(Part I of II)

Switzerland is always a wonderful place to visit. It is also a very pleasant venue in which to hold international conferences. In particular, the CBMTS I (Chemical and Biological Medical Treatment Symposium number 1) held at Spiez (near Interlaken) in 1992 was an experience something on the order of combining an exceptionally tough ACLS course with a trip to Willie Wonka's chocolate factory--a tall order, if you can even conceive of such an amalgam of conflicting elements!  As an associate of the host organisation, I was hard at work throughout most of it. My official title was ‘ASA Associate and Official Documentarian of the Symposium’. What I ended up doing consisted of several rather less galmorous things than my fancy title would suggest.

1) I was the designated conference ‘bird-dog’ who was looking after 18 foreign delegates lodged in a second hotel, significantly separated from the primary accommodations site. The principal hotel was the 4 star Schlosshotel Freienhof, a beautiful old establishment situated on an island in the middle of the River Thun that divides the town, while the secondary site was the much more modern 4 star Hotel Holiday Thunnersee, located 4 km from the center of town along the beautiful Thunnersee (Lake of Thun) that empties into the River Thun. As ‘bird-dog’, I was in charge of seeing to it that all the 18 foreign scientists staying in the Holiday Hotel were well looked after, didn't get lost, knew how/where/when everything was to take place, assist with problems, act as liaison with the conference organizational apparatus, etc. In other words a regular friggin’ little’ Miss Merry Sunshine’, but one with enough authority to kick ass, if necessary, to move heaven and earth; lots of charm required, and fortunately I have my Irish reserves of dazzling charm and sycophantic overkill to fall back on, as occasioned!

2) As official recording documentarian of the symposium, mine was the also arduous challenge of recording every single segment of the 5 day agenda via lengthy hand-written notes, since we were forbidden to electronically record anything owing to the largely classified nature of much of the presentations. I ended up with a sort of hyper-writer's-cramp-cum-tunnel-carpel syndrome, after which I undertook the process of taking the 35+ pages of handwritten notes and transcribing them into an expanded and amplified three-level report on the conference; this would serve both as a record of the agenda for the US-based Battelle Memorial Institute (a defense-associated applied science and technology think-tank, etc.) and as a basis for publication of the symposium's official proceedings (to come out on the conference proceedings, a month or so after the event).

One of the completely unexpected difficulties encountered in this capacity as recording documentarian was the inescapable fact that at 48, I was at the point in life where the inevitable effects of a changing refractive index considerably complicated my ability to function effectively in this role. Since I had to alternative my gaze constantly from overhead projector to my note pad, this posed an exasperating challenge. My far vision requires that I use glasses to see clearly, but being slightly nearsighted now, I cannot use them while I am writing notes at close range. Hence I had to use one hand to flip my glasses on and off while simultaneously writing down what was being projected (slides & data from the projections). It was a persistent and cumbersome bother throughout the conference. It became clear that in future I shall have to have a set of graduated bifocals made for just such situations (if I wish to continue to function in this capacity again).

SO...I worked my butt off throughout the conference, but I had a hell of a good time doing it. It was a major highlight of the year for me in many ways, not the least in that it is increasing my ‘recognition’ profile in this very select and closely cloistered area of exotic defense technology. In the chemical & biological defense sciences arena you aren't even admitted into the inner circles until you become what is referred to as a somewhat ‘known quantity.’ Starting from ground zero, some years back, I have managed to increase my recognition profile substantially through my series of articles on individual chemical & biological protection (in the ASA Newsletter), and now I am attending more and more of the big yearly international conferences in NBC affairs, the most recent one as a paid participant (not just another ‘invitee’--a big step up; sort of a figurative upgrade from minnow status to that of fingerling, in the big pond of defense technology.

Although the symposium was officially scheduled from 5 through 8 December, I had to arrive several days early to help get everything set up. As a first symposium of its type (dealing with medical treatment and research of chemical and biological war agent injuries, in a very expanded spectrum which included prevention, treatment, R&D, and political aspects), there was much last minute fine-tuning to be accomplished. I left Riyadh on an early AM (2AM) 2nd December Swissair flight, thinking that it would beat the usual ‘cattle-truck’ quality of the local airborne camel-driver operation (AKA: Saudia--Saudi Arabian national airlines). WRONG! Apparently just about every expatriate in Riyadh going to Switzerland follows the same psychology, and the result was that it was a very full, almost overcrowded Airbus A310/200 flight;  the quality of the 5½ hour run was marginal. The poor stews were run ragged and the famous Swiss smile of hospitality had a rather grimly determined hard-set edge to it throughout the Economy seat section for the duration of the trip. Certainly can't blame them--it was obviously brutal for them (probably one of those proverbial flights from hell, which is usually the case on flights to and from the Arab homeland, with both stews and passengers).

