Zuropean Adventure

Hiking Above Regensdorf

2005-05-20T18:24:00.000+02:00

The weather in Zürich for the last few weeks has been consistently mercurial, with never more than a few hours of sunshine at a time. So, when a nice day was predicted on Friday, my friend Carine and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and go on a hike. Carine suggested a hill with a view spot overlooking a town just outside of Zurich called Regensdorf where she had hiked before. It was such a warm day that soon I was stripped down to my tank top and wishing that I had worn shorts, which is a rare thought in Zürich!!

We set out around 3:00 up the trail, with Elina (Carine's one-year-old daughter) and Baxter along for company. We came to many forks in the road, but basically, all trails led up to the ridge and the top. After about an hour of walking, we arrived at the top, where, very conveniently, there was a viewing platform and a sign that pointed out all the visible peaks. A fellow hiker took a picture of our whole little group:

Elina was in a great mood, as she always is, and indulged me by allowing us to take a few pictures before her snack time.

The day was so clear that the Alps looked like they were really close, just a few miles away, when in fact they are halfway across the country!

Next it was time for Baxter and Elina to entertain everyone on the viewing platform with their playtime.

Then, it was time to walk down. We made a wrong turn at some point, but quickly corrected, and just got to see more of the beautiful forest as a result!

The Last Week Has Been a Blur!

2005-05-19T13:22:00.000+02:00

We've been so busy lately!! After we got back from our road trip, we went to a cooking class on Wednesday night together. The topic was making pasta by hand. I've now been to quite a few classes taught by this couple who run a company called Laughing Lemon. I really like their classes because they are fun and laid back, and they serve wine the whole time! We learned to make three kinds of pasta dough, and shape it into fettucini, orrechiette, and ravioli. They were served with a lemon cream sauce (my favorite), a puttanesca, and a goat cheese herb filling in tomato broth respectively. Yum. We took home some dough from the class that was left over and made ravioli at home for dinner one night. We came up with our own filling using the ingredients we had in the house, green onions, eggs, herbs, gorgonzola, and parmasean. (Since we're trying to deplete our pantry in advance of our move, it's like Iron Chef every night around here!)

The weather this weekend was schlecht. Even if you don't speak German, I'm sure you can guess that that doesn't sound too good. On Saturday morning, we went to a big flea market downtown at Bürkliplatz. Brian even bought a little metal sign for a Swiss mountain railway.

Then, we window shopped a bit and had lunch. Next order of business was finding a box to use to ship a few things home. You'd think this would be relatively easy...but, you'd be wrong. We started a few weeks ago by looking for places where we could buy boxes. No luck. So then we went to some stores and asked. One of the big grocery stores, Migros, sent us to another of its locations. Once there, they told us they had no boxes. We started to walk out, dejectedly, when we spotted on near the entrance holding shopping bags. We casually restocked the shopping bags for them and took the box once it was empty. Hah! It turns out that most stores in Switzerland use plastic crates instead of cardboard boxes for shipping and receiving inventory because it's more enviromentally friendly. It's a good policy, but it's bad for us when we need a moving box!

On Sunday, we had arranged to go hiking with some friends of ours, Carine and Roman. We know that they are pretty hard core outdoorspeople, and like to do something called ski mountaineering, which is basically back country skiing where you do BOTH the ascent and descent on skis. Anyway, we thought that hiking with them these days would be okay because they were bringing their daughter, Elina, who just turned one-year-old this weekend. Howeer, when we showed up, we were informed that we were going to learn to rock climb! We figured that meant walking over boulders or something, but then when they got out the harnesses and rope and carabiners, we knew we were in for something a little more intense. Gear loaded, we drove and hour west and south to Solothurn, and the weather cleared as we drove. We hiked about three hundred meters off the road to a rock face, got some instruction from Roman, and it was time to climb!

Because I am smaller and lighter, it was a lot easier for me than for Brian, but he made it to the top nonetheless! It was really a lot of fun and always something I've wanted to try, so it was great to have the opportunity to do it with experts.

Once we were back on terra firma, we started on our hike, which was a steep ascent to a viewpoint that overlooked the Aare Valley. Carine explained to us that many of the trails in Switzerland are centuries old. They aren't officially maintained the way trails in the US are, so they either get used and stay in good shape, or they are reclaimed by nature.

After hiking, we decided to go and walk around the old town of Solothurn. The town still has much of its midieval wall around it, which gives it a nice character and effectively closes the center part of town to almost entirely pedestrian traffic.

To finish off a very satisfying day, we had dinner at a little Italian restaurant, run by a family from the Abruzzi region of Italy. The lasagne and canneloni were some of the best we've ever tasted!

On Monday, Brian had the day off for Whitmonday, or Pfingstmontag. This is somehow the flip side of Ascension Day. What does up, must come down. We decided to go to Lucern and take special boat trip on the lake where they serve lunch. On the way there, the train station was very crowded with soccer fans on their way to a soccer match of Zürich vs. somebody. Check out the time, and check out what they are drinking.

It wasn't the best possible weather for our excursion on the lake, but it was still pretty with the mountains covered in mist.

That night, we went on an ellicit mission I can't give the details to in case the Swiss authorities are monitoring our blog! We dressed Baxter in a raincoat as a diversionary tactic (and because it was raining). We arrived home safe, but wet, about two hours later, mission accomplished.

Last night, we went to dinner at Douwe and Tonja's house and had a great meal, followed by a German board game, at which we lost miserably. Then, at 12:45 am, we went to the main train station to see Star Wars. For a few weeks in May, they are playing movies in the station, on what is certainly the biggest screen in the city. It was a fun experience and the movie was the best of the newer Star Wars episodes by far, although a few poorly written lines did detract from the overall experience. The movie was long, and there was an intermission (as there always is in Swiss movies), so we didn't get home until 4:00 am!

Road Trip!! Lyon to Chîllon...BTW, that rhymes ;)

2005-05-16T12:13:00.000+02:00

Day 3: Lyon, France to Zurich, Switzerland (via Chîllon, Switzerland)
Driving Time: 3 hours, 58 minutes
Distance: 358 km

We were up and on the road relatively early on Sunday, ready to head northeast toward the Swiss border. We got on the autoroute and paid the last of the extortive French tolls (sometimes as much as 14 euro for one stretch of freeway!) before crossing into Switzerland. It was another lax border crossing. We could have imported wine, duty free, to our heart's content, and might have if we weren't going back to the US soon.

Just north of Geneva, we pulled over at a gas station to fuel up on another 60 euro tank of gas (that's $76 USD)...what a bargain! Soon after, we saw signs for Château de Chîllon, our destination for the day. We followed the signs incorrectly and went straight to the lake front instead of heading north along the lake road through Montreaux as we should have, and ended up in a little town called Vévey. We parked right by the lakefront-walk of the town, which was bustling given that it was a sunny (but crisp) day. We decided it was a good place to stop for lunch to enjoy the scenery so we found a little sandwich shop and ate on a park bench facing the lake.

Fully fortified, we got headed on the right road and drove the 15 minutes through Montreaux (home of the world-famous jazz festival) and to the castle.

Originally built in the 12th century, the castle at Chîllon is supposed to be one of the best presered in all of Europe. It's beautiful location jutting out over Lake Geneva also make it a real crowd pleaser. When you visit, the entry price includes a little self-guided tour booklet with very interesting information on the castle that made for exactly the right lenght tour for our attention spans.

First stop is the dungeon, where a famous Count was imprisioned for five years, chained to one of the stone pillars. Sucky as that must have been, at least he had a good view! The other notable feature of the dungeon is that Byron (poet, political crusader, etc.) scratched his name into one of the pillars.

Next we went upstairs to the main living areas of the castle, where the people who weren't imprisioned hung out. There were some nice window seats and balconies looking out over the lake and into the garden courtyard.

Even the room with the latrines had a nice view:

On the back of the castle are the defensive fortifications and towers facing the mountains, which you can climb across and up to for a better view of the whole building.

After we wrapped up our visit to the château, it was time to start heading north toward the dog who was in Burghalden for the weekend. Burghalden is at the southern tip of Lake Zürich, near the town of Rapperswil, about 35-40 minutes from Zürich city. We'd never actually driven to the dog sitter's house, only taken the train, so this was going to be an adenture. Looking at the map, there was no good way to get from where we were to where we wanted to go, so we kind of weaved our way across Switzerland. The scenery was super-Swiss indeed, we just needed some yodeling sheep-herders to come walking through.

We pretty much drove right to where Baxter was "vacationing" for the weekend and were quite impressed with ourselves. Then, back home to Pfirsichstrasse 17!

Road Trip!! Passing through Provence

2005-05-15T12:25:00.000+02:00

Day 3: Marseille, France to Lyon, France (via Arles & Avignon)
Driving Time: 3 hours, 58 minutes
Distance: 358 km

The next morning, we headed straight for the autoroute (freeway, after a brief stop for gas) headed northwest for Arles. Arles is famous for its past: former residents Van Gogh (in his craziest years) and Gaugin and former glory as an important Roman outpost in southern France. The whole town is actually a UNESCO World Heritage site because of all the roman ruins. Arles is apparently not famous for an abundance of parking opportunities, as we soon found shortly after arriving in town and began weaving our way through the narrow medieval streets. We finally found a prime spot near the river and walked along it to the ruins of roman baths.

When we got to the baths, the woman at the entrance booth was nice enough to tell us that the baths weren't one of her favorite sights in the town, and if we only had a little bit of time, we should see Les Arènes, Les Alyscamps, and the Crypt Museum. We walked to the crypt museum first because it was closing for lunch soon. On the way, we walked through the Place du Forum, the square that served as the location for Van Gogh's famous painting Cafe at Night, Arles.
We got a little lost and wandered through a street market and by the time we got to the museum, it was closed. Oh well. Next stop was Les Arènes, the roman amphitheater that is still in use for bull fights in the summer. You can climb the north tower and get a great view of the provencal countryside.

Last stop on the way out of town was Les Alyscamps, a roman cemetary with a bunch of cool sarcphagi. The site is pretty, a shady alley lined with tall trees and a double row of sarcophagi leading to a church and some ruins.

After that, it was time to leave Arles, which seemed to have a theme of craziness and death, and head for Avignon.

Avignon is in the north of Provence, and is one of the largest towns. It's a cool town in part because most of the midieval city wall is still intact, which gives you a sense of how important the city was, even back then. We decided on another picnic lunch, this time in a square in front of a church.

