Switzerland

For a little while, there was a possibility of us using this amazing piece of hydraulic equipment from a company in Switzerland. Fortunately for me, this meant that I got to go to Switzerland for an afternoon (sort of like my trip to London) and check it out in person.

I think the best way I can describe Switzerland is that it's like an awesome model train set. For starters, this is true because there are lots of trains, and also I was travelling by train (Berlin -Plane-> Zurich -Train-> Rotkreuz -Automobile-> Ebikon). So of course there was a train present at all times. But beyond the obvious train abundance, the place is also arranged in the sort of idyllic way that a train set is, where, for example, there will be a line of farms with awesome sheep in between the train tracks and a pristine lake. And on the other side of the train tracks, there are beautiful mountains with dandelions. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about dandelions:

'In German, the dandelion is called Löwenzahn, which is also translated as "lion's tooth." In modern French the plant is called pissenlit, which means "urinate in bed", apparently referring to its diuretic properties. Likewise, "pissabeds" is an English folkname for this plant, and "piscialletto" is one of its folknames in Italian (with "dente di leone", meaning "lion's tooth"). Similarly in Spanish, it is known as the "meacamas", but also commonly "diente de león"'

Who knew? Anyway, in the background of the hills next to you are the Alps, which look like they've been painted onto the sky. It's the prettiest place I've ever been. It's like God built a country for his daughter's wedding or something.

One awesome thing was that as we were leaving the train station in Rotkreuz, we had to stop for a man to cross the street. Four hours later, when we went to catch our train back to Zurich, we found the same man drinking by himself at the little cafe near the station. He got up and was extremely wobbly. I feel like this incident sort of sums up the size of the town. I.e., it's small enough that you would recognize a man who crossed the street, but not so small that going to the cafe and getting drunk by yourself makes you the "town drunk." I mean, maybe they wouldn't even think that way over here anyway, but if they did, the town would still be a little too big for those sorts of roles. From what I could tell, Switzerland is a couple of bigger cities, connected by a sort of continuous chain of little towns.

The company we looked at was Hagenbuch Oelhydraulic. As you can see, the factory had a very "Swiss Army Knife" aesthetic, with lots of things painted red, and the whole thing seeming exceptional in its precision. I was nothing but impressed by the machinery and the professionalism there, and am now really sad that we're not getting to use their equipment for our production. If we'd done it, we would have probably had the fastest, most accurate hydraulic motion base ever used in the film industry. Admittedly, it was a little small, but they would have been willing to build us a bigger one if there had been more time.

The other way to describe Switzerland is that it looks like a touched-up photo of itself. Like, when you see it with your own eyes, it's as if the saturation has been boosted a little bit, and some additional noise and bits of trash on the ground have been filtered out and removed. My Swiss friend had told me it was really clean, but I still surprised at just how clean it was.

Sadly, all I really got to see was the train station, the train, the factory, and whatever scenery was visible from the car and train on the way between Ebikon and Zurich. I think someday we should plan a big ski trip in the Alps. I can talk to my Swiss friend about where and when to go...