We reached Zürich at about 9AM (Swiss time), and I found that the connection from Zürich to Thun, via railway, was almost effortless. My rusty and recently languishing German language ability apparently had not suffered total paralysis from disuse and I was able to buy my RT fare quickly, grab my single checked bag and take the escalator to the lowest level of the Zürich Flughaven (where the Swiss trains connect directly to all points). This was my first time in Zürich, and I had deliberately chosen to land there instead of in Geneva due to my familiarity with the latter and unfamiliarity with the former. As it was, I was soon settled into the clean non-smoking compartment of a 2nd Class car, and the next two hours of sightseeing through the Swiss countryside were a welcome diversion, despite the poor vision outside due to overcast and the time of the year (not as much sun). Just being in Switzerland again was a powerful high in its own right, since I love the country, its customs, mountains, and unique French/Italian/German/Romansch flavor. I had had had my leather trenchcoat sent to me in Saudi before the trip, judging that it would be required by the usual cold climate that you find in this part of Europe at this time of year, but I was quite surprised to find that it has been thus far an unusually warm winter--precious little snow for the most part, except in the highest Alps, with the Swiss tourist industry scratching its collective head over the puzzling weather patterns that prevailed this year.

The trip to the lake-side community of Thun, sited in the center of the country on the Thunnersee/Lake Thun (which together with the Bruggersee flank the famous international watering-hole of Interlaken), was surprisingly brief, and I soon found myself pulling into the Thun Bahnhof after an enjoyable interlude observing my fellow passengers in the railway coach. This is always fun and especially a kick since I try to hide my American identity and let them drive themselves nuts trying to figure out what sort of accent my fractured German suggests. It's a great game and I make a point of never speaking English unless I absolutely have to!

Arrival in Thun was refreshing: all new turf to me, so new and potentially exciting. I grabbed my bag and was off on a brief 5 minute walk to the central symposium hotel, the old Freienhof, which is a couple of hundred years old (give or take a hundred). The heart of old Thun in situated on a moderate-sized island, flanked by twin forks of the River Thun, and it is most picturesque. I must have presented quite a sight to the townspeople, gawking at everything and drinking in the sights like some sort of political refugee, thrust into a new and unfamiliar setting and clutching life's possessions (anyway, it was an amusing thought to entertain myself with as I proceeded to my destination on foot).
 
Crossing the Thun River I was struck by two things: 1) the resident population of beautiful Swans (and several other varieties of water birds, ducks, gulls, etc.) that populated the river, and 2) the characteristic grey-green slate color of the water (which is caused by the suspension of glacial material suspended in it, having run off from the great frozen rivers of ice in the high Alps). Of course, the streets and buildings of Thun are also delightful, and high over the community the graceful pre-Baroque Thun Cathedral shares the vista with the even more interesting and far more ancient (16th century) Schloss Thun (Thun Castle), perched on a moderately large, upthrust outcropping of land.

Although it was a weekday (in Europe), the townspeople were in evidence going about their affairs, and all of the stores had displays of Christmas decorations and related visual delights to saturate the senses as I walked by them. This is a great time of the year to be visiting any Germanic locale, owing to the importance of the Christmas season in its religious context to both Catholic and Protestant peoples (Thun is predominantly Catholic, by the way). It is every Christmas season lover's delightful dream of quaint, warm coziness and collective joyfulness, and a real-life version of all those whimsical and nostalgic Christmas illustrations of charming old-world Christmas spirit that frequently end up adorning the front of American Christmas cards. I found even my old Scroogy self deeply touched and captivated by the sheer naive joy that such expressions of collective religious belief may evoke in  believers and non-believers alike. Choke....mumble....ahem!...