The key tourist site in Avignon is the Palais des Papes, or the Palace of the Popes. In the 1300s, the palace was built to relocate the papacy away from the chaos of Rome. Then in the 1400s, the papacy moved back to Rome, but several antipopes stayed and tried to assert their authority from Avignon, creating a papal schism. The palace was in sad shape when it finally came back into the hands of the church, but has since been restored numerous times.

We lucked out and they were doing a rose show of some kind in the main courtyard that day.

After that, it was a bit of a drive to Lyon, so we hit the road!

Road Trip!! Picnicking in Cannes, Getting Blown Away in Marseille

2005-05-15T10:34:00.000+02:00

Day 3: Nice, France to Marseille, France
Driving Time: 2 hours, 17 minutes
Distance: 197 km

The next morning, we could more fully appreciate the view out our hotel window of the gardens for the Nice Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MAMAC) below. We decided to visit MAMAC right after our first stop for the day, the flower market.

The flower market is located just a block off the beach promenade and sells mainly fresh fruit and vegetables, with only a small section of flowers. I've heard people say that the best produce in the world comes from California, however, I was pretty blown away by the quality of the fruits and veggies at this market. In particular, the tomatoes, artichokes (practically the size of bowling balls!), and strawberries were the most amazing. The latter we couldn't resist purchasing, and the taste lived up to what was promised by the appearance. The Nicoise at the market that day had a laugh at the crazy American girl taking pictures of their vegetables!

Next stop, MAMAC. The concept of the museum is that in both France and the US, modern artistic movements have evolved independently, but in tandem, along similar trajectories. So, the museum is set up with mirroring wings dedicated to French artists, and others with works by American artists. In the courtyard outside, they had a nice Calder sculpture.

A cool installation piece I liked...a dress made out of plastic drink bottles:

Another cool installation piece by the same artist, Enrica Borghi...a bedroom set made entirely from foil candy wrappers. I think I'd like being her assistant. I could eat all the candy!

In the sculpture garden outside:

Then, it was time to bid adieu to Nice and head down the road. We arrived in Cannes just before the crowds decscended. The beaches are obviously more shi shi than in Nice, and are private in many sections, where people rent out lounge chairs and order drinks all day from the little beach front cafes. There's just a small public section for the commoners like us.

We walked past some of the stages that were being set up for the Cannes Film Festival,which starts this weekend. Then, we went by the main convention building where the films are screened and the actual red carpet is rolled out.

We were pretty hungry by now. We struck out for various reasons on the first few restaurants we tried, so we opted for a picnic lunch in the park, courtesy of Monoprix, a French department store/supermarket chain. A little quiche Lorraine for Brian, some couscous for me, and vin to share!

Finally, with lunch concluded, it was time to head once again down the road to Marseille.

In the mid-90s, Marseille surpassed Lyon as the second biggest city in France by population after Paris. It's a very old city, a Roman port founded in the 6th century. When we got there and got out of the car, we noticed that it's also a very very windy city! Almost enough to knock you over! The locals, a good portion of whom are North African, seemed not to notice at all. We made our way across the city through some crowded squares and down to the port. We crossed the port and made our way uphill, winding through the streets. We made it to the Abbaye de Saint Victor just before they shut the doors. It was built in the 5th century to honor St. Victor, a 3rd century martyr, so it's OLD.

We ascended further out of the city, finally reaching Basilique Notre Dame de la Garde, the highest point in the city. We weren't quite so lucky here and reached the gate just in time to find it locked. Lucky for us, the view from the top, and not the basilica itself, is the main attraction. We could see out over the whole city, the ocean, the port, and the coast in either direction. The wind was more forceful than ever. It threatened to blow us back to Zurich! Brian had to pee really bad, and even though there wasn't anyone around and many of inviting bushes surrounded us, the wind was so strong that it was just too risky!

That night, all the wind caused a power outage in a large part of the city that included our hotel. We went out looking for dinner, but all the restaurants were closed, and our prospects were looking grim. Marseille is the home of bouillabaisse, a tomato based fish stew, possibly Brian's favorite meal. Brian was beginning to get distraught. Finally, around 10:30, the power came back on and we went to the restaurant recommended in our guide book for bouillabaisse. Alas, they required a minimum of two people for the dish. At 35 euros a person, we weren't going to order it for two just for Brian. So, he begrudgingly ordered the prix fixe menu that included fish soup for a starter...not the same, but somewhat similar. The food was fantastic, but we didn't finish eating until after midnight. -Yawn-

Road Trip!! Living the Good Life in Monaco & Nice

2005-05-12T16:27:00.000+02:00

Day 2: Genova, Italy to Nice, France
Driving Time: 2 hours, 2 minutes
Distance: 193 km

We headed out of Genova right after breakfast the next morning. It's not a bad town, it's just that there's so much good stuff on either side of it that is so much more appealing. If you head east along the coast from Genova, you hit the famous stretch of coastline known as the Cinque Terre, where five scenic Italian villages nestle into a rocky coastline (that's another trip). Instead, we headed west, towards the even more famous French Riviera. For lack of time, we blew by San Remo at about 110 km/h, and made our first stop at a lookout point over the tiny country of Monaco.

We then drove into the main town, Monte Carlo, and found a parking spot. We walked down to the water front and across to the royal residence or Place du Palais, stopping along the way to check out the set up for the Monaco Grand Prix, which is taking place in two weeks, in late May.

Once we climbed the stone steps to the Palace, we joined the crowds waiting for the changing of the guard ceremony at 11:55 and looked up to see a darkening sky. A few moments later, we heard several claps of thunder...

However, no storm came. Apparently, rain, like taxes, has been abolished in the Principality of Monaco. How convenient. The changing of the guard ceremony was full of pomp, complete with drums and fancy uniforms, which reminded me that the Monegasques are in fact basically French.

We opted not to go into the Palace, so we missed out on the royal portrait of Pricess Grace. We did walk around "the rock", for awhile, the stone promontory atop which the royal buildings are sited. In addition to the residence itself, there are gardens, a church, an aquarium, and some upscale gift shops.

Finally a little light mist--not real rain--did come, and anyway, it was time for lunch. We bypassed the overcrowded touristy cafes in front of the casino and found a cute Italian bistro with covered seating in an open air shopping mall. After lunch, the precipitation was gone, and the casino was open...it opens at 2:00 on weekdays. There is a ten euro entrance fee to get into the main floor, which I suspect they assume will deter people who aren't real gamblers. They're right...at least, it worked on us! Probably the people who own these cars paid the 10 euros without blinking.

Last stop on our way out of town was the Jardin Exotique, an enormous collection of succulents established in 1895 by a former prince of Monaco using specimens he collected on his travels. I'm a big fan of succulents, so I was a big fan of this garden. Plus, it had a great view of the harbor, where all the poor people moor their tiny yachts.

Once in Nice, a short 15 clicks away, we went straight to the harbor and parked. Above the harbor is a bluff where you can look out over the ocean. Atop the bluff is a park, with the ruins of an old fortress and a cemetary, among other things.

After we'd fully explored the park, we found our hotel after much circling. We decided to walk through the old town on the way to the beach and pick up some happy hour libations. The temperature was perfect for a stroll, so we walked a bit and skipped some rocks, then sat down to drink some sangria and people watch.

We had dinner at a fantastic restaurant just off the water...one of the best we've been to while in Europe. Brian had fried zucchini blossoms and salmon, and I had spinach gnocchi. We shared a nougat ice cream sundae. Yummy!

Road Trip!! Through the Swiss Alps and Lombardy to Genova

2005-05-09T20:24:00.000+02:00

Day 1: Zurich Airport, Kloten, Switzerland to Genova, Italy
Driving Time: 4 hours, 36 minutes
Distance: 439 km

When we found out that Brian got a day and a half off for Ascension Day (what the hell is that anyway?) we decided to take a road trip. So, on Wednesday afternoon, we picked up a Nissan Almera Tino, the only automatic car that Budget has at its Zurich airport location. Lucky for us, it's about twice as expensive to rent a car in Switzerland than in any of the surrounding countries ;).

Using Via Michelin, a great travel planning website, we plotted our route in advance. We set off into the afternoon of a sunny Zurich day and in no time, we were in the Swiss country side. The lake below is the Waldstättersee, and the waters looked amazingly green-blue after we emerged from the black of one of the many tunnels on our voyage.

As we continued to drive south, we were quickly approaching a forboding wall of mountains that looked virtually impenetrable. Even "cool as a cuke" Brian looked a little concerned.

Fortunately for us, the Swiss outdo even gophers in their zeal for tunneling and digging, and we soon reached the impressive St. Gottard Tunnel. Completed in 1980, the St. Gottard tunnel is the longest underground tunnel in the world. It also includes a host of safety features to ensure the safety of motorists, including an evacuation tunnel running alongside the complete length of the traffic lanes, which is connected to a series of pressurised, smoke-proof emergency chambers, which can each accommodate 70 people. The Swiss are pretty intense. When we had been in the tunnel for about 30 seconds, our radio stopped playing and cut into a soothing woman's voice, welcoming us to the St. Gottard tunnel in four languages. We were in the tunnel for quite awhile. Oddly, given how much it must have cost to construct, there is no fee or toll for using the tunnel.

We had a bit more Swiss alpine scenery on the other side of the tunnel, including lots of beautiful mountain waterfalls, fed by the spring snowmelt.

Soon after the tunnel, we crossed into the Italian side. The international border crossing consisted of a bored looking Italian guy waving us through without even glancing at us, our license plate, or the contents of our car. There is higher security on the border between Oregon and California!

The rest of the drive between the Italian border and the coastal town of Genova was smooth and uneventful. We arrived in Genova around 8:00pm.

Amsterdam Day 3: Rainy Haarlem

2005-05-02T14:27:00.000+02:00

We had a really fantastic plan for Monday. We were going to take the train to Haarlem (yes, the neighborhood in NYC was named after this Dutch town), rent bikes, and then bike to Hillegom, through the tulip fields, to the largest garden in the world, Keukenhof. We set out early and bought breakfast in the train station to eat on the train. About five minutes before our train pulled into Haarlem, we hit a solid curtain of rain and watched our well thought out plans literally be washed away. After securing two umbrellas from a barbershop in the Haarlem train station for the bargain price of 5.40 euros apiece, we ventured out into some serious precipitation. Apparently, we weren't the only ones who decided to forgo biking that day:

In addition to being Douwe's home town, Haarlem is famous for it's courtyard gardens, most of which are open to the public. We went and checked out a couple, before we realized that hypothermia was setting in.

