Emptying Out The Attic

Sorry if you've been checking in and been greeted by a whole lot of nothing. Hopefully this will help to make up for it, at least a little.

This past Saturday I got a message from a friend asking if I was planning to go check out the annual festival when all of the Geneva wineries have tastings and tours and such, called "Caves Ouvertes" (Open Cellars), or "Vide Grenier" (Empty the Attic). I've done it before and it was fun, so we arranged a time and met up to take the bus.

Now, when you're doing wine-tasting, there are two ways to do it: you can taste and spit, or you can actually drink it. I guess both have their advantages... if you spit the wine out after you taste it, you can try a whole lot of different ones without having to worry about getting drunk or making your liver look like a Keith Richards reject. On the other hand, if you actually drink the wine you don't feel like an idiot who is spitting things out in a public place. I don't know about you, but that just doesn't sit well with me, so I'd prefer to try less but reduce the chance of dribbling on myself. I figure the time for that will come eventually, and I want to be able to savor it then.

So the bus was a winner on a couple of fronts. First of all, I had no idea where we were supposed to be going (a shock, I know). Second, I don't drink much, but I don't want to take any chances with driving when I shouldn't be. The downside is that, if you find one you really like, it's hard to bring much back on a bus. But I was willing to cross that bridge when I got to it.

The promotional materials were pristine in their simplicity: just take the "E" bus to Vesenaz, and then hop on the free shuttles set up just for this occasion and they would take you around from one winery to the next. What could be easier?

Well, it turns out that a few things could; building a nuclear reactor out of coconuts and pipe cleaners, for example.

We followed the instructions to the letter - got the right bus, going the right way, and got off at the right stop, along with a few other hopeful-looking people. At which point we all started looking around for some indication that this was, indeed, where the shuttle bus would come.

There was none. And for good reason, as it turns out.

We waited a while... the shuttle was supposed to run every 20 minutes. But it didn't come. A couple people went into a wine store next to the bus stop to ask. They came out and said that the guy there said that it would come right where we were - we just needed to wait.

So we waited.

And waited.

And waited some more.

So here's the thing. It seemed pretty certain that this was not the right spot. But there was no way to guess where the right spot might be. No signs, no indications, no tour guides happily moving the bustling crowd of tourists into the vintners' waiting arms.

In fact, it was like almost every other public event I've ever attended in Switzerland. Things are rarely very widely advertised - you really need to keep an ear to the ground to find out about anything other than new hip-hop albums and Mr Latino contests (the only two things worthy of posters, it seems). But when you do find out, you're not that much ahead.

When people describe the Swiss as closed and and cold, I have to say that the Swiss people I know are really, really not like that - not at all. But maybe the culture is. I get the feeling that there is this implicit factor that they've done things the exact same way for, say, the last 800 years, and if you haven't figured it out, it's certainly not their problem.

So you go to a race, and you know which town to head to since that's the name of the race. And there will probably be someone directing the parking efforts because if there is one thing the Swiss are quite concerned about, it's where you park. But after that you're on your own. "Where do I register?" What kind of question is that? "Where is the start?" Well, if you can't even figure that out, I don't know what chance you think you have of being able to run! You head to a music festival or concert - or ski resort, for that matter - and it's the same thing. "If you can't figure it out, we're certainly not going to tell you". It's like Darwinism for tourism. Wildly successful, as you can imagine.

The shop-keeper's attitude was a common one, as well. Most people in stores here are barely concerned with what's inside their shop... the outside world may as well not exist. When he said the bus goes by "right there", he meant that the bus would not actually be coming into the shop itself. The bus stop, the winery, Turkey and the CN Tower are all more or less at the same spot to him: not in the store. That's as much precision as he deemed necessary. I was in a store once in Calgary trying to buy a big cooler, but they didn't have any. "Do you have any idea if anyone else around here might carry them?" I asked. The lady paused for a moment, then said, "Well, there's another place in the mall that might have some. Would you like me to call them for you?". Unfortunately, after having lived with Swiss service for several years by that point I became quite overwhelmed and kissed her, a gesture which she apparently misinterpreted. But I digress. The fact is, you're lucky in Geneva if a store owner will actually direct you to anything in their shop - outside? Not a chance.

We did eventually see a bus... a couple blocks away, pulling to a stop that would never, ever go by our current location. Thanks, Mr. Store Guy. Would love to buy something, but it looks like now I have to run to catch a bus instead.

So, feeling triumphant that we had actually found the shuttle bus, we perhaps let down our guard a little too far. We got off at the next stop, eager to see what the locals had to offer.

Picture this with me, if you will. It may be easier if you imagine a grainy, seventies kind of movie feel. A bus stops on a lonely country road, and two weary travelers get off. As they gather themselves up, the bus pulls away, leaving them a little disoriented. And next to them is... nothing but a sign that the bus stops here. No "Wine Here!" signs with a helpful arrow. No leaflets. No map with the wonderful red "you are here" marking.

Nothing.

Maybe I shouldn't be so negative. At least the bus stop was marked. Unfortunately, I can't help but think that when you've gone to the trouble of setting up an event-specific shuttle bus route, you may want it to actually go, say, to where the event is taking place. But not in Switzerland.

So we looked around for the nearest building, and headed in that direction. It turned out to be a farm that offered tours, with no mention of making wine, let alone having any tastings. But they did seem to have a shop, so, faced with the prospect of wandering back to the side of the little highway and waiting for the next bus or going in to see what quaint but overpriced goods could be had, we opted for the store. After spending several minutes examining organic bread, various jars of oil and preserves, vegetables that looked remarkably similar to vegetables in the supermarket, the woman behind the counter asked if we were familiar with the Open Cellars. Shocked, all thoughts of trying a honey and fresh carrot sandwich were quickly banished. She pointed to a doorway leading from another little room behind the counter from the shop. "We're doing a tasting in there" she said.

So this is how well it's organized. We take a bus to find no shuttle in evidence. We find a shuttle and get off at a stop with no wineries advertised. We manage, somehow, to locate a winery but don't see any wine, until some woman decides we've probably had enough and takes pity on us.

And much of the day went on like that. It was fun - don't get me wrong - but very, very Swiss.

Oh, and we met the world's friendliest man.

He started chatting to us on the bus. "Do you speak French?" he asked. "Only a little," I said, "... sorry." Not deterred, he continued, "How about Spanish?" "Not at all," I replied, "what about English?" "No," he said, "I don't' speak English."

So he decided that French would be the official language of our communications and stayed with us for the rest of the afternoon. He told stories about the world war and the Olympic museum (as far as I could tell), talked about his sons, all living in France, how his wife had died from cancer. He brought wine for us when we did manage to find a tasting. And he posed for a picture with me:

I liked him, but I don't think I've ever met anyone who could talk quite so much with so little to go on. I'm sure that I only understood about 10% of what he was saying, but he seemed happy, so we just rolled with it. And, before our last stop of the day, he gave me a map he had picked up somewhere that had all the wineries in the region listed on it.

A map.

Who knew?