch (I like this Italian part of the world). I also threw my laundry in a machine...I hadn't washed my clothes in a couple days, and my stuff was starting to smell pretty rank. In the evening, we headed to a local middle/high school and watched a series of short plays in Italian that all had something do with apples ("Meladramma"). The school was pretty small, but the plays were entertaining and simple enough for me to understand. There was even a section which shared a theme with one of my favorite philosophies, the Plato/Aristophanes/Symposium concept of the derivation of love and the search for the other half. In the play, a bunch of apples were cut in half and shaken about in a tub. Everyone grabbed an apple, which represented themselves and after holding the apples in front of them, they danced about putting their half-apples against other half-apples, trying to find the perfect match. Basically, if love is a jigsaw puzzle, this is the strategy where you randomly plug pieces together trying to find one that fits. This all goes well until one of the pieces has a roughed up corner and then all the corners get roughed up and there isn't a good cure for jigsaw STDs. The better strategy, which I could easily see from the audience, would be to look at your own apple/jigsaw piece and then scan the room to find one that looks pretty close to it. The more you know your own apple, the easier it is to find a match. For me, all the things we do in life are about finding out your own apple/jigsaw shape, the more you know, the easier it is to solve the puzzle...you just have to hope that there isn't an odd number of apples-halves (In which case, you just eat your own...which actually ended up happening later in the play). A very philosophical middle school play, I must say.
After the play, we headed into Bellinzona and watched some of the Blues Festival that was going on there, and then headed to an underground Reggae bar, where Alice asked me if I could translate what was being said in the music. I answered, "No, I don't understand Italian that well I guess." She responded "Umm, this music is in English." After listening and maybe understanding one or two words, I realized that it was some sort of English based language. Either I've been away from English way too long (doubtful)...or that is one seriously messed up dialect.
Around 2 am, when I couldn't force my eyes open anymore, we drove back to Ludiano and I passed out on the sofabed. A 50 km start to any day will surely put me out quick.

Day 57

Peak of the Gotthard, originally uploaded by Ryan Runs Europe.

21.5 Kilometers.
The Gotthard is my bi***.
I left around 9 am from Andermatt, and it took me around an hour and ten minutes to peak the Gotthard, the highest point on my route. It actually wasn't that bad except for one false peak ("I'm almost there!") that ended up continuing upwards for a few more kilometers once I got to it. At the top the weather started to shift, and I knew that I had to get down to Airolo before the predicted enormous storm would hit (around noon). I met a man at the top named Andreas who had walked to the Gotthard from Basel over nine days, and we sat down in the little cafeteria there for a drink and some conversation. From there, it was a race to get to Airolo before the weather got worse. A thick fog had come in, and the air was incredibly wet. I couldn't see more than 20 meters in front of me through the fog, and the wet ground didn't make the downwards travel on a narrow mountain trail any easier. I have to define my method of travel this day as a mixture of running, hiking, sliding and falling.
I got into Airolo right as it started pouring down. It definitely poured...all day and all night. I was soaking wet, and there was absolutely nothing to do in Airolo on a rainy day. I spent some time in the tourism office looking over brochures, and took a nap in the train station waiting room. I ate some pasta for lunch and some pizza for dinner, and was pretty excited to start speaking Italian (the pass is the dividing line between the German and Italian speaking language zones in Switzerland). There was no laundromat in the town, so I didn't do the laundry that I really needed to do (my clothes were beyond the level that hand washing could restore). The day was spent waiting for something to happen...but nothing really happened except for more rain and thunder.
Around 9 I wandered into the bar in town hoping to find someone who might be able to help me out. I ordered a Gottardo beer and drank it very very slowly, waiting for the chance to break into the conversation. The problem with Airolo is that everyone seemed to know everyone, and the entire bar was involved in fast Italian conversation. It is pretty hard to find a good point to break in when everyone is speaking quickly in a language that is not your first. I finished my beer (after an hour I think...) and ordered an iced tea. After I had finished it, I ended up catching the bartender and a few minutes later I was speaking to a few other people in the bar...including one guy who kept testing my (not very good) abilities in languages by switching between English, French, German and Italian every few sentences. At the end of the night, when almost all hope was lost (nobody could put me up), a young man named Nauel brought me over to speak to the woman who ran the hotel next door, who he knew. After some talking, it turned out that there was an empty room that someone had just left, and they gave me some fresh sheets and said goodnight. I took a shower and spent some time looking at maps for the next day. I fell asleep warm and comfortable as the lightning and rain crashed down outside.