When Sonia and I were intermittently laughing and on the verge of tears, Brian decided it was time to navigate to somewhere dry, so we headed for the town's church. It was really just *huge*! It also had a bathroom inside and a Foucault Pendulum, which deserves extra points from my perspective.

We were a little wet from our walk:

Outside the church was an open air flea market, which we ventured into once the rain let up. We then found a nearby department store and purchased lunch and some dry clothes. That mission accomplished, it was time to head back to Amsterdam to see the Ann Frank House.

The Ann Frank Museum pretty much always has a line out front from what we've heard from our local friends. We decided to just brave the line and wait, and it only took about 20-25 minutes. Once inside, you are lead through a series of rooms that once made up the store front of Otto Frank, Ann's father. Then, up a narrow staircase into a sort of landing. Off to the side is the hinged bookcase that hid the secret entrance to the apartments that the Frank family used as a hideout during WWII.

Also in the museum are the actual diary found by employees of Otto Frank and given to him after he returned from the extermination camp following the end of the war.

After the museum, it was getting close to time to catch our night train, so we sat at a cafe for one last drink by the canal, then took a four person self portrait by Dam square, one of the central meeting places in Amsterdam.

Amsterdam Day 2: Walking in Circles

2005-05-02T10:06:00.000+02:00

We were all up and ready to go the next morning, miraculously none of us suffering any ill effects from the previous night. We walked down to the end of our street to hop on the ferry across the harbor. The ferry takes all kinds: pedestrians, scooters, motocycles, bikes, and even little Smart cars.

Amsterdam used to be a much bigger harbor, but then the Dutch built the Ij canal and and erected the main train station where the shipping docks used to be, so most of the freight now goes in and out of Rotterdam.

We made our way to the Van Gogh museum to meet our Dutch friends. This was no small task! When Brian talked to them, he thought they said something like Songhoff Museum for a meeting point. I searched the map and couldn't find anything like it, then asked a couple of people who gave me blank stares. Finally, we decided to go to the Van Gogh museum because I thought that's where Tonja and I had decided on earlier. While waiting in line, we heard someone say something that sounded like Fon-Koff. Then in finally dawned on us. This is how Van Gogh is pronounced in Dutch. The museum was really excellent. As someone who loves Van Gogh's art, I would obviously have this reaction, but I think even those who hadn't been exposed to it or weren't big fans yet would love it too. The first two floors are Van Gogh and temporary exhibitions. The top two floors are works by artists who influenced Van Gogh, such as Gaugin.

Next we walked along some canals. In walking along canals, which you can't avoid in Amsterdam, you are pretty much guaranteed that you will walk in a circle or in some direction you don't exactly want to go.

Next stop was the Heineken Beer Brewery, which is an enormous brick building on the opposite side of town from the train station. My aunt, uncle, and cousin went recent ly and recommended it. Also, we probably would have gone anyway given that we're suckers for brewery tours. They tell you that the tour takes about an hour and a half, but I think you need even longer! It's all self-guided, but there's a lot to see and a lot that's interactive.

Heineken one-upped the Carlsberg people in Copenhagen because they give three glasses of beer, not two (although you have to pay for the tour, unlike at Carlsberg) and there are two bars along the tour, not one.

Does this spot look familiar?

After a tasty Thai dinner in the red light district, we rushed off and jumped aboard a night canal cruise, with just enough time to grab a six pack of Heineken!

Amsterdam Day 1: Koninginnedag

2005-05-02T08:29:00.000+02:00

Our friends Louie and Sonia, who live in NJ came to visit in Zurich for a few days, then Brian and I and the two of them headed to Amsterdam. We arrived on the night train from Zurich to Utrecht, a city about a half hour by train outside of Amsterdam the morning of Koninginnedag, or Queen's Day. Because Amsterdam is such complete chaos on Queen's Day, the main train station in Amsterdam only has local trains running, no international trains, so we had to switch to a super overcrowded train in Utrecht, overflowing with orange-clad partyers. Why orange? Well, the simple answer is because the Dutch royal family is called the House of Orange. But, then why is that? Well, it's because they had feudal ties to a midieval provence in the south of France called Orange (there's still a town by that name near Arles) where there were once vast Orange groves, but no longer. Anyway, the current Queen is Queen Beatrix, whose birthday is actually in January. In her infinite wisdom, she realized that January is a crappy month for Queen's Day, and left it on April 30, her mom's birthday, in her honor. Very wise, I'd say.

We decided to drop our stuff off at the hotel before heading out into the fray. To get there, we took a little ferry, which conveniently was free and ran every five minutes, practically around the clock. A very cute row of Dutch bars and restaurants on the way to our hotel:

Then it was time to join the crowd...

Because the Dutch were early traders in the far east and islands (e.g. The Dutch East Indies Company) they have awesome international food. For lunch, we met up with our friends Douwe (who is Dutch) and Tonja (his wife, who lived in Amsterdam for about 8 years). They took us to a very tasty Ethiopean restaurant. Certainly not something we could get in Zurich!

Then we wandered the city a bit. There is a lot of crazy stuff going on, including party boats in the canals, beer sellers on every corner, and live music everywhere. One of the key features of Queen's Day is that anyone can sell anything in the street on that day only without any special permission. In the main park, the Vondelpark, children sell their old toys, clothes, cookies, and whatever else strikes them.

Next, we found a great cafe with a terrasse looking out over a canal and settled in for a few drinks.

Here's some time lapse photography in case you are interested...

Paris: Ce qui vaut la peine d'être fait vaut la peine d'être bien fait.

2005-05-01T10:35:00.000+02:00

My mom and two of her friends, Lois and Jeanette, came to visit in Zurich for a few days before the four of us headed off to spend the rest of the week in Paris. Although I hadn't been to Paris for five years or so, this being my fifth time qualified me as the de facto tour guide. Lois and Jeanette had never been, and the last time my mom went was over fifteen years ago, and she was pretty busy with the three of us, leaving the navigating mostly to my dad.

We took the early TGV (train a grand vitesse, or, roughly translated, very fast train) from Zurich to Paris' Gare Lyon. I didn't bring my camera for most of the first or second day, when we went to Notre Dame, the Pont Neuf, and Les Halles, Sacre Coeur, the Louvre, and the Musee d'Orsay. That night, we went to the metro stop aross from the Eiffel Tower to see it alit for night. Every hour on the hour from 9:00 until 2:00 am for ten minutes it sparkles, which we caught the tail end of.

The next morning, we set out to see the catacombs, the one sight I had on my personal agenda that I really wanted to see, having not covered it in any previous trips to Paris. When we got to the entrance, it was closed, with a sign saying it was being renovated to provide better visitor access and wouldn't be reopened until June! I stood there for a second, literally pouting and stamping my feet. Then, a guy came up and explained in French that he worked there and that he was sorry. He said we could tour the sewers at another place in the city and gave me a brochure. Not what I was looking for, but it made me feel better to have someone sympathize!

We decided to go and see the famous Montparnasse Cemetery nearby since we were there already. It's not as famous as the Pere La Chaise Cemetary where Jim Morrison is buried, but I've already seen that one, and there are always so many hippies wandering around that it detracts from the experience. By contrast, Montparnasse was a vision of tranquility, and it was a nice break from the chaos of the city.

Next, it was on to the Place des Invalides, which is kind of an odd complex of buildings. Literally translated, it means the "place of the invalids", and indeed, there is still a sort of convalescent home there, possibly once reserved for veterans? Also in the complex is a museum of French military history. (Try typing the following into Google: "French military victories" and then hit the 'I'm feeling lucky' button.) On the top floor of the building is a museum with scale models of French cities and fortresses. At the far end of the courtyard is a church. What most tourists come to see, though, is Napolean's tomb, in a building at the back of the complex topped with a golden cupola. The whole complex is surrounded by beautiful gardens.

Inside the courtyard, there were a bunch of soldiers do some sort of military exercise. I also saw some American women doing a military exercise with a canon too!

This shot is from the sunken area where Napolean's porphyri (an expensive, rare sort of dark red colored granite) sarcophagus lies upwards towards the decorated interior of the cupola.

The next stop was the Rodin museum, which I rank as my #2 favorite museum in Paris, right behind the Musee d'Orsay. The museum itself is what was once the sculptor's studio, which I think should get bonus points, the grounds are beautiful, and the exhibits are very well laid out, scattered throughout the house and garden. We rented audioguides for our visit, which were well done. I think one of the most appealing sculptures in the museum is "The Kiss", although apparently Rodin never thought this piece represented his best work because he thought it was too traditional or formulaic in its layout.

This is the garden behind the museum, where we strolled for a bit to catch a few intermittent rays of sun, and then had our coffee break afterward.

After that, it was onward to the Centre George Pompidou, another of my favorite places in Paris. This building is famous from an architectural perspective for being the first to bring the pipe work and other inner structure of the building to the exterior, leaving the interior a large, uninterrupted open space. (Side note: The Clark Center at Stanford is just one of the latest examples of another building to make use of the design priciples pioneered by the Centre Pompidou.) The most striking feature of the building is the escalators, which like everything else, have been moved to the exterior of the building, and transport people up to the six floors of the building through large tubes.

On the second floor is a great shop for modern design doodads and on the fifth and sixth floors is one of the best museums in the world for modern and contemporary art.
Back on the metro to head back to our hotel for happy hour, then dinner..

We checked the weather report on Friday and it was good news...il va faire du soleil!...finally the day for Versailles. On the walk to the chateau from the train station we bought provisions at the open air market pour faire du picnic.

Then, on to the chateau. Signs claimed that they have just claimed to have completed a renovation to make Versailles more user-friendly, however, it took us forever to find the ticket office and buy a ticket and then the Hall of Mirrors was half closed, so I wasn't too impressed. Seemed kind of like typical French bureaucracy.
A statue of Louis the XIV, the Sun King, who built Versailles.

The royal chapel at Versailles.

The Hall of Mirrors, which would have been even more impressive in the 17th century when mirrors were hard to come by and expensive.

The queen's bedroom--at one time belonging to Marie Antoinette.

The garden:

Next stop was the Grand Trianon, the hunting lodge that was originally the only building on the property before Louis the XVI decided to build Versailles. In my opinion, it's actually a lot more tasteful than Versailles.

Since we had such a nice day, we finished our scrumptious picnic lunch and headed back to Paris to go up the Eiffel Tower while it was still clear and sunny. After we fought the lines, we finally managed it.

