Checked the Vineyard church website last night and found that the service this morning was in a different place – actually nearer to Kloten where I am staying, but a two train journey to get there. Service was at 10:30, so I had to catch 9:25 train from Kloten and then another one out from Oerlikon. When I arrived, everyone was very friendly and welcoming. They have coffee and pastries before the service! Although much of the service is in English (pastor is an American church planter) some bits were in Swiss German, and some were in “high” German, so I was assigned my own personal translator for the bits I didn’t understand! That was a bit distracting, but it did make me feel welcomed. Service was very good and I think I will probably go again. They have an English home group which meets on Thursday evenings, so I will probably also try to get to that. Think it’s off for the Summer though.
After church I decided to go for another journey. In retrospect I was a bit late, but I did it and I am glad I did! I decided to do the journey that I had intended to do last Sunday, when my plans went awry, only I did it in reverse! Train from Zurich to Chur (pronounced Koor) and then I hit the mountain railway! The trip down from Zurich was very nice – very close to the shores of the lake – much closer than I have been before. The scenery on this leg also seemed more breathtakiunng in other ways too. There was one train from Chur to Disentis and then another from Disentis to Andermatt (where I spent several hours dithering last week!) At the peak, we hit 2030m, not quite up to the snow, but not far off. Certainly in the wet clouds, though! The scenery was breathtaking, and the train down from Disentis to Andermatt was totally amazing – just the grade of the descent! Wow! For much of the way, we were following the path of a fast-running mountain river, and I saw several groups of canoeists doing white water stuff. We stopped at one station and there was a man and two very young children waiting to get in with their huge kayak. The conductor had to jump off the train to help them on! For much of the way it was single track railway, so at every station the conductor had to go and put his key into a control box, presumably signalling that the next stretch of line was busy to other traffic.
I had planned to go on from Andermatt to Brig (where I nearly finished up yesterday) but it was getting very late, so I descended to Goschenen and caught a fast train back up towards Zurich. I had to change onto an Italian train full of Italian and Swiss soldiers, but it was very straightforward and we made good time.
On arrival in Zurich I had just missed my train to Kloten by about 3 minutes, so I had to wait nearly 30 mins for the next one. Things were going well, except that this one broke down at Opfikon and we spent about 10 minutes there. After all the miles I’ve travelled this weekend, it’s funny that they can’t get a simple little local journey right!