My nervous energy was natural when the train skirted the Lake of Thun and Interlaken emerged from the fog covering the lake. Interlaken had been the starting point for two major changes in my life, and looks to be that again. The town is cupped between two mountains, and the hotel Metropole jutes up over the “skyline” like a “giant middle finger flipping off the tourists”. That’s a quote from my friend Thomas. After 15 years, it felt very much like a homecoming.
Interlaken is in a stunningly beautiful area, and it exists because of the tourists. I walked to my Hotel on the Hoheweg, the main road through Interlaken and I was happy to see that not much had changed. There was now a McDonalds of course, but at least the restaurant it replaced wasn’t that good. I passed familiar restaurants, souvenir shops, watch shops, jewelry stores, and more watch shops and souvenir shops, until ultimately getting to the view Interlaken is famous for; the mountain Jungfrau, meaning “Virgin”, opposite the Hohe Matte, a large park in the middle of town.
From the main street you can look over flowerbeds and meadow to see the Jungfrau framed by smaller mountains on either side. It was a view I was once lucky enough to see the first thing in the morning and last thing at night from my room in the Grande Hotel Victoria-Jungfrau.
The Grande Hotel Victoria-Jungfrau is directly across the street from the Hohe Matte and it is one of the leading hotels in Europe: an elite club drawn from an already exclusive group of hotels, where I’m proud to say I was a dishwasher. That is not strictly true, I also cleaned the swimming pool, stocked the bars, washed the Bentley and on New Year, rubbed burnt cork on my face and dressed up as a chimney sweep. I was capped off with the hotel director’s silk top hat, and my job was to drag a huge terrified pig through a chaotic ballroom full of drunken Canadians and Americans. Chimney sweeps and pigs are considered good luck on New Year. Neither the pig nor I felt that lucky.
Looking at the Victoria-Jungfrau again made me nostalgic. It’s a majestic old hotel with the “Harder” mountain behind it, and in front, a line of exclusive watch stores, Jewelry stores and a Hooters. A Hooters?!?
The building Hooters occupies used to be a restaurant called the Bure Stube, a nice Swiss family type restaurant with a bar. An “entrepreneur” bought it and planned to convert it into a souvenir shop. The management of the Victoria-Jungfrau protested, arguing that the building is zoned for restaurant and hotel use only – not to mention that it would compete with their own souvenir shop right next door – and successfully blocked the move. So the new owner said “fine”, and put in the Hooters.
I went to Interlaken to meet Thomas, an old friend, who’s family took me into their home twice, once in 1980 when I was simply wandering around Europe, then I called Thomas he asked, “Where we should meet?”, but we both already knew the answer: “The” Pub. “Buddy’s Pub”’ in the hotel Splendid, which in the old days (jeez) was the only pub in Interlaken and our daily hang out. We had a couple beers, talked over old times, friends, and made good progress toward closing the gap.
Interlaken does seem to have some magic: the coincidence is common. As Thomas and I left the Pub to get some food, we were almost run down by Edith Rico on her bike, which lead to an unexpected reunion of several more old friends.
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