In the Alps - Adelboden, Switzerland

A trip to Adelboden in the Swiss alps was a requirement for me. In 1932 the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts built a chalet as the their first World Center and I was anxious to visit. As part of my visit, I earned the "Our Chalet Experience" badge and as part of that challenge, I was to write an essay about my visit. I've copied it here and thought you would enjoy it.

High Up upon a Mountain, I found “My Chalet.”

My name is Karen Hening-Speedone and I am 56 years old, which is probably not the usual age for visitors to Our Chalet. I have six children, five of them girls, four of the girls now adult Girl Scouts, five granddaughters with two in Scouting and I was a Brownie Girl Scout leader for 18 years. Because I have heart problems, I use an electric “rollstuhl” as they say in German, or scooter. But I am A Girl Scout and never shy away from adventure, so I came to Our Chalet to see a bit of my own history. My experience at Our Chalet was unique and at the same time it was run-of-the-mill, to coin a phrase. First, let me explain why my visit was “run-of-the-mill.”

“Run of the mill” means expected, nothing unusual or out of the ordinary. And this visit was nothing new in the way I was treated by the staff and volunteers here. “Be a sister to every Girl Scout” is part of the Law that girls and women all over the world take seriously. They reach out to extend a hand of friendship, kindness and help to all people. Girl Scouts and Guides never stop and ask, “Bg pardon, may I see your current WAGGGS membership card?” Everyone offered to help with carrying bags, running upstairs to fetch my scooter key, bringing me food to my room or to my table in the dining hall - they extended their hand of friendship to me as I knew they would. It was exactly what I expected from a place like Our Chalet. Girl Scouts and guides never let you down!

For me personally, this was like a journey back home to my grandparents’ home in Port Washington, New York. My grandfather, Robert Schnepf had a knack for being in the right place at the right time - or sometimes at the wrong time. One day he decided to take a drive to New Jersey to see the arrival of the huge airship Hindenberg. As he watched it slowly descend to the ground, it caught fire in a terrible loss of life. Another happier time he was the first diver in line to enter the Holland Tunnel which connects New York and New Jersey under the Hudson River.

And in 1939, at the World’s Fair in Flushing, New York, he was able to purchase a piece of Girl Scout history - an exact replica of Our Chalet. Mrs. Helen Storrow had dedicated Our Chalet only seven years before and WAGGGS had the Chalet copied to use as a Welcome and Information Center at the fair. My Grampy took measurements, had a foundation laid and concrete poured and the basement built, and when the Fair ended, he had Our Chalet loaded onto a flatbed truck and it became the Schneps family home for the next 46 years, until his death in 1986.

I was a little girl when I spent summers with Nanny and Grampy, and some of the Girl Scout/Guide spirit must have soaked into the walls of that chalet. Today I am a committed Girl Scout and every experience like my visit to Our Chalet further validates my contention that Girl Scouting and Girl Guiding is as important as ever to the people of this planet Earth living together in peace. As WAGGGS says, “One million girls, one voice.”

I hope you will find a moment to write or e-mail me at:

Karen Hening-Speedone

3407 Menlo Drive

Baltimore, Maryland 21215

Kheningspeedone@aol.com (Watch the spelling - only one “n” in Hening!)

Rome in a Day - 5 November 2009 (Part One)

Back when I was planning our adventure, not knowing that having "an adventure" was a designation Glenn considered bad, we decided to add Rome to the Grand Tour because he wanted to see the Sistine Chapel. I had no real interest in viewing the chapel for a number of reasons. First, when I visited an art exhibit in the Smithsonian once, I was able to see work of Johannes Vermeer up close. And I mean I could get within inches of these canvases. It was stunning to see how Vermeer got light to seemingly flow out of the canvas. I kept thinking it was as if they were backlit. The second time was when Van Gogh's works had a "once in a lifetime" showing - the Museum in his native Netherlands was closed for a major renovation, and the paintings were going on a once-in-my-lifetime tour. Again, I could immerse myself in the brush work that have such life in them. The third "spoiler" for me was the work of Dalí being shown in Philadelphia. I remember being stunned at how he painted a miniature of his wife so detailed, Dalí must have used a paintbrush with maybe three hairs in it!

So seeing Michaelanelo's greatest work from two stories away held no appeal. I think I would get more out of the National Geographic special which concentrated on the restoration of the ceiling. And Glenn and I were looking forward to some alone time.

We arrived at Roma Termini station around 9 in the morning. Glenn found lockers for the bags, and we parked the bulk of our stuff. Glenn decided that a taxi was the best way to go, so we piled in, Odie stuffed in like a sardine in the back. I don’t know why Glenn refuses to break it into four pieces, which always makes life so much easier, at least from my perspective. He always stops at three. I like to go “all the way” as we say.

Our cab driver zipped and zapped around one of the most insane driving experiences of my life. At one point, a police motorcycle escort, sirens blaring, pulled along side and gestured for us to move over to the right. Seven cars, Chevy Suburbans, BMWs, and the like drove past. Our driver commented, “ There goes Berlusconi. He always has seven cars in his motorcade.” “I wonder why,” Glenn mused. “Two for the police, one for him, and four for his women,” I muttered.

We stopped a block from the Great Synagogue, the epicenter of the Jewish Quarter. With a hug and kiss from Big Brother, we parted ways - he was walking to the Vatican, and I was about to enter the world of Italy’s Jews, a world that dates back to before Jesus was born.

The Grand Tour Blog continues. . .

. . . but not as a day-to day journal. At least not posted in chronological order.

