Tuesday 17 August 2010

Heidi Hi



There's going to be a lot of that - cheesy jokes that amount to more than Fondue, chocolately sweet remarks about life here in Grellingen: Population 1700 + 2 now of course. Our arrival is to be announced in the local paper - not out of celebrity of course but by way of communal introduction. We are expected to introduce ourselves to our neighbours, formally one by one knocking on doors, so we tapped homes and waited to say hello; bought bikes and staggered into the hills to be passed by effortless joggers; stepping on and off trams to France and Germany, a kind of trans European travel that required little effort as we joined the Swiss Franc flockers to the limping Eurozone.

Then a balcony with the view shown in the photo above that allows us to sit outside in the dark without the bite of mosquito, the damp wrap of humidity.

The sledgehamming difference between life in Vietnam and living here in this quiet hamlet is as resounding as the bells from the church half way up the hill.

Also, gehen wir