Tour du Canton

So, every year I've been here, the Tour du Canton happens. Every year I say that I want to run one part, just to say that I did it. You know, really got the cultural experience of being in Neuch and all. Finally, last night, I worked up the courage to do it. Regardless, it was my last chance.
The Tour du Canton is a 6 part race. Each race is approximately 10km. Each stage of the race is in a different town in the Canton of Neuchatel. (There's a town of Neuchatel in the Canton of Neuchatel.) The last stage would be held in the town of Neuchatel and of course that made it even more tempting to just do the last part of the race. The indimidating part about doing this leg is that it's one of the longest, and it's one of the the hilliest. (You can find out more info about each stage of the race on the website.)
Oh, and I hate running in general, so 10km worth would be torture. I haven't done physical activity since January, and my endurance has always been pretty shoddy, so of course I was stressing out over the potential of actually doing the race. I do have in my favour, that I have that little walk up/downhill from the bus stop which has built up a certain tolerance for annoying terrain.
Anyway, I got the courage to join the race, and I was freaking out the whole time leading up to it. My stomach was in knots the whole day. IT's not like I'd trained a little bit beforehand, as of course I'd been thinking about doing the race for months now. Well, I did try once. I went jogging one afternoon just to see how long I could last. I think I went about 10minutes before I stopped. It was part endurance, part pain, part...boredom. I don't have an i-pod, so I have to sing to myself (which I do try to do - but it doesn't seem to help). The scenery isn't too exciting, because I see it everyday (not to say that it isn't beautiful), and it goes by too slowly. Seeing as how an "average" runner finished in 1h20min, I told myself that I would never be able to do it, and promptly gave up on my dream.
Until a couple days ago. I knew this was my last chance.
So yeah, now I'm signing up for the race, I'm wearing sweats and a tank top. I see many short running shorts and fancy gear. I don't even have my boing-boing shox to help me run. They're in Canada covering my lifetime warranty (ha ha ha) so I'm left with these ugly sneaks which were part of this team that I was associated to a couple years ago. My best memory of the sneakers was that they went to Romania with me and still have cement splatter on them. The team part, I try to block out of my memory.
There are LOTS of people. It's intimidating and exciting. We herd into the starting area. The race starts, and I look forward and there are hundreds of people out there. All running. It was crazy-cool!
It was like on tv. People were standing on the side, cheering EVERYONE on. What a great atmosphere.
We ran around the streets that I know like the back of my hand and all of a sudden I realized that we're turning on a street that goes straight up. Pain is setting in and I think we've only run for 2 mins. Okay, maybe 5 tops. Some people are already starting to walk. I keep going for a little while until it gets really steep and then I'm walking. People are passing me. I feel sucky. Whatever, I keep going for awhile. I feel like death. I can't bring my body to start running again. It's been uphill for a long time and I know we're only getting into an area that's even more steep. I'm in pain, and I'm tired already. A sign is coming into sight. I've only run one kilometre. I'll never make it.
We're into the forest. I'm still walking, people are still passing me and then all of a sudden it's bottleneck central and everyone's walking because it's so steep and slippery in the forest. That was nice. I was catching my breath, passing some people because I've gotten so good at walking uphill so quickly.
People are scattered along the sides cheering us on. That was my favorite thing. It wasn't crowds of people, but every so often there would be some people. People there, just to give us that boost of energy. It was really nice. They were encouraging, telling us what kind of terrain was coming up (that was great). I would chat with a couple as I passed...they made me happy.
2km in and I've got a painful cramp in my side. I can't stop walking though. I try to stretch it out. Someone passes and suggests how to get rid of it. It finally goes away. This race is never going to end. I don't look at my watch. I don't want to be discouraged.
3 or 4 km in it gets flat, I'm running again and somehow I don't hurt anymore. Kilometres pass and somehow I'm still running. I STILL RUNNING. I'm almost in shock.
It seems that my body needs me to walk up hills. That's okay. I'm pretty fast at walking. And it gives me time to run everything else.
Water break in the middle. My mouth was getting pretty dry. It was like you see on tv. Plastic cups littered the forest. I'm sure they cleaned it up promptly. It's Swiss and all.
Downhill was nice. I felt like I was leaping.
There was painful parts, no doubt, but seeing the numbers get smaller (they told us how many km left) was encouraging. As were the people. I'll never forget the people. I don't remember their faces. But I remember their words. I remember their smiles. I remember understanding their French, even though my mind was stressed.
Finally, 3km to go and I can finally see out of the forest. I can see the Maladiere stadium below. The end is near. It's not far away...if you go straight towards it. The next 1.5km sucked. Too many zigzags to prolong the torture. I was running by myself the whole time. Seeing the same sort of people every so often. I was pretty sure I was near the back. I know I was. I wouldn't look at my watch.
At 1km to go, I know the end is near. I'm picking up speed, I know how close I am to the finish line. And then we zig-zag some more. Hills. Torture. Pain. More detours. They stop traffic for us, which is fun. It's like on TV! I could be on TV!
I'm so close the finish line. I see people who have already finished. They've finished a long time ago, because when I was still stuck in the middle of the forest, feeling horrible, I already heard the cheers and the music. And I was still in the middle of nowhere. Some people are there cheering me on. That was nice.
And then I'm into the stadium. I think the finish line will be right there...but it's not. I hated that. I thought my body would will itself on, enouraged by the sight of the finish line in the distance. No luck, I wanted to stop. I wanted to stop so badly. There was a steep uphill all of sudden going into the stadium and I ran it. I ran it because I thought the end was near. They fooled me and my body hurt because of it. The first part in the stadium hurt. It hurt so much...but 10m from the end I could see it. I ran faster. I heard the beep. I was done. Someone told me something about 1h23m. That sounded pretty good. But I was done. I'd actually finished the race. I didn't run the whole thing, but I actually finished the race. I ACTUALLY FINISHED THE RACE. Water and snacks were given out. Yummy.

