Lauterbrunnen Valley

I remember when I first arrived in the Lauterbrunnen Valley. We were coming from Bischoffzell (long story) by way of St. Gallen, late at night. I looked up to see the stars and then I realized those stars were the lights of houses—there was an immense cliff above us, Wengen, to be my home for the next four months. I was 19. Ah, but I was homesick, and also stranded as all the charter airlines went bankrupt, As did Lloyds of London, so getting home was problematic, BOAC offered to fly us back for free. A lot of shandys were drunk in order to send us all back home. But there was a two-week wait so I took a mad train jaunt up to Inverness before I returned. Hotel Bishofzell did ask me to stay on through the winter season. But I wanted to go home. In deep summer, I walked those ski slopes to Gstaad and later dreamed of skiing them. If only I had stayed, my life trajectory would’ve been radically different. And then, later, I inexplicably became homesick for Wengen, and nightly dreamed of the Jungfrau. If only to ski again.