From the second level:

From the top:

From the bottom, where the gardens were all in bloom and beautiful:

The next day, we dedicated to shopping. In that spirit, and at the request of my francophile and all-around fashionable friend Kate, I'll give a run down of the Paris fashion report. First, lots of orange. (Doesn't look good on me, but maybe it looks good on you?) Also, the gypsy look is way back in (or maybe it never went out, but I just never really was into it). Not too practical for most people, but there were some plain kind of ruched three-quarter length skirts that were showing up everywhere in white and black and sage green. Also, ballet shoes all over the place of all kinds. Not just flats either. Some had ballet toes and then a heel. Also, a lot of women wearing gauzy scarves, even younger women and teenagers, not like you'd see in the US. I also noticed a lot of Guru t-shirts.

Then, time for me to take my first solo night train, which I did with no problems.

Nationalmuseet, Carlsberg, Little Mermaid

2005-04-11T19:33:00.000+02:00

We started Sunday with a walk along the canal to the Nationalmuseet. It was supposed to be crappy weather, so we'd planned an indoor day.

The Nationalmuseet is divided into two halves. One half has artifacts and displays on cultures from all around the world. It's pretty comprehensive and covers all continents and major groups of peoples. The only truly interesting thing on this side of the museum though, are the few small rooms dedicated to Greenlandic native peoples. Denmark "owns" Greenland, and so is probably one of the only places to see a collection of this type. Throughout the museum, there are explanations of everything in English.

On the other side of the museum, the displays are dedicated to documenting the history of the people of Jutland (modern day Denmark) from the time of Neanderthals. The exhibits are very well done and attractively displayed. One of the coolest rooms has about 10 rune stones, which were erected as tributes to the dead. They weren't grave stones and weren't erected anywhere near where the deceased was buried, but instead on a promontory or at an intersection of major roads, where they were more likely to be seen.

Next stop was the Carlsberg beer factory tour. Unfortunately, a major part of the building is under construction, but that didn't deter us. Despite the construction, you could still visit the Jutland horse stables and get two free glasses (each!!) of the beer of your choice from the bar. Not too shabby.

Next we tried to get lunch unsuccessfully for about an hour and finally decided to just get a snack and try again later. We decided to walk along the harbor. First, we passed the Marmokirken, or marble church. We didn't go inside because it's supposed to be much better from the outside and we weren't feeling churchy.

Immediately behind the church is the Amelienbourg Slot, or Royal Palace. Denmark still has a monarchy, including a Queen, prince, and princess. The palace is actually a grouping of four palaces, for all the different parts of the family. None of the flags were flying when we were there, I think because they were all probably at the pope's funeral.

Further along the waterfront, we spotted the new Danish opera building and an adorable little church.

And, finally, the main event, the Little Mermaid...

After that, it was time to head home to Zurich.

A Nordic Weekend in København

2005-04-11T16:47:00.000+02:00

We decided to fly to Copenhagen for the weekend based on a couple of important factors: a) Brian had never been there b) I went there once before and really liked it c) the plane tickets were relatively reasonable d) this would likely be our only chance to go to Scandinavia on this trip e) a nice South African woman from my German class volunteered to take Baxter for the weekend for company while her husband was out of town, so we definitely wanted to go somewhere!

After a quick flight (under two hours), we arrived in Copenhagen and took the train to the main train station. From there, we walked to a nearby recommended Indian Restaurant. The food was good, although the vegetarian options were a little slim. Denmark is apparently the buffett capital of the world, with every other restaurant advertising "All You Can Eat!!"

That night in our hotel room, Brian flipped on the TV and we were shocked that almost every channel was in English. We watched a few minutes of mindless, horrible American TV before bed.

The next morning, we hit the Strøget, the main pedestrian street before it got too saturated with the flow of Saturday shoppers.

One of the things I love about Scandinavia is the simple, elegant sense of aesthetics and design. Walking past a sidewalk cafe, I noticed these blue bottles (empty wine bottles I think), each with a single white tulip. It was so simple, but it looked fantastic.

The end of the Strøget opens onto Rådhuspladsen, or city hall square. A large billboard (behind Brian in the photo below) humbly proclaims that Carlsberg is "Probably the Best Beer in Town." I distinctly remember this exact sign from my last visit to Copenhagen because my dad thought it was very amusing.

The first stop of the day was the Glyptotek, an art museum funded mostly through donations of the Carlsberg (beer) family and dedicated largely to sculpture. I really liked this museum. I think it is a cut above your average art museum for several important reasons:

It has a large conservatory in the middle with fountains and huge tropical plants that have obviously been flourishing there for the over a century since the museum was built.
It has a new wing that is incredibly modern and the building itself is like artwork.

There are several Van Goghs, including a particular nice one called Mountainous Landscape Behind Saint-Paul Hospital.
There is a good mix of modern art and old stuff, including mummies.

The collection isn't so huge that the good stuff gets diluted.
They let you go on the roof, which has a nice view.

Stop two for the day was the Rådhus, or City Hall. We first spent about twenty minutes arguing over how this special astronomic clock worked, then climbed up to the tower when we had given up on our attempts to grasp the workings of the gears and pendulum. It was very windy at the top. Actually the whole city is pretty windy...you can see wind-power-generator thingies at the edges of the city in all directions.

The building itself was pretty cool too, with painting on all the walls, a large inner courtyard, and weirdo Danish gargoyles all over the place.

Also in the square was one of the more famous statues of Hans Christian Andersen, the fairtale auteur. There are statues of him all over the city, as he is a virtual demigod in Denmark.

Third stop for the morning was the Dansk Design Center. It was a small, but nifty museum. Their main exhibit was about designs for chairs. In one room you could sit in the chairs, which was fun. Our favorites were a chair made out of a plastic bubble, colored foam rubber, and stuffed alligators.

For lunch, which we were quite hungry for after all the museums, we headed back down the Strøget and then down a side street to Riz Raz, a widely regarded as the best of the city's multitudinous all-you-can-eat restaurants. The food is Mediterranean, here interpreted as everything from Spanish to Greek to Lebanese to Italian and all vegetarian. The quality of the food is amazing. The Middle Eastern specialties, including the tzaziki, hummus, falafel, and tabbouli could have been the best I've ever tasted, which is saying a lot since these are some of my favorite foods. We were in heaven!! This was the best meal we've had in awhile. The quality of the food was on par with that of a well known veggie restaurant in Zurich called Hiltl, which charges $4.00 per 100g for its salad bar....Riz Raz on the other hand, was onlt 59 DKK for the buffet, which is only $10 US! What a deal!

After lunch, we did some window shopping. Well, actually we went into the shops. And, to be totally truthful, I guess I should admit that we bought a few things, so I guess it wasn't really window shopping at all! The best of the shops by far was Illums Bolighus, a store dedicated to Danish, and more generally Scandinavian design. Brian just kept shaking his head saying, "I can't believe they have so much totally cooler stuff over here than we do." The fun was over at 5:00 when the shops closed.

With the shops closed, we decided to go see an IMAX movie on the Vikings at the Tycho Brahe planetarium. After trekking all the way across town, we learned that the Viking movie wasn't playing next for another two and half hours in the middle of dinnertime and that you needed to bring your own earphones to listen to the show. How stupid. Furthermore, the exhibits in the museum part of the planetarium were in Danish only. So, we mentally shook our fists at them and left. We tried to ride the bus back to the main part of town, but despite our general competence at figuring out public transportation, the Danish system baffled us for a number of reasons not interesting enough to recount. So we walked.

We walked all the way to the Museum of Erotica. The museum was somewhat predictable, with historical and cultural displays amd artwork describing sexual practices and attitudes through the ages in different areas of the world. The museum was quite large, with rooms dedicated to specific subjects, like Playboy, prostitution, Marilyn Monroe, S&M, with only the loosest semblance of organization. The most interesting room, I thought, had displays on the sexual histories and habits of famous people, including politicians, movie stars, and writers. There was one room with a warning sign outside saying that no one under 18 could go in and that people might be disturbed by what they say inside. I took that as my cue to skip the room and Brian checked it out for both of us.

For dinner, we went to Los Archos, a Mexican restaurant near the royal botanical gardens. It wasn't exactly authentic, but the chips seemed homemade, and apparently the ablondigas were quite good. Afterward, we took the metro to Christianshaven, a popular hang out for teenagers and counter-culture types. On Pusher Street, it's possible to buy, sell, and use drugs without fear of police intervention because of a tacit agreement that the area is a "free zone". It was sort of weird being there at night, like we were the only ones who didn't know where the big part was or something. We ventured into one place that looked like a bar and saw a menu that said "Heroin, Ecstasy, Cocaine..." and turned around and walked out. We walked into another where we heard drumming and realized that everyone that came in was given some kind of percussion instrument and expected to join in. We decided to just call it a night!

Weekend around Zurich

2005-04-03T18:26:00.000+02:00

We didn't have any big plans for the weekend but we managed to stay busy anyhow.

Friday night, Heather's friend from German class, Alicia had a party. Even though we were some of the only non-Swiss people there, everyone was very friendly and didn't seem to mind switching to English when we started talking to them. Afterwards, the plan was for all of us to head over to one of Zurich's trendiest clubs. We stopped home to walk Bax before leaving but before I had the leash on him... well, a picture is worth a thousand words:

On Saturday, we thwarted the protective tariffs on food by shopping in Germany. Then, we rented bikes from the train station (free for your first 6 hours) and biked down the lake to Rapperswil (20-25 miles).

The bikes they give you aren't going to get you mistaken for Lance Armstrong, but you can't beat the price. The "Extrafahrt" text on the side is particularly nice.

The weather has been great and it was clear enough to see the Alps once you get about halfway down the lake (they're kind of hard to see in this small picture, you can see them in the bigger version if you click on it).

We had dinner at Dici in the waterfront plaza in Rapperswil. It was only a little overpriced, so by Swiss standards, I guess it was a good deal.

We ended up loading the bikes onto the train and riding back that way. As it turns out, we were supposed to buy train tickets for our bikes too but the conductor was in a good mood (Heather claims because she spoke German and French to him instead of English) so he let us go.

Today, we decided to go to Arth-Goldau to check out the animal park (Tierpark Goldau) we've been seeing advertised at the train station. We didn't really know what to expect but nothing could have prepared us for this place. While they don't have a huge selection of animals, they do let you get right up close, and even feed, most of the animals. Basically, it's like a big petting zoo with big animals.

One of the highlights was feeding/grabbing the horn of the bighorn sheep they had there (behind the kid in red).