Flash to today. Not as much pain as I thought. Maybe it's becasue I had a L'Occitane Verbena bath last night. Maybe because I walked more than I should have. Darn it. Why do I regret it? I don't. I swear I don't. Okay, I do, but that's only because it's my personality - but trust me, it actually doesn't bother me that much. I check my results on the website. Feel free to look me up. I officially finished in 1:17.16,7. That's really good! At least I think so. And I came 50th in my group! That seems good right? Other people I know finished a lot worse in their group...but with better times than me. I figure they were running with h-core people. I was happy happy happy with my results...until I did more research. Darn my thoroughness. There were only 54 poeple in my category. I almost came last. I don't care. I swear I don't. Okay, I do - but again, personality, blah, blah, blah. I wish they had rankings in general. I would hope that that would make me feel a little bit better about myself. I shouldn't care. I was so pumped with 1:17.16,7. I have to remember that.

I mean, I hate running. I never run. I finished running a big race. I'm proud of myself.

- picture courtesy of www.sportplus.ch

Tidbits

I am actually working on getting the following updates prepared:
- Croatia
- Stockholm
- moments in Zermatt
- Normandy
- Madrid

Some other random things to make this space a little bit less void:
- renfe is much better than the TGV. In a 2.5hr trip, headphones were handed out where passengers could listen to 4 different radio stations or tune into the movie that was being shown. This was in first and second class. First class served a really good meal and offered reading options. Unfortunately they were all in Spanish.
- Poppies do exist in real life. I've only seen them in the past couple of months. The petals are much more like the pieces of paper dropped at Menin Gate on November 11th than the pins often worn on the same day.
- Yesterday, the temperature in Neuch was, oh, I don't know, around 5degree I would guess. Whatever it was, it was cold enough that it snowed in a couple parts of the country. On the flip side, today it's a balmy ~20degrees.
- I'm stocking up on European fashion while I can and took full advantage on great prices in Spain. If my sources are correct, Canada isn't that cheap afterall.
- Packing is annoying and tedious. It's stressful and it makes me face facts that I don't want to face for a couple more months.
- I am going to try to run 10k tonight. I will regret it if I don't. I will be in extreme pain tomorrow, but hopefully I will also feel proud of myself. I hate running.
- Walking on the Normandy beaches makes a first generation Canadian proud to be Canadian.
- There is a strong negative correlation between students who have gotten into their university of choice and attendance/participation/enthusiasm/good manners in class.
- I'm tired.
- I own a Burberry trench.
- Mont. St. Michel is straight out of a fairy tale.
- I'm caught up on Grey's Anatomy.
- You must claim items greater then 300CHF when entering Switzerland.
- The bullfighting festival at Las Ventas is not only for tourists.

