Feb 11, 2010

In the Post Bus

I am often asked what my job is like. Well.

The World Economic Forum had filled Davos hotels and we had to book beds in a small town an hours trip from the Congress Center.

58 minutes to be precise, it was after all Switzerland. The 58 minute train ride took us to a completely new world. Guarda is situated in another valley reached through a 25 minute trains-only tunnel. On the other side there are no ski centers. Guarda is a town populated by 150 people, who, until 9 years ago felt more Italian than Swiss, and speak swiss, i.e. retoromanian - a beautiful language by the way.

The Guarda train can be reached by car in 5 minutes or by foot in 45. Of course the hotel Piz Buin's owners were glad to give us a ride to the station when needed, but generally we used the official schoolride, the post bus...

So we attended the biggest economical forum in the world traveling everyday by this post bus - train -another train trip (we had to change trains but ah the Swiss timetables!)

It was ok until we needed to stay in Davos past 10.02 p.m...

I ran towards the station only to see the train slowly moving, hailed a cab, took it to the next station, missed the train again, took the cab to next station 20 km away. 99 swiss francs took me to the last train through the tunnel. A taxi ride around the mountain would have taken 3,5 hours. And there were no free beds there.

The next evening - a saturday - I had to go to Davos after a 21 hour working day followed by a full day's edit session.

In the post bus I met a tipsy older lady who happened to be a Szontian psychologist from Zurich. We continued our conversation in the train - about her husband, a stage-frightened celloist and my psychotherapy, not to mention critisizing the overpsychologising organizations.

And I forgot to change trains.

Luckily there was a restaurant next to the station after my station. Like I said, there are no ski slopes in this valley... I wonder what the young lady at the inn must have thought about this strange looking guy in a suit (I had to wear on, it was th WEF after all) and a long coat coming in from the night with a computer for a beer and Jagershnitzel.

It was good, though. I took the next train back an hour later. And took the next train back, after I delivering our footage.

That's what a TV producer does: stupid things in odd places fullfilling some weird assignments - but most often in in beautiful places amongst wonderful people... are there any other kind?