Day 56

Day 56, Switzerland is Paradise, originally uploaded by Ryan Runs Europe.

43.5
Once again I had to wake up early, and I headed out the door stumbling tired. René dropped me off back at the pub on his way to work, and I grabbed a pastry and started heading in the direction of the Gotthard. Before I got out of town, I was temporarily shrunk by a giant bench. It was a pretty nice morning but my clothes were still wet, so after two kilometers I stopped on a bench and laid down and put my wet clothes over me and got a couple of hours of sleep while they dried. When I got up around 10, I ran about 7 km to the next town and stopped to buy some tape and ibuprofen for both my ankles. I was feeling a bit of pain, so I figured I would take the precautionary measure. I also finally bought two 'Mach 3' razor heads to replace the two that I have used for the entirety of the trip thus far (they were getting a bit dull).
Then I started running. The run to Andermatt was beautiful as well, but I had to gain 1000 meters of elevation this day, so at times it was a bit difficult. I have no idea how fast I was running, but sometimes even though I was pushing hard I felt like I wasn't moving at all. It wasn't really the kind of day to rush, so I took it kind of easy. Apart from a few lesser grade hills, it was kind of like doing that hill at the Rockies (state park outside of NYC)...except it lasted for the length of the entire loop. It wasn't actually THAT bad though. I found myself not cursing the uphills, but rather the down. "I just ran up a 20 minute hill, and now you're making me lose much of that effort in 5?!"
I ran over a bunch of amazing old stone bridges, including the famous "Devil's Bridge." I got into Göschenen around lunchtime, only a few kilometers from Andermatt and decided to stop and get something to eat. The problem with small towns in Europe though is that the grocery store is closed during lunchtime, so I had to wait until 2 to get something to eat that didn't cost 25 francs. After I ate, I started heading up towards Andermatt, walking for a few kilometers to let my food settle before starting to run again.
As I got into town, I went by the old church that René had shown me a picture of the evening before...I went in and was lucky to find him still there working on the restoration. It was pretty cool running halfway up a mountain pass and seeing the same person that I had left in the morning a few hours before. I spoke with René for a while, and he gave me some water and fruit to snack on, and I headed out of town to find the river that I had been criss-crossing all day. I wanted to go in. I found it, and under a shining sun I took one of the most glorious ice baths I could ever imagine. When I got out, I spent an hour or so walking around the rocks and hills surrounding the town, finding many curious doors and chimneys coming out of the sides of the rocks.
When I got into town, I went into the "61" Internet kiosk and cafe, and wrote my blog entry for the day before. There I met Bernie, the guy who was running to the shop, and we started talking about my trip. Before saying goodbye, I asked if he knew where I might be able to find a place to shower and sleep and he immediately offered me a place at his house. His English was perfect, and we spent the evening talking about all sorts of crazy things. He has gone on many bike rides and treks over thousands of kilometers, through India, Asia and Europe. He also has a hobby of finding crystals in the mountains here, and it was pretty crazy to see some of the stuff that he has dug up...things that seem to perfect and geometric to be natural. It was pretty cool to think that he was the first person to set an eye on these rocks...thousands or millions of years after their creation. We had some tea together and he told me about much of the history and myths behind the region. I asked him about the chimneys and doors that I had seen all day, and he informed me that a huge portion of the mountainside here is hollowed out for military facilities...supposedly large enough to host thousands upon thousands of people. The idea of a subterranean city below the Alps is just incredible. I wanted to get a flashlight and a crowbar and do some exploring...but I think that will have to be a future trip.

Day 55

Day 55 View 15, originally uploaded by Ryan Runs Europe.