They also had a very charming red fox (Rotfuchs), but they didn't let you feed or pet him.

The Bear from Syria really stole the show though. He sat across the moat from the railing where the people were standing waiting for people to throw carrots to him. It was a little sad to see him begging but it was pretty cool to have him catch your carrot in mid-air. It was particularly amusing to watch the Swiss people attempt to throw carrots to him. I'm sure the bear was wishing they'd relocate him to a zoo in the US where kids grow up playing baseball and learning to throw with some vague notion of accuracy. I guess he prefers badly-thrown carrots in Switzerland to dodging bombs in Syria though. Meanwhile, his roomate was lying upside down in the sun, occasionally rolling around to get a better angle on the sun.

You can bet I was careful to wash my hands before lunch, expecially with the petting zoo e.coli meme in the news today.

Famous Not Only For the Short Pants...

2005-03-31T23:56:00.000+02:00

After all this time on the coast, it was time to finally get on a boat. We drove to Sorrento to the Marina Piccola (little marina) to board the boat to Capri. The marina is kind of behind us in the picture below.

The boat from Sorrento to Capri only takes about a half hour. However, the whole operation is quite a bit longer than that when you consider the boarding time with all the Italians, who flat out refuse to form a line! Once on the island, we decided to get right back on another boat in order to circumnavigate it to see the key sights. For a ride around the island that lasted about an hour and a half, the cost was pretty reasonable, under 10 euro a person. The biggest disappointment was the Blue Lagoon. The boat we were at stopped at the entrance and then you have to get off and onto these little gondola type thingies to get into the lagoon. To do this, you have to pay another 13 euros per person!! And you're only in there for five minuted max. It's the biggest racket ever...they probably made a thousand euros while we were waiting there. Needless to say, we didn't go in!

However, here are some other great pictures from the boat ride, which was only improved by the fantastic weather we had that day.

Coral on the rocks along a sea cave:

After the boat ride, we headed up to the town, some of us via the funicular and some of us via a steep staircase through a stone alley. At the top, the view of the ocean and island below was amazing.

While the rest of the group opted for a leisurely Italian lunch in the town, Sean and Brian and I decided we'd prefer a hike to the highest point on the island (where ther are some Roman ruins) and a picnic lunch. So, we set off with some sandwiches from a local shop, fruit, cookies, and a crappy map of the roads and trails of the island. The walk up was gorgeous, with lots of gates with hidden courtyards inside and vistas around every corner. Immediately outside of the town, the touristy facade fell away and you felt like you were in old world Italy. Sean practiced his Italian on passersby.

That night was our last night as a whole group in the villa, so it was party time! We went through quite a few bottles of chianti, limoncello, and vino di tavola, not to mention the Patron tequila imported to Italy from Mexico via Maui by my aunt and uncle!

They Fell Into A Burning Ring of Fire

2005-03-31T23:55:00.000+02:00

On Thursday, we headed off as a three-car caravan for Pompeii, the ill-fated city in the shadow of Mt. Vesuvius. We parked in the lot there for free because of a deal offered by Europcar, the agency where we rented three of our four cars. The minute you approach the ticket booths, guides immediately start accosting you, offering their supposedly indispensible services. However, when you purchase tickets for entry into the city, you are given a booklet with information on Pompeii that is numbered to correspond with numbered plaques at all the major sights and buildings in city, and this contains way more than you could possibly absorb already. So, we decided that Sean could do little readings for us out of the book and be our tour guide.

We went a little slow at first, then it became obvoius that these ruins were BFR, so we set a meeting time for our group of dieci-otto (18 people) and split up to cover the sites more efficiently.

This is the main civic building of Pompeii and also the largest structure, where the elected officials administered the laws of the city:

Same building, but this time, this shot has all the cousins together. This trip is the first time in awhile all the cousins have been together!

A lot of the artwork that survived the eruption, including mosaics, was removed from Pompeii to a museum in Naples, but this mosaic remains. I think it's Roman for "Beware of Dog."

Pompeii was just a whole lot bigger than I thought it would be, and it's pretty neat, because they let you walk into almost all of the buildings and go almost everywhere in the city, so it's about as close to being in ancient Rome as you are going to get in 2005. Hidden in some of the nooks and crannies are glass cases with casts of bodies of Pompeiians caught in their last moments before death by ash asphyxiation.

Some more shots of Pompeii:

After we had walked in Pompeii enough that we were walking in circles, we had lunch (pizza, of course!) and then walked back towards the cars. Right by the parking lot was the train station for commuter trains, so we decided to take the train to Herculaneum (Ercolano in Italian), another town that got totalled by Vesuvius.

Although Herculaneum is less well known, we actually thought on the whole it was cooler than Pompeii. It was less crowded, better preserved, and had more interesting buildings. It's also a little smaller and more manageable (partly because they've only excavated 25% of it!), so you can linger a little longer and really take the time to see most everything in a few hours.

There was this weird cave thingy at Herculaneum that had a snake statue in it. I'm not really sure of the significance because I was getting rushed through so fast! All in all, I could have stayed there longer, maybe 2-3 hours happily, to see it all...

That night, we celebrated the March birthday girls: me, my mom, Suzy, Aunt Monica, and Sarah (Bret's girlfriend), by letting two nice Italian women cook for us at the villa!

Amalfi Coast Idyll

2005-03-31T23:53:00.000+02:00

The next morning we were fresh and read to go for a day of coast town exploration with our full complement of 18 people. We set out for Sorrento, in a caravan, and our first test upon arriving was to find parking. No such luck...so we found ourselves in the adjacent town, Sant'Agnello. We parked near a lookout point that overlooked a marina and some dwellings set into the sea cliff.

We walked through an open air flea market and then continued along the main drag until we got to Sorrento proper, which was a very cute little town with lots of pedestrian shopping streets.

We found a little liquor shop where this Italian guy would pour us shots of anything we wanted to try, including various types of Limoncello, a lemon-based liqueur, for which the region is famous. After we were pleasantly buzzed and had our alcohol purchases, we headed for a lunch spot. After lunch, on the walk back to the car, my Uncle Jeff stopped at a little bakery and bought an assortment of these adorable little mini ice cream cones for dessert. Not only were they tasty, but they were cute!

We decided we still had another town in us, and decided to drive to Positano. We parked on a hill above town to avoid the congestion below. The only problem was, not everyone wanted to walk down, and more importantly, all the way back up. So, we split up. One way or another, we all saw Positano, which is fairly touristy. But, you can definitely see why...the whole town looks like a postcard!

That evening, we made dinner at the villa. We cooked up quite a feast including enormous casks of vino, courtesy of a stop that Dad and Aunt Monica made at Carrefour (European Costco) when they made the run to the airport the night before.

Crapolla!!

2005-03-31T23:52:00.000+02:00

The next day, the group had a bit of a late start. We decided to explore the villa grounds a bit by the light of day since we'd arrived the night before well after dark. It's clear that the villa owners have invested a lot of time and energy into landscaping and terracing the hillside that the villa is on. It would obviously be an awesome place in summer, with the patios, and pool and many chairs for soaking up the sun. The property also comes complete with lemon trees, which the region is famed for, and to perfectly finish the image of the quintessential Italian villa, several olive trees. The view of the Mediterranean Sea below isn't too bad either!

There were a number of people who had been up late the night before partying too hard, so a smaller group of us decided to go on a hike and let them sleep in. We checked out the map of the peninsula and picked a hike that sounded like a sure winner: Crapolla. We decided to start by hiking the short distance between our villa and the town where the hike began, Torca, a little one street town. The trail down to Torca looked clear enough on the map, but once we set out, the trail began to meander between houses, past chicken coops, through people's back yards, and along brambles, disappearing, reappearing, dead-ending, and winding around in every direction. With the help of a pack of stray dogs, who helpfully served as our guides, we made it down the town below. Once there, we located the Crapolla trail head with relative ease. Once we decided the others weren't going to get their butts in gear anytime soon, we began down. Down, down, down we went. At some point, we passed some fishermen carrying what looked like overgrown crawdads. The train eventually opened up to switchbacks along the face of the sea cliff. Along the path, there were elevation markers. The first one we saw said 750 meters, and by the time we got to that one, we'd probably already descended that far from the villa through Torca and down the first part of the trail. This view is from approximately the first mile marker, whre there was also a nice tile bench.

A well deserved rest!

The bottom of trail ended at a charming little marina, Crapolla, I assume, where there were several little fishing vessels and a rusting fisherman's shack.

Time to head back up! Only 3,000 feet (1500 meters) to climb!

That afternoon, my dad and Aunt Monica made the drive back to the Naples airport to pick up the last of our contingent, my brothers, Sean and Bret, Bret's girlfriend Sarah, and my cousin, Lisa. We met up for dinner at the Gringo Bar in Sant'Agata and pretty much took the place over!

Rome to Sant'Agata

2005-03-31T23:51:00.000+02:00

When we got up on Saturday morning, we didn't know that we were all signed up to participate in several events of the Travel Olympics that day. Since we didn't know about the Travel Olympics (TO), we foolishly went about enjoying our morning rather than cracking down and getting mentally and physically prepared for the day's upcoming challenges. We had three different choices of activity for the morning, with a rendezvous at the hotel to leave us enough time to make our train. Activity #1 was the Capitoline Museums, Activity #2 was going back to the Vatican to mail postcards and find the bar with the view over St. Peter's, and Activity #3 was shopping. Brian, his parents, and I chose Activity #1, so that's all I can really report on. The Capitoline Museums are two museums that lie at the end of the Forum across the Piazza del Campidolglio. There are many impressive works of art at the museums, mostly sculptures, including the original bronze sculpture of Remus and Romulus suckling on the wolf. Inside the main entrance to the museum on the left side is the first-century statue of Oceanus:

While we were there, there was a temporary exhibit of M.C. Escher's work which was a wonderful treat. He lived in Rome for several years, which none of us knew. While there, he did many etchings of the city's famous landmarks at night, using a flashlight to do his sketches. They were very modern, unique views of sites we'd seen in the past few days. In addition, there were numerous excellent examples of the geometric tessellations for which Escher is famous. The museum itself is on a hill, and you can go up to the roof and look out over the city for quite a nice view.

After we left the museum, the first event of the Olympics began. It was called "Roman Bus Riding." We needed to find the correct stop among the myriad stops that were arranged with no apparent master plan around this huge square, figure out how to buy a ticket, identify the correct bus, hope that we were getting on in the right direction, and then pray that there would be enough room for us to squeeze on board. Miraculously, we accomplished all this! Next stop was the grocery store, where we bought supplies for our picnic lunch on the train.

