Sailing away

We went for a boat ride on the Lake of Thun today. We thought we’d have to pay part of the cost, but for some reason which we didn’t quite understand, the trip was free today only, via our Eurail pass. The boat took us to Interlaken, which I’d heard about from some source - can’t remember which - as being a special place, but it struck me as Switzerland’s equivalent of Queenstown, that is, all tourist shops, and lots of things to do if you’re an outdoors person. (There were several people paragliding when we arrived, for instance.) The buildings are a delight, however, and speak of a time when people paid big money to build in Interlaken.
In spite of my misgivings about Interlaken, the trip itself was lovely, the lake calm, the mountains a little misty but still reasonably well-defined, and the air warm. We sat outside on the boat for most of the trip. At the end of it, the ferry navigates its way down a narrow channel, with only a few metres to spare on either side.
Though we could have gone back on the boat, we decided to have a look around Interlaken for an hour or so, and get the train back to Spiez, and then the bus to Einigen. The train, of course, was covered by our Eurail pass anyway, so the trip only cost us the bus fare. (Though no one actually came to check our pass on the quarter hour trip from Interlaken to Spiez, so some people might well have got on for free!)
I didn’t mention yesterday that we had a mini crisis. By mistake I put my debit card (Eftpos, in other words) into a ticket machine at Spiez railway station, thinking it was a money machine. I tried to cancel the operation but no card appeared. Nothing worked, and suddenly we began to think we’d have to face the next week or two unable to get money. (We have quite a bit of cash with us, but we hadn’t got any Swiss francs before we arrived in Switzerland.)
In the end I went up to the ticket office, and explained the situation to the man behind the counter - who fortunately spoke good English. (The Swiss don’t seem to be quite as strong on the English as the Germans are, and some of them don't care!) He came down with a tool, opened the machine, pulled out the part that had the card in it, dug around at it, pried at it, worked on it - all to no avail. We stood there chatting, trying to feel confident that he was going to achieve something! Finally he went back upstairs, called the office in Bern, and they told him on the phone what to do. Voila! one returned debit card - and considerable relief.

Some things that make England different to NZ

Baths appear to be deeper and narrower. Getting in or out of a bath requires a high stepping manoeuvre; you have to watch you don’t catch your foot on the edge and go for a burton.
I’d forgotten that a lot more people use gas for cooking - and grills above the cooker for making toast.
Op shops are called Charity Shops and they abound. And the stuff in them is very clean, very tidy, always in good condition. We’ve visited nearly every one we’ve seen, I think, and accumulated more books than we can hope to bring back with us.
The Eftpos (debit card) system doesn’t seem to be as well integrated as it is in NZ. There you can go anywhere with your Eftpos card and it will work. You can’t always guarantee it will here. Sainsburý’s supermarket particularly doesn’t like ours.
You can park your car either way on the side of the road. In other words, you don’t have to park facing the same way as the traffic. So cars are parked higgledy-piggledy all along the road.
People don’t have to wear helmets when they’re riding bicycles; but they can’t smoke inside. That law came in on the 1st July, with much hoo-hah, and one MP has already been caught on a train smoking with the cigarette out the window. He tried to claim he was smoking outside.
People still say, I shan’t, as part of their normal conversation.