54.8 Kilometers.
One of the most beautiful runs of my life. A little long...but seriously, this place is paradise.
I had to wake up early and take the bus back into town with my host to the place where I got on (even though it brought me backwards). We got into town around 6:30, and I was incredibly tired having had only 4 hours of sleep. My clothes were still wet, so I walked for a couple kilometers with them draped over my body and backpack to let them dry. Before they could dry, it started to rain, so I began to collected the wet clothes and put them inside my bag. In the process, I noticed that my white shirt was nowhere to be found...it had been sitting on the back of my backpack. Uh oh. I quickly turned around and started running back towards Zug in the rain...amazingly, it was still sitting in the road a half a mile back.
When the rain started really coming down hard, I found a little public swim hut with a locker room off the side of the lake and went inside. Tired and with wet clothes, I hung up my things and took a nap for a couple hours. The light in the locker room was automatic, with a motion sensor in front of the building...so around 10:30 the light came on, and I woke up and collected my things before I could be discovered.
From there, the run was smooth and pretty. I have some similar pain that I had before in my left shin now (a little in my right too...) so I tried to take it pretty easy. When I got to the turnoff for Schwyz, my planned stop, I decided to keep going to Altdorf which would supposedly be a much better stop. When I got to the little town of Brunnen, having run over 30 kilometers, I stopped into the tourism office and looked at a map. I had no idea how much further Altdorf would be...it turned out to be about another 22 kilometers. "Big day I guess." I decided to rest for a bit, and had a salad and schnitzel in Brunnen. I also finally broke and bought the one souvenir that I can predict buying on this trip, a 14 franc Swiss Army knife. I think it is the only reasonably priced thing in this country, I don't know if it helps that I bought it less than 5 km away from the factory...
I started walking on the trail towards Altdorf, up the side of a mountain along the edge of the lake. I walked maybe 5 km to let my food settle and started running again. The trail was crazy, and the views of the mountains and blue lake below were some of the most amazing views I have ever seen. There were times where it was so beautiful that I felt like I was going to cry. Not really...but there were times that I thought, "man, if I were a dude who cried at this kind of stuff, I would definitely cry now." You have to see this place. It is unlike anything I have ever seen before...like the pictures I saw when planning the trip, but with a color and a feel that could never be captured by a camera.
When I got into Altdorf, I was wiped out. I stumbled into a bakery and grabbed something to eat and drink and sat down next to this famous William Tell statue for a while, feeling wasted...like I could never move again. Somehow I managed to get up and start wandering around the town. I found the church and went in, and fell asleep sitting up in a pew. I think it was only a few minutes before I woke up, wiped the drool from my face and stumbled back into town. Once I had made a few circles around the town, I sat down again by the statue. Eventually, I again forced myself up and found something to eat, and went into a nearby bar to see about finding a place to sleep. I knew that I would instantly die if I drank a beer, so I ordered a Coke and asked the bartender for some ice for my shin. She gave it to me, and we started talking (in German) about my trip. After a while, another guy came into the bar, and I talked to him for a while about it as well. When it was getting close to 11, I made the plunge and asked if either of them knew if there was a place I could take a shower and get some sleep around the town. The man, René asked if I didn't mind waking up at 6, and I said "of course not" (a little sleep is better than none). At his place, he made up a bed for me out of rock climbing mats and we spent some time showing each other pictures from our adventures. René really takes advantage of this amazing country, going climbing, horseback riding, mountain biking, camping, fishing, whitewater rafting, skiing...well, pretty much everything you can do on an almost daily basis. I took a shower and rinsed off my clothes as he made some food, and we ate together as he explained the best route for me to take in the morning. He would be working on an old church in Andermatt in the morning, and makes the drive almost daily. I went to bed well after midnight, and didn't have much trouble falling asleep.

Day 54

Höllgrotten and Me, originally uploaded by Ryan Runs Europe.