Perigee

So, I went to Perigee in August 2006, so of course I've forgotten every detail about each of the dishes.
What I do know though, is that you should go. It's a restaurant in the distillery district (in Toronto - sorry, maybe I should have clarified...I'm not often in Toronto) with a great atmosphere. I think the place sits at max, what...30 people? I'd never been in restaurant that small, however, my dinner date assured me that it was pretty much normal for fine dining institutions.
Anyway, the "neat" thing about Perigee is that they "create" a menu for you. Nothing "a la carte". Just a couple questions about allergies and food preferences and then the dishes are brought to you. This restaurant was also suggested due to their ability to accompany dishes with various non-alcoholic beverages. You'll see the pictures below.
Service was impressive enough that the host remembered my date and thankfully there was nothing pretentious about the evening. It was "stadium seating" as the website calls it. Well, it was stadium in terms of being able to see what was going on the in the kitchen, but thankfully not stadium enough that we were in nosebleed seats. I believe that most of the seats were situated connecting to the kitchen area, but there were a couple tables which were against the walls (potentially only for drinks and not for dining). With each course, served by a server, head chef Pat Riley would casually come over to the connecting edge of his kitchen (often there were nooks into his preparation space where he could step up on a platform to get closer to the diners tables) and present the dish. A nice touch.
I chatted with the dessert chef, as we pretty much closed up the restaurant and found that they were pretty much catering to us. And, well, learned that it's always the safe and sure decision to serve a lady something with chocolate in it. You can serve the man something chocolately as well, but if he's with a woman and she doesn't get chocolate...well, it's a problem. We also got two desserts each out of it (or maybe we were supposed to anyway). Oh and knowing the restaurant business, I'm sure that the kitchen considers how diner's at the same table's meals compliment each other. So smart.
So, enjoy various photos from the night at Perigee: (I could be completely wrong, but I believe that this was the order that the courses were served - photos on the left being for me and the photos on the right being for my dinner companion)
It also seems as though I was too excited to eat my food to take a picture of it first.


































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Landsgemeinde

Welcome to the town of Appenzell - home of the annual Landsgemeinde event, a true demonstration of democracy.
So, Switzerland is a small country with a fantastic railway system, so it shocked me to find out that it takes 4 hours to get from Neuch to Appenzell by the good 'ole SBB. I guess it's not really a direct way to get there, and also there's mountains and hills to go around and stuff.
Anyway, Appenzell really is a quaint Swiss town. Chalet-like houses dot the rolling green hillsides in the distance. Further on looms large, mostly, snow-peaked mountains. There is a pedestrian main street, a big church, town hall and open square. Exactly what you would imagine from a European town.
There were a lot of people, from locals to tourists. They say that there are ~3000 locals who are there, and considering that the locals are all confined in a little square there were a LOT of other people there watching the festivities.
The events started by a parade with bands and important political types wearing capes and costumes all heading towards the Landsgemeinde square. Once there, the locals who hadn't been
corralled into the square yet could show their sword/pink slip to the guards who would let them into the area.
It used to be that you needs a sword to vote. Only men had swords and now, although you don't need one, many still carried them, I guess for tradition sake. Many people were dressed up for the event. Suit and tie, nice dresses...but some were wearing jeans and t-shirt. I think it was only in 1992 that women were allowed to vote. That surprised me...I would have thought that they were able to vote much earlier than that.

Once all of the important people were on stage, after an opening speech the different topics on the agenda were voted on. Since I don't understand Swiss-German (and I thought I'd learned a lot skating in Burgdorf - I guess skating terms don't come in handy at a political election) I had no idea what they were voting on. The only thing that I got from the whole thing is that something that sounds like "hippidy hop" mean "vote" or "put you hand up" or something of the sort.
Some of the people on stage are to count or estimate the numbers for each side. Most of the time, it was pretty obvious what the citizens wanted. A clear cut winner.

Okay, so am I supposed to believe that the people on stage could see the vote of the lady in the back row?





I guess she gave up. Figured no one cared about her opinion anyway. How sad. Just kidding. Maybe she actually wanted to vote against everyone else. I don't remember.





Anyone dare put their hand up on this issue? Guess not.




Word on the street was that if there's a tie vote, everyone had to leave the square area and then file in one at a time so that they would be individually counted. I could see that being really tedious and taking a long time, but I wanted to see it happen just once to, well, say that I'd seen it. One topic was voted on four times, because it was so close. In the end, they said that it wasn't close enough to need to count, but I have no idea which side won it. That kind of sucked.
Anyway, I have no idea what passed and what didn't, but it was an experience. Something that you wouldn't see anywhere else (that I know of). At one point the citizens were asked if they had any suggestions about the topics and a couple of people yelled out that they did, but I never saw anyone different take the microphone. Perhaps they were supposed to go to the City Hall on their own time to give their suggestions. Apparently, there was a time period before the Landsgemeinde (like a month or so) that citizens could go to the government to give suggestions/topics to be voted on.
Partly due to the touristic nature of the day, some of the vendors were wearing traditional Appenzeller attire. You know, the leiderhosen and the suspender type of things (the technical English word for them escapes me right now - I'm having more trouble translating from French to English. Like, I know in my head what a French word means, but I don't know what the word is in English. I think it's a good sign. That I'm actually truly understanding French.). In Appenzell, it is typical for men to have their right ear pierced. You can see the traditional earring. Many men have a stud in the shape of a cow. This area is also famous for its cheese.
I like this picture:
Appenzell was a beautiful town, and I'm glad I had the chance to see yet another part of Switzerland and of course a Swiss tradition that I wouldn't otherwise have the chance to experience.