The second T.O. event of the day was "Luggage Wrestling." The object was to get all 50 million of our bags from the tiny hotel room they were in on the fourth floor down to the lobby with the aid of only a miniscule elevator. We did ultimately succeed, but the judges took some points off because we accidentally sent an elevator full of bags, with no people in it, to the top floor instead of lobby before it finally descended.

The third T.O. event was "Boarding an Italian Train." This one sounds deceptively easy. The first tricky part is that trains in Italy are sometimes delayed, unlike trains in Switzerland, where Swiss people might have a coronary if they were delayed even two minutes. Our train was in fact, a half-hour late. Once our gate came up on the board, we sprinted to make it and board. Then, we had to find and locate our large unruly group in our preassigned seats. But first, we had to stow our luggage in the not so big overhead storage bins, which required the assistance of Cody, my cousin, who builds houses in his spare time.

Once we arrived at the Napoli Garribaldi train station, the next T.O. event presented itself: "Finding the Naples Airport Bus"...how to get to the airport for our rendezvous with our rental cars and my parents and grandfather? First, we tried to take the metro, but it seems that the map of the metro system we consulted before the trip included a line that hasn't been built yet because it's behind schedule in typical Italian fashion. So, we finally found the bus that connected the station and the airport. Once at the airport, we walked inside, walked up the rental counter, and immediately recognized some people we knew!! We got our four cars with no problem.

It was now time for the ultimate T.O. event...the grand finale of the day: "Navigating from Naples to Sant'Agata". Armed with the minimum of directions and some maps, we set out as a caravan. Somehow, we missed the freeway turn-off we needed immediately after the airport and had to do some fancy maneuvering to turn around. Soon, we were on the A-3 headed south to Salerno. Our directions told us to turn off in Castella di Mare and look for a coast road...not too helpful. We turned off and found our little caravan mired in traffic. We all four got split up and suddenly it was each car for themselves! We were panicking a little in our Volvo S70, to be honest. The pressure was getting to Suzy and she was hitting the bottle. Brian, our driver, was fairly calm and cool.

Then I, the navigator, bumped a button with my knee and a navigation system popped up out of the dash. I couldn't get it to work properly, but Leo finally did. First, it led us to a dock because it thought we wanted to take a ferry! We turned off that option in the preferences menu and then were on our way without a hitch. The blue Volvo team was the first to arrive in Sant'Agata. The other cars, without navigation systems, weren't so lucky/. Finally, however, everyone finally made it!!! We had a late dinner and lots of wine!

Rome Day 3: The Biggest Little Country in the World

2005-03-31T23:50:00.000+02:00

Reno may be the Biggest Little City in the World, but the Vatican is the Biggest Little Country in the World for sure. It's a tiny place by any measurement, and we didn't even manage to see it all in a full day! Most people enter the Vatican as we did, through the "gates" and into the enormous courtyard of St. Peter's Square. Huge rows of pillars encircle the square almost all the way around...it's supposed to signify the embrace of the Catholic Church. It takes about 15 minutes just to take it all in before you're ready to make your way towards the entrance to the basilica itself.

Once we'd been through the airport-type security, complete with metal detectors, we headed straight for the back entrance, where you can take an elevator to a viewing area in the dome of the basilica, or for slightly less, take stairs (we took the stairs!) Inside the dome, you really believe that this is the biggest church in the world when you see the people below and they look like ants. The mosaics around the dome itself are pretty neat to view up close too.

From the inside of the dome, there's an opportunity to climb even further if you so choose. There's a tight, narrow staircase that winds up the along the dome, in between the inner and outer walls. At the top, you are at a little observation platform at the highest point of the building. The view is amazing and we were lucky enough to get a clear day by Roman standards.

That afternoon, we went on a special tour of the Vatican grottos and St. Peter's Necropolis, including St. Peter's grave. We got to go past the Swiss Guards through this special gate and this big crowd of people wondered why we were so special! ;) If you've read Angels & Demons, then you know there are several levels beneath the church that are not generally open to the public. Also, with the Pope's death recently, there has been a lot of talk about the Vatican Grottos, where John Paul's final resting place will be. A small number of people are allowed to go through these normally off-limits areas, but reservations are never guaranteed and must be made months in advance. I requested our reservations at the beginning of January. The tour was pretty amazing (but no cameras were allowed, sorry!) The site where St. Peter's is built was originally a Roman (pagan) cemetery, and the church is built right over the top of many elaborate pagan graves that are 2,000 plus years old. When the Catholic Church became convinced that the tomb of St. Peter was beneath the church, they began excavating the ancient pagan tombs. Because these had been filled with earth to form the foundation for St. Peter's they were preserved in excellent condition, and all the wall paintings and decor are still clearly visible. Throughout the tour, you are actually walking on the packed earth of an ancient Roman road from around 100 AD!! At the end of the tour, you get to see the bones of St. Peter, in the place where they were found. Our tour guide presented several pieces of evidence that the church took as conclusive evidence that their find was in fact the saint. The tour was about two hours and it was just fascinating! If you're going to be in Rome antime soon, I highly recommend trying to get reservations through the Ufficio di Scavi.

Rome Day 2: The Colossal Sites

2005-03-31T17:03:00.000+02:00

Shortly after breakfast, our group grew by another four people as my Aunt Kerry, Uncle Tom, and cousins Kelly and Trevor arrived from Oregon. Unfortunately, just as we were preparing to head out for the day, our group shrank by one as Suzy was suffering from too much fun the night before coupled with a nasty cold. So, ten strong, we set out for the Colosseum. It was a zoo! People approached us from all angles trying to sell us tours of the Colosseum. Once we made it through the throng of people, we had to do a tour anyway because they are now mandatory! The tour was good, but our guide had a pretty heavy Italian accent—still, lots of good information. We learned all about Russell Crowe and his compatriots.

The Colosseum opens onto the Foro Romano (Roman Forum), an area of Roman ruins that, while fairly eroded, gives a fairly good idea of how grandiose the area must have looked at the height of the Roman Empire. The only part that sucks is that there are no markers or signs telling you what anything is, so you are kind of left wandering around and wondering what the significance of each arch, temple, and column might be. It’s possible to get a guide, but that’s kind of overkill in the other direction…too much information that you’re unlikely to remember in five minutes. So, we just tried to absorb the ambience of the place and soak up the sunshine and warmth that we hadn’t felt for months!!!

To find a lunch spot, we wandered to the famous Spanish Steps and located a café down one of the side streets.

After lunch, we opted for one of the self-guided walking tours that was in our Lonely Planet guide book with Brian as our fearless navigator. It started by ascending through the crowds of tourists and Roman youths clogging the steps, then walking uphill along a part of the ancient city wall and through an ornate gate and into the park surrounding the Villa Borghese, a once private mansion now converted into a public art museum. We opted to skip the museum in favor of further exploring the park.

The park ended at a little courtyard with a fantastic view of the Vatican bank of the city.

We then descended into the Piazza del Popolo to catch the metro home at the end of another successful day!

Rome Day 1: Happy Birthday to Me!

2005-03-31T16:18:00.000+02:00

On Wednesday evening, the ides of March, we secured Baxter with his favorite British nanny and horde of yorkie friends and boarded the night train bound for Rome. Although our carriage seemed overall to be relatively full, we lucked out yet again and were the only two people in our six-person compartment. (No flashbacks to our nightmarish experience with the Czech couple with the BO from hell!)

The next morning, I woke up to start my birthday in Roma! We had an easy four-block walk to our hotel, Hotel Continentale, where we checked in and dropped off our luggage. (The location of the hotel was pretty good because it was super close to the main train station, which is also where the two main metro lines of the city intersect.) It wasn’t too long before my Aunt Monica, Uncle Jeff, and cousin Cody arrived from Maui via a few days in Amsterdam, so we briefly explored the immediate neighborhood, then met up with them.

There were seven hills in ancient Rome, each topped with a church. One of them, Chiesa St. Maria Maggiore, was very close to our hotel, so we decided to go check it out while we waited for Brian’s parents, Suzy and Leo, to arrive from Chicago.

The story of the church is that it was built in the 4^th century by Pope Liberius to commemorate the miracle of snow falling in August. Given that it was about 70 degrees in March, I think snow in April falls squarely in the legend category. The church is famous for its mosaics and a shrine which supposedly has a piece of Christs’ manger (the piece of wood in the glass case).

Next, we walked to an open-air food stall market nearby and recharged with some sandwiches and blood oranges, which are much more popular and widely available in Europe than in the US. After Brian’s parents arrived at the hotel safely, we headed out in search of lunch at a place recommended by our guide book. When we got there and it was closed, we settled for the place next door because we were so starved. I talked them into giving us the fixed price lunch special even though it was 3:00 and it was supposed to be over for the day. For 10 euros each, we had a little fried rice ball thingy (a southern Italian specialty I hadn’t encountered before), a tomato salad, a huge pizza, and a big mug of beer.

Next, we were on to Trevi fountain, which is much bigger and more impressive than anyone ever expects. Even having seen it before, I still was impressed yet again! I threw a coin in the fountain to ensure that I will get to come back again.

We wound through the narrow streets past a couple minor landmarks until we got to the next major attraction, the Pantheon, one of the oldest structures in Rome. It’s kind of cool because it predates Christianity and is a temple to all (“pan”) gods.

It is amazing it’s held up so well given that there is a big hole in the roof! It’s called the oculus, or eye.

After some pasta and panna cotta and too much vino, off to bed.

Skiing in Flims

2005-03-13T17:07:00.000+01:00

Yesterday (Saturday), we went skiing in Flims-Laax-Falera. There are three names because there are really three town with base areas there but all the slopes are connected. We started off in Flims but it was so windy there that we quickly sought refuge on on the Laax-Falera side. We thought the skiing was much nicer over there and there were some pretty nice runs with great views:

The snow was good, but not great and pretty uneven so we couldn't go quite as fast as we like to. To make up for the lack of speed, I decided to take a jump off a crest but forgot to land on my skis. I survived though and the weather was nice so overall, it was a nice day of skiing.

The best part about skiing was that we didn't have to take the train. Heather's friend from German class, Nicole and her husband drove. I forgot how nice it is to have a car. It's inspired me to start looking for a car in anticipation of coming back to the US at the end of May. The frontrunner is still the Acura TSX if anyone but me cares.

Tonight, Nicole, her husband Mike, Alicia (another of Heather's friends from German class), and Alicia's boyfriend are coming over for dinner. Heather has cooked up quite a feast so I'm looking forward to it.