34.5 Kilometers.
I had a great dinner with Tom last night...he has a kitchen, so we were able to make some burgers for less than 10 dollars a piece (the price here for "just the sandwich" at a fast food place). We went out for drinks, and I woke up and headed out the door with Tom. Not wanting to make him late, I didn't hit the toilet up on the way out the door, thinking that I could just find one before I left town. Only a couple blocks away, I found a public restroom (common in Zurich) and went inside. There were used needles all over the place, and I decided that I should probably hold it until I found another bathroom. When I got into the next bathroom, I was excited to see that it was pretty clean...except for when I went to put down the toilet seat, I noticed that it was covered in blood. I decided that I should probably hold it until I found another bathroom. Luckily, I found a McDonald's, and went in to use the toilet. It was clean and safe feeling, but there was a bunch of stuff in the toilet, and after trying to flush it, it started overflowing. I decided to wait until the next bathroom...but luckily there was another floor of McDonald's, so I was saved by the Big Mac once again.
I didn't get out of town until around 10, and I ended up getting into Baar around noon. On the way I had a hill that felt like it was a mile long, and thought about how much it would suck to run up a nonstop hill that is more than 26 times that. When I got to the top of it though, there was a really nice view, so I decided to take a picture. Before I could press the button though, I got shocked in the leg by the electric fence that I had unassumingly leaned against. Nothing like some stim therapy to get me going again.
When I got into Baar, I bought my lunch from a grocery store: a piece of watermelon, a huge chocolate milk, a little individual pasta with ham and a piece of bread to use as a fork. I went across the street to the patio furniture store and sat in one of the tables to eat my food. After I finished awkwardly eating by scooping bits of pasta with pieces of soggy bread (I had set it down on my sweaty shorts) I noticed that there was a secret fork compartment with utensils and a napkin on the underside of the pasta dish. Oh well.
After lunch I wandered out to the Höllgrotten, a limestone cave system that is open for visits. I had to pay to get in, and it wasn't really that adventurous considering the installed lighting and artificial watering system...but it was still pretty cool. The stalactites look like some sort of crazy alien plant, and one can see where the water level of the underground lakes were by the formation of the limestone. (Geology...rocks!!!)
Once I left the Höllgrotten, I was basically equidistant from Zug (in the direction I am moving) and Baar (the town I had already been), so I decided to go on forward. In Zug, I found a nice little swimming area, locked up my stuff in the free lockers and dived in. Switzerland is spotted with beautiful, clean lakes. Once I had swam and jumped into water to my heart's delight, I struck up a conversation with a group of youngish people who were sitting on the dock. We had a beer together, and spoke (in English) about travelling. Things were going really well, but two of the people weren't from the town and were staying with the third. There wasn't room for me, and everyone they asked who they knew in the town said "No, are you crazy." They informed me (as many Swiss people have done) that people in this country are generally afraid and unaccepting of strangers. I was once again surprised to see how many locals (even well travelled ones) buy into such a stereotype of their own country.
Feeling kind of hopeless, and with the sun setting in the horizon, I approached a group of 5 people around my age and asked (to start conversation) if there was anything to do in the town. They said that there wasn't really anything to do in town except for what they were doing, and they handed me a beer and let me sit down with them on the edge of the lake. After we talked for a while, and went to a bar for another drink and something to eat, I caught a bus to a nearby village and found a nice shower and a place to rinse my clothes. Man I am lucky that that Swiss stereotype isn't always true.

Days 50-53

In da club, Zurich, originally uploaded by Ryan Runs Europe.

