AN ACT

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

AN ACT

 

To proclaim

Student T. K. Major

an honorary citizen of the United Villages of Thurgovia.

 

Be it enacted by King Ralph

and the

Knights of the Oblique Table assembled,

 

That the King of Thurgovia

is authorized and directed to declare

by proclamation that Student

 

T. K. Major

 

shall be an honorary citizen or the United Villages of Thurgovia.

 

Student T. K. "el Thurgovian" Major

 

 

 

Approved October 31, 2007, 2:45 a.m.

 

 

 

.

[blue2blue]

The honorary citizen needs a shave.

 

 

As usual.

 

 

Angelo -- how close are we (in my new honorary homeland) to this spot? google map

 

Because, on my motorboat trip around the Lake -- that house in the center of the map (in satellite view) was one of the things I remember really well from my boat trip -- maybe just possibly because it was one of three pictures I took -- but certainly because I was captivated by the boathouses and riverside aeries of the presumed ultra-rich... I wish I had a scan handy of my photo of that place, because it's kind of cool. Well... I mean... it's really cool.

 

It looked like the kind of place Mary Shelley might have sipped absinthe in while visiting decadent friends in the alps. I'm pretty sure it's the boat house for the place up the hill -- but, IIRC, it's like, three stories, itself... with the bottom devoted to actual boats. But the top two seemed to be rooms for entertaining or perhaps even sleeping. ("I'll be sleeping in the boathouse, tonight, Angelika. Make sure I'm left alone. And for God's sake don't your let the kids or servants come down there. I'll be dictating quite late to my stenographer.")

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

Did you read the book by Mary Shelly and Byron?

 

It looked like the kind of place Mary Shelley might have sipped absinthe in while visiting decadent friends in the alps. I'm pretty sure it's the boat house for the place up the hill -- but, IIRC, it's like, three stories, itself... with the bottom devoted to actual boats. But the top two seemed to be rooms for entertaining or perhaps even sleeping. ("I'll be sleeping in the boathouse, tonight, Angelika. Make sure I'm left alone. And for God's sake don't your let the kids or servants come down there. I'll be dictating quite late to my stenographer.")

 

The Villa Diodati, the house in Cologny that Byron rented in the summer of 1816.

 

 

Beginning in June 1816, Mary Shelly and Percy Bysshe Shelley, along with Byron, Polidori, Claire Clairmont, and Matthew "Monk" Lewis, spent several months in the Maison Chapuis and the Villa Diodati, both on Lake Geneva.

 

http://www.english.upenn.edu/Projects/knarf/Places/diodati.html

 

The Maison Chapuis, in Montal

[blue2blue]

Well... I was close, then.

 

BTW... that lakeside boathouse I referenced above (and at the center of the Google Map linked) is very much in the architectural style of the house in that print, above -- somewhat smaller and no columns -- well -- not on the lake side, anyhow... (I need to find my photo!)

 

But the roof and general style are just about the same, even, IIRC, with the little balcony on the 1st floor up. (You know us Americans with our wacky insistence that the first floor is on the ground level. Why we'll never really be able to get along with the Europeans fully.

 

In fact, I think it was the real reason the Reagan administration but the monkeywrench in the long-laid plans to convert US measurements to metric -- they saw it would eventually lead to us having to call the second floor the first floor... chaos would have surely ensued. Imagine in a fire the confusion that would result when the excited old folks called 911: "Now, ma'am. Try to speak more slowly. Is the fire on first floor -- or the ground floor?")

[Lee Knight]

Do you have to be an honorary citizen to get one of those hats? That hat rules!

[blue2blue]

I think one condition is that you have to go swimming in the Thuner See in October.

 

At least that's what I did to feel like I was really there.

 

But it was a hot spell... I would lie out by the lake in the late morning sun and see this little old lady, who would always smile and nod and then carefully put her towel by the edge of the lake and wade in, swim for ten minutes or so and come out glowing. After a few days she suggested I go swimming (more through pantomime, my German isn't even up to Swiss levels ). I thought about it for a while and then plunged into the snow-fed lake. (One of the two lakes at Interlaken.)

 

It was cold... and I couldn't quite shake the feeling that one of Nessie's European cousins was shadowing my movements silently beneath the surface. (I had the same sense when I was swimming in the Flathead Lake in Montana. Of course, they actually had a monster there, reported by many. It was probably a very large, very old bass or sturgeon but... you know... lakes just aren't supposed to have 12 foot long anythings...)

[Rudolf von Hagenwil]

 

.... then plunged into the snow-fed lake. (One of the two lakes at Interlaken.)

 

 

WOW!!! You are a HERO!!!

 

This two lakes are so cold, I would never skinny-dipping with a woman. not even an older one. The second lake, Lake Brienz is so cold, that even in summer the shrinking factor is so... mama mia, forget it

 

Lake Brienz in Iseltwald:

http://www.viastoria.ch/images/Downloads_Medien/Erlebnismagazin_06/ViaCook_Iseltwald_ViaStoria.jpg

 

Thuner See:

http://www.beatenbergbilder.ch/home/thunersee_sommerzeit.htm

[blue2blue]

Well... I wasn't skinny dipping. I had my "California baggies" on... much, I'm sure, to the amusement of the locals.

 

And I let the little old lady do her swim and leave before I went in... I was really afraid I'd get two feet in and turn around.

 

But I used to go swimming in the Pacific year round and we get an Alaska current so it can get pretty cold... and, at a certain point, cold water is cold water... you just have to start moving and not stop.