Real Swiss Fondue

2005-03-11T23:59:00.000+01:00

Tonight we joined about 15 other Googlers for a dinner party at the home of Carine and Roman Galli-Marxer. (Exciting fact: Roman is one of the 20,000 Lichtensteiners in the world.) The purpose of the gathering, besides some good company, was to try out some truly authentic Swiss fondue, not the stuff they give the tourists in the restaurants. As you may know, the "classic" variety of Swiss fondue is moitie-moitie (half-half), made with half gruyere and half emmentaler. However, according to Carine (who is from Fribourg) and many other Swiss people, the real is made with half gruyere and half vacherin Fribourgeois. Apparently, it's also quite key to have a mixture of more and less aged gruyere in the blend. Having tasted fondue at several highly acclaimed restaurants and then at Carine's house, I have to say that hers was head and shoulders above the rest...much smoother and creamier. It's pretty easy to make too. Once you have the right cheese that is! Then, you just rub your fondue pot with a big clove of garlic all over the inside. Then melt the cheese over medium heat. Last, add in a few dashes of kirsch (cherry liqueur). Finally, season with pepper and serve with baby potatoes and thick slices of bread that people can break apart themselves. Yum. I also learned on Friday night that some Swiss people dip their bread in kirsch before dipping into the fondue! Brian tried it and after I saw the look on his face I decided I didn't need to experience it first-hand! After dinner, Roman got out all sorts of different liquors from around the world and everyone sang drinking songs from their country (probably 10 countries were represented).

Crazy Europeans Doing What they do Best in München

2005-03-08T11:03:00.000+01:00

And what they do best is drink beer and watch Fußball. That's soccer for all you gringos. We centered our weekend around a big soccer match we came to see on Saturday afternoon. My brother, Sean, in his infinite wisdom and foresight, got us tickets to the match-up of Bayern München (#1) vs. Werder Bremen (#3) for Christmas so that we wouldn't miss out on this truly European experience.

It's only about four hours by train from Zürich to München (which is, in fact, Munich, in English, for those of you who are wondering), so we opted to head up there on Friday night. We checked into our hotel right across from the train station when Brian promptly realized that he'd forgotten his toiletries bag. So, we got an exciting walk to the nearest late-night Apotheke to acquire a bottle of contact solution. The contrast in scale between München and Zürich is quite marked. It seems like all of Zürich is on such a smaller scale, one neighborhood of München is about the size of Zürich. If our hotel in München were in Zürich, it would be one of the tallest buildings, if not the tallest!

The next morning, we had the breakfast buffet at the hotel, which was awesome! They had hashbrowns with ketchup (yay!!) and all kinds of yogurt, and breads and fruit. Sehr gut.

We headed out into the cold and took the tram to Marienplatz, the main square of the Altstadt or old city. The coolest building there is the Neues Rathaus, or New Town Hall. Given that it was built in the 1800s, it wouldn't be new by US standards, but in Europe, that's practically brand new.

Unfortunately, you can only climb the big belfry tower in the summer, so we lost out on a great view of the city.

A couple times a day, including at 11:00 and noon, the clock on the Rathaus facing the square animates and little figures do dances as the bell chimes. Everyone in the square below stops to look up and watch.

Apparently Munich is trying to get a cow-type art thing going on, but with lions, and we even found some in lederhosen. (Side note: Apparently, the Chicago "art cows" aren't actually from Chicago, but from Zurich originally. The exposition was sent to Chicago after Zurich was finished with it. When you think about it, it makes a lot more sense that it would have started in Switzerland. You can still see a lot of the original cows gracing storefronts and restaurants around Switzerland.)

Also in Marienplatz, is a cool fish fountain that the fish sellers used to use to keep the fish alive until they were sold.

At the east end of the plaza is the Heiliggeistkirche.

In the last few minutes before everything opened for the day, we decided to take a stroll through the Hofgarten, part of the Englischer Garten, which is filled with Oktoberfest beer gardens each year. In the background is the Frauenkirche, with its distinctive onion domes. The inside of the Frauenkirche is all white, which is a nice change from the dark gothic interiors of many European churches.

Next, on to the Residenz, the palace used by the Bavarian rulers from 1385 to 1918. The first stop inside is the rococo theater. It's an impressive room that's been carefully preserved and is still in use for all types of performances. We got stuck there awhile because a docent dude wanted to practice his English with us. He did give us a lot of info on the Residenz and the various parts and admission areas.

The main part of the Residenz is so big that they divide it up and only let you go in one half in the morning and one half in the afternoon. I almost think that this is so no one gets lost! The place is truly gargantuan. They give you a free audioguide with a copious amount of information...maybe even too much. Below is the antiquarium (the coolest room), a garden fountain made from seashells, a hallway in the king's private chambers, and the king's ceremonial bedchamber.

After, the Residenz, it was time to start thinking about lunch and then getting to the game. Walking around the city, it was clear we weren't the only people thinking about the game. It seemed like every other person had a Bayern München scarf.

We checked out the Viktualienmarkt a year-round food market with a bunch of permanent stalls. The highlights were the cheese stalls. Yum! We got some antipasto type stuff, some cheese, and some bread to munch on during the game.

After finding a cheap, tasty Mexican place for lunch, we headed to the Olympia Zentrum for the big soccer match. The stadium is an architectural masterpiece in its own right, but unfortunately will be torn down soon in favor of a bigger stadium for the World Cup next year in Munich because of the high cost of renovating the existing stadium.

The game started out very exciting, with Bayern München scoring almost immediately off a corner kick. The crowd went wild. Specifically, one paricular section went especially wild. Then we noticed that that section also had about ten times the number of security guards as any other sections. Apparently, if you like to get drunk and cheer like crazy at soccer games, there's a special section for you and your kind.

I thought watching a soccer game might be boring because they don't score very often. However, even though that first goal was the only goal of the game, it wasn't boring in the least because of all the melodrama. It's like WWF out there with all the fake acting. Even if a player trips over his own shoe lace, he falls down and stays down like he's severed his ACL or broken his spine and may never walk again. Then, everyone in the crowd quiets down, play stops, and the medical team, complete with a stretcher, takes to the field at a sprint. Once the strecher is halfway to the mortally wounded player, and he realizes that no players on the opposing team are going to be penalized for his mishap with his wayward shoelace, he springs to life, takes off at a jog down the field, the crowd claps, and play resumes. I happen to believe that the medical personnel must get as good a workout as the players during a match! It's quite good fun. whenever a player from Bayern fell down for any reason, the crowd shouted "Gelb! Gelb!", which means yellow, calling for the opposing player to get a yellow card.

On Sunday, we spent the day at two museums, the Deutsches Museum Forum der Technik and the Pinakothek der Moderne. In between we had sushi for lunch, which we wouldn't be able to afford in Zurich, so it was a nice treat.

Geneva, Geneve, Genf...

2005-03-04T14:39:00.000+01:00

Geneva is almost totally engulfed by France, and is only connected to Switzerland by a tiny little strip of land on the shore of Lake Geneva. So, lucky for us, they speak French there!! Although my German classes are going tolerably well, it was nice to actually be able to speak the language somewhat well for once! We checked into our hotel, got a restaurant recommendation, and ordered and ate a yummy Swiss Italian meal all in (rusty) French.

The next morning, we had a lovely petit dejeuner at our hotel, which incidententally, was an excellent deal for Geneva. The hotel, the Bel Esperence, is run by the Salvation Army, and is nearly brand new. Other than the good value, other positive features include that it is located right in the middle of the old town, the breakfast buffet is really good, with lots of different cheeses, and you can request a non-smoking floor.

First item on the agenda was a walking tour of the old town, since nothing was open yet. Stop number one, at the edge of the old town on an elevated park corner, was the Russian Church, which is small, but very distinctive, with it's gold onion domes.

We cotinued on to Parc des Bastions, which has an enormous wall along one side tha commemorates all these old stodgy looking guys who are considered to be the great reformers in Geneva's history. Not people you'd want to invite to a party though.

As we were in town on a Lundi (Monday), many of the museums were closed, including the Maison Tavel, the oldest house in Geneva, which now houses a museum on Genevese life. So, we checked out the canons out front.

Finally, 10:00 rolled around and the Cathedrale St. Pierre finally opened. Thank god, because I was losing feeling in my fingers. Although Brian hasn't actually attended many church services lately, he's still quite angelic, as you can see:

After taking in the stained glass windows, carved pillars, and Calvin's chair, we climbed the church tower. At the top, there was a fantastic view of the city, including the city and the mountains and lake beyond.

Next, we got on a bus and headed for the international quarter and the Museum of the Red Cross and Red Crescent. This is supposed to be one of the best museums in Europe according to our guidebooks. Most of the exhibits were in fact very well done, but it could have been a bit more interactive.

After lunch, it was onto the UN, or ONU as it's called in French. After they checked my Swiss visa thingy, and we went through metal detectors, we were allowed to make our way to the visitor's entrance for a one-hour tour. The tour guide wasn't incredibly informative...she didn't know the current nine elected members of the security council, but she did tell us some interesting tidbits. We got to see some big conference rooms and some of the artwork member nations have donated.

This is called the Spanish conference room because of the murals donated by the Spanish government and completed by a Spanish artist. The nuclear antiproliferation treaty was negotiated in this room.

After that, back "home" to Baxter!

The Matterhorn is Better in Real Life than at Disneyland

2005-03-03T13:04:00.000+01:00

After a filling breakfast at our hotel, we headed out into the cold streets of Zermatt. Zermatt is a car-free town, which sounds quite nice when you read about it in the travel guides and tourist brochures. However, when the temperature is well below zero and there is a wind-chill factor of god knows what, the little electric powered buses just don't seem to cut it. The stops are way too far apart, they don't come nearly often enough, the routes are convoluted, and they are sometimes so crowded that they don't even stop! In any event, we managed to overcome all this and caught a bus down to the main SBB train station, where we crossed the street and bought a ticket to the top of the Gornergratbahn. The train ride takes you to the best viewing point for the Matterhorn and winds up the mountain, gaining in elevation, to summit at Gornergrat at over 10,000 feet! The journey takes about an hour in total. Along the way are spectacular views of the Matterhorn, the Alps in the background, and Zermatt village increasingly far below.

The skies were a bit gray, and about halfway up the railway, a cloud settled on the peak of the Matterhorn and seemed to get snagged there, which we interpreted as a bad sign. Fortunately, the sun did come out at long last, although it did not do anything to raise the temperature!