24.6 Kilometers.
Rest. Drinking. Recovery. Planning.
I've been away from the blog (and the run) for a few days, taking some time off to enjoy Zurich with some friends. My friends Nic (who I worked with at DS+R) and Tom (a fellow Columbian) are here, likely the last familiar faces that I will see for a long time (I don't really know anyone who lives south of here). I have also been taking some much needed time to plan the next stages of my trip. As some of you might have guessed, I have to cross over the Alps in a few days. It is a pretty big hill, and I want to make sure I'm running over it in the prettiest way. It is important that you go the pretty way when you are planning on climbing 1,622 meters in two days.
The run into Zurich was pretty easy and straightforward. The constant flickering rain/sun has continued, but I got into the city without a problem with one of the shortest runs that I have had in a while. I met Nic in the center of town, and we went around and visited the campuses of the ETH (a place that I'm thinking about spending some time at some point). During the tour I got to stop by the digital fabrication shop here (where Tom is interning for the summer) which really got me going. I had seen the guys here lecture at Columbia a while back, and since then I have been in love with the work that goes on here. They have a robotic arm that assembles bricks in incredibly complex patterns based on digital models (among other things). I want this robot so badly. The technology in digital fabrication is moving very quickly, but seeing what is possible today only makes me want more to come even faster. It is hard for me to wait to get back to that world, but I'm sure I'll be even more ready to get some good work done when the time comes. For now, it is running and more inspiration.
Zurich is a great city, and from the lake you have a majestic view of the mountains that I'll have to be crossing in a matter of days. They look cold and big.
Nic has many good friends here, and I spent the weekend partying with him until 4 am each night. He lives a half hour drive or so out of the city though, so I've been going with him back and forth to Aarau pretty frequently. Nic is not much bigger than me, so he let me borrow some clothes for the weekend, and I felt kind of strange walking around in normal clothes (including shoes and pants that were a couple sizes too big). The 'going out' scene here is pretty huge, and I had a lot of fun with Nic and his friends. One major downside however is the fact that it is legal to smoke indoors in Switzerland. All of my clothes would reek of cigarettes at the end of each night, and I frequently feel a little bit nauseous from spending too much time in a cloud of second hand smoke. Add that nausea to way too much whiskey and a windy drive back to Aarau at five in the morning and you'll find my dinner flying out the window of a moving car and an early morning car wash. I've gotten used to that kind of math...
I walked around the city a bit each day, checking out the old parts and the new. I saw the Stadelhofen train station, an earlier project by Santiago Calatrava, and was pleased and amazed to see that it wasn't composed of long white pointy things.
I also caught the end of the Zurich Ironman going by.
"Look, other runners!"
"They look tired..."
With all the running I've been doing, I still think that an Ironman would really, really suck.
I have also gotten fairly used to everyone here calling me Forrest Gump. I guess it is really the only popularly known example of someone running places alone...and while the story is pretty much completely different, I guess we both like running and eating chocolates. Almost every runner in the states has heard "Run Forrest Run!" mockingly shouted at them by some little punk on the side of the road. Take that same zeal and multiply it by every person I've met, and I've basically got a new second name.
I am currently sitting in a computer lab at the ETH, working on planning my next few stages. With the spacing of the towns, and the fact that I'm going up a pretty serious hill, I think I'll be doing some shorter days for the next week or so. Tonight I will stay with Tom in the city and head towards Baar in the morning. From there I will head south until I catch up to the No. 2 "wanderweg" which I will follow until I arrive in Italy...
I also don't have any prearranged places to stay for at least a week, so it looks like I'll be touching up on my Swiss German.

Day 49

Miriam, Simon and I, originally uploaded by Ryan Runs Europe.

30.7 Kilometers.
I woke up late at Jeremy's place in Schaffhausen, he had gone to work and left me the key to put in the mailbox when I left, and I got a solid 10 hours of sleep, a make up for the night before. I went about town for a bit and ran some errands which included buying a new Swiss SIM card. The currency here is pretty close to the dollar, so it is strange thinking on those terms again without too much math. Everything is incredibly expensive here though...
I started heading towards Winterthur, starting with a sore walk for a couple kilometers which gradually evolved into a comfortable run. The way was pretty straightforward, but I got mixed up when the small highway I was running along evolved into something bigger...but somehow I stumbled upon a "wanderweg" (footpath) with a sign pointing to Winterthur. From then on, it was smooth sailing on mostly gravel trails. It has been raining off and on here for several days, but it seems that as soon as I take out my jacket it always stops...and then when I put it away it starts again. I have learned to stop bothering with the jacket/drawback/cell phone Ziplock for now.
I got into Winterthur and wandered towards the house of Miriam and Simon...people who had sent me an e-mail after finding my blog, suggesting that Winterthur would be a better stop than what I had planned. I am pretty flexible with minor changes to my route now that I am actually doing it. You can get a better sense of a place by the people who live there than by looking down at a map. I had no idea what I would be heading towards, having only seen a few words and a name in an e-mail, I just had to fall back on trust and some good precedence.
As I got close to the house, someone said my name ("Hey, nobody knows who I am here!"). I turned to find Simon, the young man behind the name in the e-mail. We went back to the apartment, where I took a shower and met Miriam who put my ash and sweat covered cloths in the wash. I lucked out with this blind meeting...they are a great couple with a cool apartment and a taste of music and style that is similar to my own back at school. Simon lent me a pair of shorts and a sweatshirt, and after dinner we went hand had a drink at a local bar/club. It was pretty strange wearing normal clothes...but a good feeling. When we got back Simon and Miriam made up my bed and said goodnight, and I spent a long time on the computer writing my story from the day before (I normally write on borrowed computers or in Internet cafes...not on my cell phone keypad). I was well tired when I turned off the light and closed my eyes for the night.