But enough of the ‘warm snuggies’ factor for the moment. I arrived at the hotel and checked in, found my room, and off-loaded for a few minutes, gazing out the window at the panorama of the beautiful River Thun. As is usually the case, there was a plate of nuts, fruit and Swiss chocolate lying on the pillow of the bed: welcome to Switzerland!  So, mindful of my carefully maintained 66.7 kg weight, I immediately scarfed down the whole plate of goodies, and sat there at the window of my room for a while watching the squadrons of swans wheel in on final approach for a water landing, swarm older people who were feeding them for pleasure, and just providing an ongoing and never-ending spectacle of amusing viewing (simply beats the hell out of the best television programs ever produced!).

Although there was a fully stocked mini-bar in the room, I resisted the urge to break my ETOH fast of the past 8 months until I was able to inaugurate my thirst with something truly suitable--like one of the wonderful Swiss Upper Rhône region Dôle that they grow in the Valais (Zermatt). And then, after settling things in a bit, I checked in with my cohorts in the ASA groups, to take initial instructions and get an idea of what my duties were to encompass. Several of the key figures in ASA (Applied Science & Analysis, Inc.) I have never met before, although we are very familiar with one another through correspondence and electronic communications of several years' duration. At any rate, after this, I found that I had practically the whole day off, until later in the afternoon when we would all convene for a meeting. I was to stay at the Schlosshotel Freienhof for two nights, during the pre-conference planning sessions, and then relocate to the less centrally sited Hotel Holiday Thunnersee, on the Lake front.

The free time was wonderful, of course, and I wandered happily like a child in wonderland throughout the colorful German-speaking community, engaging in shopping of both sorts--window and actual. Bought things to take back to the Kingdom for friends here (probably several kilos of assorted sizes, shapes and varieties of chocolate--one of the few real bargains left in expensive Switzerland, these days of severe dollar wimpiness). Exchanged several traveler’s cheques, and was quite shocked to find how far the formerly vaunted American dollar has fallen on hard times. When I was in Switzerland for the first time, back in 1983, the dollar/Swiss franc rate was about 1 US$ = 2.44 Sfr. Now the rate is abysmal--exactly 1 US$ = 1.3 Sfr! It didn't take long before I was eating up the $1200 in spending money I had brought with me, given my usual unrestrained profligacy in financial dealings.

Another thing, too. prices in Switzerland are very, very high, compared to equivalent US economic/ domestic prices. Or so it seemed to me. Switzerland has never been an inexpensive country, for a number of reasons, but it still took a bit of getting used to, despite my knowledge of this before arrival. Accordingly, I got boxes of chocolates and a fair number of the usual Swiss gift standby--engraved Swiss Army knives. Also bought some Swarovski crystal figurines for a collector friend, and found a few odd, but interesting shops selling hand-crafted articles (handarbeit kunst). I think one was a fund-raising support activity for the local moderate Marxist group, so I bought a few things from them like knitted leggins/bootees that run half-way up the leg with leather bottoms (great for keeping popsicle toes warm in wintertime), and so forth.  Then, I wandered into one of the local bakeries and bought two beautiful loaves of something called ‘Englischerbrot’ (‘English-style bread’) with the idea of next going over to the river quay and feeding the swan navy that anchored there.

The swans swarmed over (swans swarm with an undeniable sense of dignified restraint, never in too much of discernible hurry, despite the lure of the goodies being thrown to them), and after a brief period of time one whole loaf and part of the other had disappeared entirely. Taking the remainder of the second loaf with me, I returned to the hotel.

Somewhat later on, I decided to taste the Englisherbrot, halfway expecting it to be as tasteless and blandly unsatisfying as the typical western white bread that bakers try to con Americans into thinking is actually good fare (and healthy as well? Not!). WOW! I was amazed at the fantastic taste, texture and goodness of this hand-baked white bread casually named Englisherbrot. It is easily some of the most wonderful baked bread I have ever eaten, and you could make a whole meal of it, so deliciously satisfying was it. It was fortunate that I had saved part of the second loaf for my own use, since I later found that it made a great stomach filler after bouts of ETOH overindulgence, as well. It probably saved me from suffering the full, unbuffered effects of one glass of wine too many on more than two separate occasions, throughout the course of my stay; sort of a delicious form of antacid relief.

