If I have another daughter I will name her Gurtenbahn
so maybe it's good I don't have another one, it's just the gurtenbahn was the first place on our trip we felt at complete peace. Emma found us this gurtenbahn
So green and beautiful, top of a mountain in Switzerland, all your stuff safe and stowed at the modern hotel in the misty old town below
There is also a river there, in Bern, called the Aare, wide, green, clear, rushing and a lofty old bridge over it, the kind of bridge you can loll on and feel like everyone belongs
Red roofed houses all clustered near the water's edge but not urgent, just gathered there. A boat docked near a wall. It's raining a little but just to cool us off not to douse us
The top of that mountain, aside from the ass-kicking tobaggan run that is so fun it's more fun that anyone who is over 8 should get to have, it is a playful thousand feet long curly kew down the mountain metal luge that I can see snowmen flinging themselves on at night in the winter when nobody's watching.
This is a magical place, this Switzerland, with your german and your french and your wide bus windows and your expensive burritos
but mostly this is the last place Nathan is 21, on the top of the mountain, in the grass, looking at a red long haired cow eating grass. Sitting there when a man wandered over to us and had an entire friendly conversation in some language none of us could understand and yet he kept talking
This is a good place to come if you have been so sweaty and you just lost you bag but found your bag, this is a good place to say thanks and be lucky enough to be there with your two gorgeous, happy solid kids.
