Wonderful weekend in the Swiss Mountains

Last Friday I left Geneva with some lovely new friends that I met here, to spend a dream weekend in the town of Zermatt where the famous Matterhorn is located. I've been wanting to see Matterhorn even before coming to Switzerland, cos this was one mountain I had heard about as it was on the Toblerone chocolates (being the chocoholic I am!).


Felt like we were in the midst of the wilderness. Nothing but mountains, and trees and lakes for miles and miles…it was a wonderful feeling to be so close to nature... I guess one way of worshipping God is to appreciate all the wonders of the work of his hand!

These are some of the pictures of the magnificent Matterhorn and the other mountains around...but my words or the pictures cannot do justice to the experience of being there...

Another thing that I really liked about Zermatt was there were no cars. You had to leave your car outside and arrive to the town by train and inside there were only electrically powered buses called "Electros". It was nice to be away from the hustle and bustle of city life.

This weekend I literally stopped to smell the roses! (or should I say Edelweiss) which reminded me of the movie ‘Sound of Music’ which has been an all time favourite movie since the time I was a little kid. I never knew that the Edelweiss looked like this, though I liked the song Edelweiss from the movie.

There were even a few people in the Zermatt town square yodeling which again reminded me of the Loanly Goatherd from Sound of Music . It’s so amazing to experience things that you had heard about or seen on movies in real life…

Even though there are so many mountains and nature reserves in Sri Lanka, never in my life have I really gone to explore them, never tried hiking... I guess after my undergrad degree I joined the 'Rat Race' and everyday was pretty much the same, work till late, come home, TV/Internet, eat, sleep and work again… Even meeting with friends was mainly for a dinner or something, not really to do much outdoor activities. Maybe once or twice a year I would take a break and go on a vacation with my family, but not much else...

It is so nice to just take a break away from everything, but I wonder if it also requires a certain frame of mind; peace with self. Maybe we actually hide behind the busyness when we don’t want to face our selves…After a long time I can honestly say that I feel complete peace of mind, with no worries, just taking life as it comes... Maybe that was another reason why I was able to really enjoy this weekend. I have also noticed that I don't need to be doing something all the time, just a long walk can be satisfying. So now I'm trying to change my life style to be more intuned with the outdoors.

I'd just like to finish this post with "Merci beaucoup pour un merveilleux week-end!" to my new friends, if you are reading this...And here's looking forward to many more marvelous trips!

Improv at the CERN!

Who would have thought that I would take part in a comedy improv workshop at the CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research)!

On Saturday there was a comedy improv workshop at the CERN conducted by Charna Halpern who is the founder of Improv Olympic Theatres where Mike Myers has studied! I just heard about it from a friend and thought I'll check it out and see, since it was open to anyone.

Actually it was like killing 2 birds with one stone, cos ever since I had read Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, I've been fascinated by CERN, and wanted to visit it, and ofcourse I've been trying to get involved in theatre here as well…

Charna and her 2 assistants conducted a really great workshop. I learnt so much about improvisation. I hadn’t really done much improvisation before this, though I had done a few improv exercises at the theatre classes. One of the first things I realized was that improvisation can be more difficult than scripted plays as there is no predefined plan and you have to think on the spot and react to the other actors on stage. So it leaves you more vulnerable as it is your thoughts not some script that you are putting into action…Which can lead you to think Am I funny enough? Would they think I’m stupid?...

Today most people who meet me don’t believe that I might be worried about what others think or that I may feel inhibited, but the truth is that it has taken over 15 years to get out of that shyness and it still sometimes comes across in certain situations and I have to continually keep working at it to have confidence in myself. One of the reasons I really love theatre is cos this is what brought me out of my shell. More about that long story can be found here

That is another reason why I decided I should attend this workshop as it is the perfect setting to act and ‘let my self go’ even if I make a fool of my self all of us are here to learn, and not professionals. It was pretty cool cos most of the others there were physicist from CERN. And being with people from a different background was really fun cos we all bring a little bit of ourselves into improvisation.

I also realised that it really is a 'team sport' cos for improv to be successful there cannot be any shining stars! With each word or action the actor creates the scene maybe by giving another character a name, setting the location… and it is important that the other actors accept this initial offer and build on it. As they call it the ‘Yes And’ attitude.

Actually there’s a lot that you can take from this into life as well. Especially the ‘Yes And’ attitude where you try to build on what others have done, rather than breaking them down…