This reminded me once again of just how screwed up American society has become, with regard to even such things as simple breads. Bread in America has become processed and formularised to death--all the rich flavor, texture, nutrition and basic eating pleasure of this traditionally basic staple of life has simply been refined into what we are now led (as dutifully brainwashed American robot-consumers of mass-produced goods) to believe is properly formulated and produced nutrition, when in fact American white bread now bears about as much resemblance to the finer European baked breads as shit does to Shinola. Rediscovering these delicious breads in Thun (and the Englischerbrot’ is just one of at least 30 or more fantastic hand-baked breads that were available in this one particular bakery alone) was almost worth the trip to Switzerland in and of itself. So the swans' shortfall turned out to be a blessing and gustatory awakening for me, after enduring 8 months of culinary perversion through the means of my usual daily fare in Saudi Arabia (a loaf of Saudized pseudo-French baguette each day, which might, on a particularly excellent day, have the marginally equivalent taste appeal of what a nervous bastard son of a half-caste French-Vietnamese baker might have managed to bake between riots in the Saar, during the 30s). All summed up, and freed from the foregoing clot of empty rhetoric...yum!

At this time of the year in the Germanic countries Christmas is a time of increased street activity, with small vendors and pushcarts selling hot roasted chestnuts, bratwurst and kraut, and all sorts of good food. I lunched on a couple of steaming bratwurst sandwiched between a few slices of good home-baked bread, purchased from one such street merchant, while I stared in amazement at the spectacle of a local Thun MacDonald's. The crowds of locals that thronged the joint was so great that the lines stretched out the doors and well into the street. In fact, at one point in the thoroughfare it was hard to get across the street (it is a pedestrian mall at that point) for all the queuing up for Big Macs and fries that was going on.

Part of me was shocked, and as a keen appreciator of all the good food and local specialities that are available to hungry shoppers in Thun, I was appalled to find this mass enthusiasm for what to me is the paragon of mass-marketed, formularized American dreck: American fast food. So, I silently gaped at this sorry sight as I enjoyed the second of the two steaming bratwurst and continued taking in the sights. Is there any hope for the world, after this shameless exhibition of a world gone mad for the excesses of western style capitalistic consumerism? I remain doubtful, dear hearts, but will reserve judgment for a few more years before heading out to live the rest of life in the remote hinterlands of Earth's last remaining wilderness.

Yes, the sights, sounds and sensations of a simple walk through the streets of this old community were a refreshing tonic and the booming of the cathedral bells at noon punctuated a day perfectly spent, by my reckoning. I ended the day with another walk back to the river, where I fed another newly purchased loaf of bread to the birds on the water, and took a few pictures without drawing too much attention to my status as a tourist (I don't like to me marked for one, when I travel, since I feel you can enjoy a different culture far more when you blend harmoniously into the scene rather than make like the flag-led troop of ubiquitous Japanese tourists being yanked about by their regimental tour leader, all camera angles, smiles and innocent awe plainly writ on everyone's faces).

The sun was setting, and it was time to get back down to the more serious matters at hand at the hotel. As small gifts I had brought a traditional Saudi head-dress for Colonel P, and a traditional brass Bedouin coffee pot for his wife (Colonel P. and his PhD wife are the President and Chief Scientist of the ASA, respectively;Colonel P. is a retired Air Force Colonel, and his wife is a remarkable woman who has several upper division graduate grees and is a Harvard grad, Rhodes scholar, brilliant thinker, etc.). I was a bit put off at the end of the conference to come to Colonel P's room and find that my Bedouin coffee pot gift was doing duty as a window stop on the floor of their balcony to let in cool air to the somewhat overheated room. From my standpoint, that's not quite the right way to treat someone's graciously bestowed gift, representing an interesting cultural milieu....but what the hell! I suppose everyone has different attitudes and opinions about proper etiquette, manners, etc. Mrs. P. is from the Bronx, so despite all the serious academic honors and cachets perhaps it is just her way, eh? I certainly wouldn't have used a gift to prop open the balcony door, though. Hmmmmm. Was a bit browned off by that discovery, momentarily, but soon recovered.

We had a pre-symposium planning session before dinner, at which all of the symposium Chairs and co-chairs of the agenda sections got together with the sponsoring institutional representatives (us) for some last minute steering, and agenda correction. Then it was off to the restaurant in the Schlosshotel Freienhof for several tall glasses of Swiss beer and an hour of two of convivial and animated conversation with some of the more interesting international delegates.