Rather than hang up on putting each experience in the proper sequence, I will be posting experiences in random order. I have an idea on how to keep everybody on "the same page." Let me know if it works for you.

By the time I finish this story, it will be ready for editing and putting in its correct time line. But for now, I hope you enjoy!

GLENN BAILS ON THE GRAND TOUR AFTER WEEK FOUR - FILM AT 11!

Actually, it will take a while to compile film, but my brother Glenn bailed out on the last two weeks, leaving me to fend for myself. Which in the bigger view, isn't a bad thing at all!

It became apparent that Glenn, who candidly spoke about his deliberate decision to live in a small oceanside town in California, has little if any tolerance for: big cities, crowds, tourists, Japanese tourists, local people, traffic, busses, or "bumps in the road." And at every bump in this road, from a train reservation losing my "handicap" designation, to just getting on a bus, caused Glenn to erupt in anger and irritation, "blowing off steam" as he called it. But as I pointed out to Glenn, when a person "blows off steam" it's the people closet to that person that get burned.

I saw this most clearly as we boarded the train from Rome to Zürich. Despite our checking and rechecking our reservation instructions, "top down, bottom up" as my former programmer brother liked to say, we arrived at the train to find that: a) there was no handicap cabin on the night train; and b) the couchette we were assigned to had four others joining us for the bulk of the trip. It was also the worst couchette in that you could not sit up on the bottom bunk because the middle bunk was in the exact middle of the wall - not enough headroom. The other couchettes in the rail car were designed to allow passengers to sit upright on the bottom two bunks while the top four bunks were occupied.

Glenn ordered me to "get in" the train as he usually did - rather nastily. So I did as I was told and went to the couchette and sat down. Glen then proceeded to take apart my scooter, and when he bought the seat portion into the couchette, he threw it some five feet across the cabin where it landed on top of the bunk ladder with such force that I flinched and jerked back, expecting to get hit by flying metal. He walked off to get more scooter parts, which were brought in and dumped in the couchette.

The train conductor, a large towering fellow named Remy, was wise enough to leave Glenn to his own devices. I can only imagine the interaction between the two, but Remy came to me once the train was under way, and explained to me - and to Glenn who was listening, but was being left out of our conversation - that we could put the scooter at the end of the train car, by the door to the bathroom. So Remy and I took the pieces to the end of the car and reassembled Odie - poor, dear scooter who had been senselessly abused, and while Glenn scoffed at my anthropomorphization of an electric travel scooter, I saw it more as an unfeeling victim of Glenn's childishness.

Glenn promptly carved out his space in the top bunk which, it turned out, had a ton of storage space above the hallway. He changed into pajamas, put in his earplugs, put on his sleep mask as was about to go to bed when he commented on my having plugged in both Odie's battery pack and my laptop, saying that I shouldn't monopolize both plugs. Now Remy had told us that the other four passengers were joining us in Florence, an hour away by train. So I had at least one hour to charge both items before anyone would even be there to ask to use an outlet. But there was just something about how Glenn thought I should be considerate of total strangers, which is how he sees things in his world. I calmly told him that I didn't give a bad word is someone wanted an outlet, when I was done with one I'd let them know. And Glenn found my attitude incomprehensible. But after three weeks and two days together, I wasn't surprised that Glenn saw his behavior as totally fine. Man, Zürich was going to be great - Glenn stays in the hotel I booked for him, I stay at Judy's family's house, I go to Adelboden, Glenn goes to Lausanne and when we get back together on Tuesday at the airport, maybe he will have mellowed somewhat.

But the next bump in the road turned out to be a fork. And as I continued on, Glenn decided to quit the Tour and head for home.

16-17 October 2009 The Sabbath

Today is “Get ready for Shabbos” day. The word Shabbos means sabbath. From just before sunset Friday until one hour after sundown on Saturday, the Sabbath takes everyday life and puts it on the shelf. It’s a time for revitalizing oneself, both spiritually and physically. No phones, no shopping, no television, no work, no worries as they say in England. For those who don’t “keep” the Sabbath, it seems like a lot of restrictions and limits. For those who do, they don’t know how the non-observant world manages without that one day of total rest.

We do my shopping. I’m having a delicious deli Shabbos - more chicken pate, some turkey breast. It turns out that there is a small shul only three houses down the block from where we are staying! What good fortune for a girl who’s booking a vacation over the Internet from 3,000 miles away! But what is it we say? There are no coincidences!

Glenn heads out to explore London by night, as opposed to London’s nightlife, in which he has no interest. He ends up at Trafalgar Square, where he takes videos of people hanging out. The interest or intrigue fails to ring a bell with me. But to each his own. . .

I light my candles and enjoy a quiet dinner alone. Really this is nothing new for me - I spend almost all my Friday nights and Saturdays alone. It seems to be my lot in life. It’s ironic that I designed this house remodel back in 2005 with the idea of one day having my children and their spouses and my grandchildren over for visits and meals and enjoying the noise and the laughing and joking, the Sabbath songs and joyfulness, and now I sit alone. But I am determined to make some really fine lemonade out of these lemons.

So Shabbos in London turns out to be really lovely. In the morning, Glenn is already out the door by 8:00 on his way to GMT - Grenwich Meridian Time, and the Royal Observatory (Yes, she even has her own telescope, for pete’s sake!). As soon as he reports in, I’ll give you an update. Me? I overslept, prayed in my room with a beautiul view overlooking the trees in the back yard, ate lunch, read the newspapers and napped the afternoon away. As I said, a really lovely day.