Jodlerfest Interlaken

More than anything else--glitter, new books, or even chocolate Kinder eggs--Ella craves one-on-one attention.  Today, with two boys sick and happy to nap and watch television, it seemed like an excellent day to have a mommy-daughter outing.

I had a trip to Lucerne with Ella planned, to a glass blowing factory where you can create your own crystal glass ball (!), but, as I was looking for trains to Lucerne, the SBB website reminded me that trains would be especially crowded because of this weekend's International Yodeling Festival in Interlaken.

The festival fact sheet informed me that "Interlaken will be transformed into the ultimate yodeling mecca. Some 200,000 visitors are expected at the 28th Swiss Yodel Festival, set before the famous backdrop of the Jungfrau massif. Around 10,000 yodelers, flag throwers, and alphorn blowers will take an active part in exciting competitions."  Yodeling mecca! Exciting competitions!

And now, some of you will be asking yourself: is she serious?  Is Cheryl really considering traveling for over two hours to go to a yodeling festival?  And, if you're in that group, I must ask you...

Don't you know me at all yet?  Of course I'm going to the yodeling festival! Besides, it's such lucky timing: this festival happens only once every three years!

So I told Dennis that my plans had changed.  He looked at me strangely for a moment, made fun of me only briefly, and then waved me and Ella on our way.

I have to say, traveling alone with Ella is an exquisite pleasure. It's wonderful to climb on a train without lugging a stroller and trailing bodies behind me.  And she's totally immersed in a book as I was, so she happily read all through the first leg of our trip, to Bern.  

I would have joined her in reading, but I'd invited an elderly man to share our little section of seats, and he so earnestly wanted to talk to chat, to help me practice my German.  He pulled out his newspaper (all Swiss carry their newspapers with them each day and read them on the trains) and pointed out various stories of interest and tried to explain them to me.  At one point he pointed to a picture of a duck sitting in a tree and explained to me "Das is eine Ente. In einen Baum!" I was following him so far, but then he launched into a big, long story, something (judging by his charades) that had to do with him fishing, and maybe a duck stealing his fish? Anyway, he laughed uproariously all throughout the story, and so I joined him with my own nervous laughter.  But he was satisfied, nodded approvingly at my obviously excellent sense of humor, and returned to his paper to search out more stories to share.

The second train we took, from Bern to Interlaken, was of course stuffed.  They were expecting 200,000 visitors in Interlaken, after all.  What I didn't expect was the enormously, delightfully high concentration of folk costumes. Ella's eyes grew wider and wider as we walked through the cars, looking for a place to sit.  We ended up plopping in the entryway of one of the cars for a little while, but eventually we could move into a car, where the all of the festival-goers were laughing passing around bottles of beer.  Every once in a while, the car would hush, and someone would let out a high, clear yodel, and Ella would crane her neck, frantically, looking for the source.  "Mom, it sounds like an angel!"

It drizzled all morning: the gorgeous, foggy mountains
made it tolerable, though.

We followed the masses of people a half-mile down the street until we came to rows and rows of tents.  In America, you can always count on finding fried stuff on a stick at festivals; here, you'll find rows of tents selling sausage, spätzle and cheese, and rosti.  Improbably, there was one tent blasting tejano music, with a sign: "Free lei with every shot!"  I wondered what festival they'd thought they were attending, and who, exactly, their target demographic was. But then, a half-hour later, I saw a cluster of American backpackers, stumbling around with their leis, fake-yodeling loudly.  Ah. Way to represent, kids.

But most of the festival-goers were Swiss, wearing their costumes.  But they did have one thing in common with my countrymen: everyone seemed to be a little bit drunk. Natürlich. It was, after all, after 13:00.

As much as the music, I loved how much fun everyone seemed to be having.  But the music was so fun, too.  Ella and I couldn't stay long enough to see any of the formal competitions, but we did get to see several groups singing in beer tents, some scheduled, but some just giving impromptu concerts.  All around, people were singing softly with the performers: everyone (young and old) knew the tunes.

In addition to folk singing, this was also a weekend for alpenhorn music: we saw many, many people with improbably large music cases slung over their shoulders.  (The horns break into three segments, but they're still, of course, really long.)  I didn't realize that these horn blowers actually played very complex tunes.  (The Ricola commercials, only showed people playing long, sustained notes, after all.) And, of course, there are no valves on these horns: it's all breath control and embrasure.  It's impressive.

Later, looking back at the website, I noted to Dennis, "Oh, I missed the blowing of the world's largest alpenhorn!"  He just looked at me: "Really? I didn't miss that at all."

The third competition of the weekend, the flag throwing, we didn't see much of, but there was one man throwing a flag into the air, as high as he could, waving it somewhat in time to the horn blowers.  I wasn't quite sure what to make of this, but Ella liked him best.  If you listen carefully to the movie, you can hear her asking: "What happens if someone else catches the flag? Do they get to take his place?"  I'm relieved that she asked, first, rather than just seeing for herself.

But her favorite-favorite part of the festival was, of course, the carnival rides and the playground we stumbled upon.  Just before we found the playground, she was kind of dragging, complaining about the constant rain and the water filling her shoes.  But she recovered her energy miraculously as soon as she saw that merry-go-round.

Ella was also keen to pick out a souvenir, and I eyed the billowy blouses and cowbells and carved wooden figurines for sale, wondering what she had in mind.  But, happily, there were many festival sponsors with tents out, and Ella managed to win herself some free souvenirs, in the games they had set up for the kids, to distribute their swag.  She ended the day richer by two decks of cards (with the deuces through sixes missing...made for euchre, I guess?), a pack of mints, a keychain, and a giant inflatable tube of mayonnaise.  Most of the games were cowbell themed: hit the cowbell with a beanbag, or pull the lucky string and ring a cowbell, for example. I have to wonder how much of all of this was tongue-in-cheek.  More than anything, the Swiss remind me of Texans, with their rodeo culture.

We only stayed for about two hours: it was long enough to get the flavor of the festival, at least, and it was nice to avoid the rush home and to get back in time for dinner.  But the train rides were every bit as enjoyable as the festival, so I don't really mind how little time we got to spend there, in proportion to the travel time.  The scenery was gorgeous, particularly Lake Thun, which was a gorgeous transparent aqua blue that I'm simply not capable of capturing on film.

And the company was wonderful: I taught Ella slapjack on the way home with her newly-won prize, and she beat me twice.