The next day was also fairly free, although we had several sessions in which various things were put together, delegate packets assembled, and so forth. I did a lot more exploring of the old downtown area of Thun, spent gobs more money without a shred of regret, and just mellowed out in the beautiful lull of this ancient land (not, of course, as ancient as the Far East by a long shot, but certainly by European standards). These were to be my only truly free days in which to savor the place on my own--the rest of my time would be pretty fast and frantic when the symposium started. The day ended with about 10 of us being invited out to the nearby home of one of the Swiss members of the ASA group, a former Swiss military officer who is the CEO of a CBW group called InterCB. He and his wife also own the travel agency which was coordinating the symposium's travel needs. She took care of the travel agency while her husband exported chemical and biological defense technology internationally.

At any rate, this invitation was a special treat for us all, since we were being invited to share that unique Swiss culinary specialty: raclette. Raclette is essentially ‘melted cheese’, but not quite a fondue. Our host made a raclette that is reputed to be excellent, and we all had the opportunity to judge for ourselves that evening.

After we were driven out to his home, some 20 km from Thun, there was first a round of welcoming drinks, after which our host brought out some amazing 25 year old aged single malt Scots whisky. Everyone had a wee bit of that, given its expensive status, and then we concentrated on local Swiss wines, beer and other things. Each of us was presented with a small gift and mine was--that golden moment I had been anticipating!--a bottle of very special Valaisianne (Upper Rhône Valley) Dôle wine from the small town of Sierre, where our host’s wife had been born (she is from Canton Valais, and not too far from Zermatt). Each time I take the railway to Zermatt from Geneva, I pass by Sierre, and there can be seen a unique old castle ruin that stands out on a hill, close by the tracks, as the train runs through the village of Sierre. An outline of the famous old ruin is outlined on the label of this wine and I really was grateful to my host for the bottle.

The guests were very interesting, too. Included was the symposium Chairman, Dr. Brian Davey, a very, very interesting and charming fellow from South Africa who is a specialist in chemical war agent medical defense. He is relatively young (mid-30s, I think) with quite a distinguished academic record and very well known and respected in the world's NBC defense community. He was part of all the UN inspection teams that entered Iraq after the war to clean up their CBW weapons stockpiles and destroy their CBW agent capabilities. He later proved to have a great sense of humor and stunned all the guests at the official symposium dinner with a witty and very, very humorous monologue (spiced up with a few amateur magic tricks, as well), as the MC for the evening. Quite a man for all seasons, this young Dr. Davey, and a very cogent and intelligent thinker, as well.

The preparation of our raclette took a special technique and time to prepare, so the dinner went on for quite a while. Basically, raclette is made by heating up the surface of one half of a large wheel of cheese (not Swiss Cheese as we know it in the USA, but a particular type of  cheese from Switzerland) until it is molten to a depth of about 1 half inch. Then the molten part is cleved off onto a plate, where it is eaten along with potatoes, pickles, and various vegetables. Each serving is prepared at the table on a special cheese heater and so only one person can eat at a time. While he does so, the others snack, drink and chat. It was certainly a unique experience, but this is the old, traditional custom and it was charming to be treated to this customary Swiss dish prepared by the hands of a master of the technique. The dinner, as it were, finally came to an end late in the evening and we were all driven back home by our host and his wife (I don't know how they were able to do so, after all the drinking, but it was a safe and uneventful drive back to the hotel). The end of an excellent and most enjoyable evening, courtesy of this former Swiss GRD chemical warfare officer!

The next morning I was shunted from the Freienhof to the Hotel Holiday, to begin my bird-dogging duties, and had noted that among the delegates staying at my accommodations were the two Russians, the two Croatians, the Bulgarian delegate, the Nigerian, several Canadians, the Israeli,  a Frenchman or two,  some German delegates, a Czech or two, some Iraqis, and a few other odd stragglers (which included two Kuwaiti doctors who never made it to the symposium).

Due to the depressed state of many of the East European countries (the former Soviet Bloc nations), ASA had funded the travel and expenses of about 10 eminent scientists whose countries couldn't (or wouldn't) pay for them to attend. This included the Bulgarian, a distinguished Dr. Dischovsky, the Nigerian (Dr. Fadoju), the two Croatians (Dr. Fuchs and Dr. Kovac), and the two Russians (Dr. Rabyakovski and Dr. Netasov). I could picture their personal dilemma without much difficulty: all distinguished academic researchers and notable scientists, yet who were so poor that they could barely pay for their own meals (at Swiss prices). It was pathetic to consider. Dr. Dishovsky, who I came to know a bit through some long and interesting conversations, is the top scientific authority in his field in Bulgaria, and yet his monthly salary was (he revealed, with some chagrin) less than the equivalent of US$ 130 per month! The two Russians were in an equally unfortunate state, and it almost embarrassed me to associate with them, knowing how miserably the services of their brilliant minds are rewarded for working for the former Soviet Union's chemical and biological defense organisations.

Being good old Mr. Sensitive, I undertook a small private good-will program of my own and purchased with my own money several bottles of the excellent Swiss Rhône Dôle wine that I am personally so fond of and presented one to each of them (ostensibly, courtesy of ASA, although I paid for them myself, unbeknownst to them). The Russians were quite grateful, since such simple things (to us) are quite impossibly expensive by their standards, and Dr. Dishovski took his bottle of the wine back to Bulgaria when he departed, assuring me that it would be shared by his family and several close colleagues on Christmas Eve! God, that made me feel great! I felt about as much like Santa Claus at those moments as someone of my nominal humbuggery could, faced with such heart-felt gratitude. Anyway, so much for the Kalikiano Kalei Memorial International Goodwill Effort.

While the lodgings and the formal symposium banquet took place at the Hotel Freienhof, in Thun, the actual venue for the symposium itself was the Swiss National Defense research laboratories establishment at Spiez, a small Bernese community on the shores of the Thunnersee, about 20 km from Thun. NC Laboratories Spiez is the research and development complex of the Swiss GRD (Gruppe Rustungs Dienst, or national defense establishment) and it is nestled at the foot of a rather spectacular pinnacle of sheer granite immensity that rises up like a mini Mt. Everest. There are two sections of the NC Labs Spiez: one is entirely classified and off limits, but the other is merely a secure area, and it is here where we conducted the scientific and technical agenda of the conference. Each day of the symposium, two huge touring-style busses would meet us at the hotels and transport us to the NC Labs for the day's sessions; then, at about 6PM each evening, depending on the events which were scheduled (like social gatherings, cocktails, dinner buffet, etc.), the busses would take everyone back to their respective hotels again.

The evening of the first day there was a cocktail hour and a wonderful Swiss cheese (no, not Swiss Cheese again, but rather Swiss provincial cheeses) buffet, and of course as everyone knows who attends medical or scientific conferences, it is here that the real meaty questions and communications develop, stimulated by the foregoing sessions of the day's agenda. It was quite interesting, of course, with such a widely mixed international gathering of brilliant specialists in defense medicine & research exchanging ideas and information on chemical & biological aspects of warfare. And there I was, a rather thin and serious looking fellow, all tweedy and looking the part of a person of significance myself, despite being the eager, if rather undistinguished, NBC defense tyro in actual fact. I have long since learned that my serious, pinched affect (aided by Dr. Zhivago type steel rimmed glasses and a beard) somehow seems to confer the mark of a doctorate on me, if not the actual academic credentials. Accordingly, I have cultivated a manner of standing there, looking and feeling as if I were on the same august plateau as all these learned gentlemen of letters and science, and damned if I don't carry it off quite satisfactorily! Meanwhile, I am recording information, taking mental notes, and filling up all sorts of cranial cavities with as much information as I can on organophosphonates, Sarin/Soman synthesized agents, and Acetylcholinesterase reactivators, cholinergic inhibitors, and so forth.

Hey.....works for me! After I have attended enough of these sessions, I may very well try to challenge my organic chemistry boards without even hitting the books! Don't misunderstand me--I don't ever try to deliberately pass myself off as being something I am not; I merely seem to be able to blend into my academic surroundings in the very best example of a talented chameleon (perhaps it's the Irish blood--I must be an unwitting member of the I.I.A., the Irish Improvisational Army).

Although my actual area of expertise is in aerospace medicine and cardiovascular physiology, I am familiar enough with many of the basic chemical scientific frames of reference underlying toxicological matters to be able to fill in the missing pieces and make sense of complex concepts. Hence I am able to get along quite well enough, carrying my own during the informal gatherings while pleading that my special area of interest is in the above areas, rather than in pure biochemical and toxicological matters. Any way, the cheese buffet was excellent, and I saw to it that a goodly share of the sampling of Swiss regional wines which they were accompanied by came my way!

(Next: Part II of II)