After we'd fully absorbed the view from the top, and were chilled to our bones, we got back on the next train down and got off at Roten Boden, about halfway down, and rented a sled. We'd heard there was a well groomed sled run that took about 10 minutes. We thought that was rather short, but decided to try it anyway. Once we got going, it was immediately clear why it only took 10 minutes! We were flying!!! We only crashed about three times and probably hit a top speed of about 20 miles and hour, but it felt like 50. We were cruising. Here's Brian at the bottom of the run, having survived the harrowing experience!

After sledding, we needed to warm up, so we headed for a bar built into the mountain side in a series of igloos, called Iglu Dorf. It was sort of hard to find and off the beaten path, but pretty cool inside, complete with a bar, hotel, and snow sculptures.

After Iglu Dorf, we returned to Zermatt, had lunch and decided to walk around the town a bit before catching our train to Geneva. We had to make time to see the famous marmot statue:

...and the graveyard for mountaineers who lost their lives while attempting the ascent of the Matterhorn.

We also stumbled across a sculpture garden with some whimsical statues in it kind of in the middle of town.

After that, we were off to Geneva!

Glacier Express

2005-03-01T16:33:00.000+01:00

On Saturday, I took the early train to Davos to meet up with Brian, who was already there for the Google ski trip he planned for the Zurich office, which took place on Friday and Saturday. Once in Davos, we had time for a quick cup of Pfefferminztee to warm up instead of waiting in the -12 C weather (10 degrees F) on the platform, then it was time to board the train. We switched in Filisur to the Glacier Express, the most famous scenic train route in Switzerland.

The Glacier Express starts either in St. Moritz or Davos and winds east-west through the most rugged section of the Alps to finish in Zermatt, the hometown of the Matterhorn. The trip takes over seven hours, so it's a full day committment and calling it an "express" is a bit misleading.

We had a perfect bright sunny day for our trip, so the views were crystal clear. As we headed out of Chur, a major transfer point for the Graubunden region, we passed through the heart of the Romansch speaking region of Switzerland.

This is Disentis, or Muster, in Romansch. Romansch is the closest living language to Latin, and it is only spoken in Switzerland, where less than 1% of the country claims it as their native language.

The midpoint of our journey was also the high point from an altitude perspective. The Oberalp Pass is 2033 meters above sea level. That's aboutt 6,700 feet for all you Americanos at home.

At Andermatt, the train tracks went right through the middle of the ski resort!! The scenery the whole way was pretty spectacular.

You might expect that you'd only see people trying to grow crops on a steep and obviously not very fertile hillside like this one in a third world country. However, the Swiss government pays the highest agricultural subsidies in the world--up to 90%!!!!

Arriving in Zermatt, we had time to see the sun set behind the Matterhorn as we made our way to our hotel.

Sledding and Exploring Castles

2005-02-20T22:06:00.000+01:00

Saturday, we decided to go sledding at Uetliberg, the local hill/mountain near Zurich.

It seems like sledging is basically the national pastime and it's nothing like sledding in the US. Instead, you take a train or a cablecar up to the top of a mountain and follow a long, winding path down. People are even out there with infants strapped to their sleds with special little seats that look like booster chairs. It's a little shocking because the sledge ride can get a little rough. Heather has the arse-bruises to prove it (sorry, picture not available). In the case of Uetliberg, the main sledging run is 3.1 kilometers long. The longest is near Interlaken and is at least twice that distance.

Schlittelweg means sled run.

Today (Sunday), we had planned to go skiing but instead we decided to head south to Bellinzona in the Alps just this side of Italy. The main attraction there are the three castles built between 1200 and 1400 (and nicely restored more recently).

All the guidebooks assured us that the Castelgrande, with its white tower and black tower (they're the same damn color, go figure) would be the most impressive but we were pretty sure the Castello di Montebello was better.

To get to the Castello di Montebello, you need to walk up a long, winding set of stairs but the hike is rewarded with a really nice view of the city and the Castelgrande below.

The view at the third castle, Castello di Sasso Corbaro is probably even better since it's a good 300M higher than the Montebello but we couldn't be bothered to hike up there, especially since the guidebooks warned us that it's only open in the summer.

Heather was also a big fan of the a wooden drawbridge at Castello Montebello.

Next was the Castelgrande. Even though we liked the Castello di Montebello better, there were some nice things about the Castelgrande including a cool castle wall that's covered with grass and runs halfway across the city:

The other nice tourist spot that we visited was the Palazzo Civico (town hall) which was rebuilt in the 1920s. The courtyard was very peaceful and there were even flowers in bloom.

Overall, Bellinzona was a nice, quaint little quiet town. We hardly saw any other tourists--most of them probably end up going to Lake Como or Lugano instead of stopping in Bellinzona--their loss.

Basel Morgenstraich

2005-02-20T21:40:00.000+01:00

We hadn't had enough of the Swiss-style carnival yet so we decided to wake up in the middle of the night to go to Basel for their "Morgenstraich" which kicks off a parade through the city. The only problem is that the parade starts at 4AM! Heather heard that Morgenstraich was the time to be there though and we're only going to be here once so we decided to do it and we persuaded some friends to come along.

A special train runs from Zurich to Basel at 2AM just for Morgenstraich. It was a little odd to see the huge board in the train station with only one departure listed--normally there are 2 columns filled with trains about to leave. When we arrived about 15 minutes early, we hardly saw anyone else in the station so we got a little worried that the Basel Fasnacht wasn't all it was rumored to be. Once we found out which track the train was on, we noticed that there were at least 500 people already waiting on the platform. They were all silent though. The Swiss sure know how to party.

When we arrived, things were a little more lively. The streets were packed with people. Of course, they were all very well behaved.

We waited around for awhile in the cold for things to get started, jealously looking up at the people throwing parties on their balconies overlooking the parade route.

Finally, exactly at 4, all the streetlights went out and the piccolos started playing. There were hundreds of people all playing the same sound on their piccolos and about the same number with drums. To make things more interesting, they were all dressed up and had little painted lanterns on their heads. Also, each group was carrying a much larger version of the head lanterns featuring some kind of clever logo or picture, many making fun of local politics (I guess). The only one I really understood was an anti-smoking lantern mocking a cigarette ad.

Here's what the parade looked like:

After you get sick of the piccolo music, the tradition is to head into one of the cafes and get a traditional breakfast of cheese or onion quiche and mehlsuppe. The suppe (soup) is make of purposely (!!) burned flour, bouillon, and water.

It's better than it looks and sounds but that's not saying much.

Busy Weekend

2005-02-16T15:38:00.000+01:00

We packed a lot in this weekend. Friday night, we ate a late dinner at home, then decided to take the dog on a late night walk. Looking at the map of Zürich on our wall, we identified a large area of green signifying a park just a few tram stops away. So, we ventured out into the snowy night. We arrived at the park and walked around a bit on some muddy paths. It was pretty dran cold, so the little pond we eventually came to was mostly frozen over. Baxter couldn't apparently tell that it was a body of water at all and went barreling in and promptly fell through, although only a few inches, and he seemed to hardly notice. The park was attached to the campus for the Irchel campus of ETH, so we walked around the campus awhile pretending to be students.

On Saturday, we went to Winterthur (Vin-ter-toor), the second biggest city in Kanton Zürich. It's about 35 minutes away by train and it is known for its high quality museums, of which there are many for a town of its size. Since we have general abonnements this month, we have to make as much use of them as possible and go somewhere everyday we can. Not only are they good for the train system, but also for all of the local trams, buses, and even boats in nearly every town in Switzerland.

Arriving in Winterthur, we walked to the Fotomuseum. The museum had two special exhibits in addition to its permanent collection. The first temporary exhibition was selections from a Swiss photographer who had taken pictures at balls and galas attended by Swiss high society during the 30s and 40s. The locations for most of the shots were familiar or familiar sounding: The Grand Dolder Hotel (Zürich), Hotel St. Moritz, Bär Au Lac (Zürich), etc. I found the pictures to be fascinating. The artist clearly had a sense of humor, because he often was able to catch people, all dressed up in their best clothes, behaving badly, or making inappropriate faces, or looking at someone else's date. The permanent collection was quite edgy, and seemed to focus mostly on photographers from LA. I think the point was to show the outer limits for what could pass as photography and I'm not sure we always "got" it.

We found a nice warm bus for the ride back in to the main part of town. Then, a "cheap" Chinese restaurant for lunch. For us, a cheap lunch place means that it only costs $40 for both of us. That's a deal!

The whole town seems fairly obsessed with art. Here I am in front of an outdoor sculpture piece on one of the main streets, which is pedestrian only, as is much of the center of town.

After lunch we wandered into some of the shops, which seem to be overly laden with Easter merchandise. The now-familiar sound of a brass and percussion brand led us back outside. Fasnacht is everywhere these days!! Only a few towns are famous for it, like Basel and Lucerne, but every little town gets in on the action in some small way. It started snowing, so we headed for the Gewerbemuseum (Trade Museum). They had a very interesting temporary exhibit on light that began with several light sculptures and included interactive exhibits with prisms and a history of lighting. Another floor of the museum housed a collection about materials and had samples of almost every commercial and industrial material you can imagine. The ground floor had a cool collection of antique clocks, including some from the 1400s. A couple chimed while we were there, so we kept rushing around the room to try and catch them in the act.

Saturday night, we went to have very nice and fancy restaurant called JOSEF that I read about on a Zürich gastronomy site that was in German, but from the number of stars, I could tell that it had gotten a positive review. We didn't set out to go there, but kind of stumbled upon it. The idea is that there is a menu with about 15 appetizer sized dishes to choose from, and depending on how hungry you are, you can get two, three, or four. There's also a tasting menu with five total courses. Brian picked that one (we shared a bit) and I got two things off the regular menu. The food was scrumdiddlyumptious, but there wasn't enough of it! I think the tapas concept isn't for us! After we'd eaten the last bite of panna cotta topped with gingered pineapple, we hurried down the street to meet up with our friend Gabor for the real highlight of the evening, the Cake concert!!!! They played at this funny venue called X-TRA that seems to double as a video arcade, a hotel, and a bar. It was a great concert and there seemed to be a lot of real Cake fans there, which surprised us a bit. I think we may have been the only people there who also saw them in San Francisco in November though, or at least they were counting on it, because their little speeches between songs were almost identical!

On Sunday, we got up early (as in 5:45) and caught the train to Lucerne, the connection point for the train to Engelberg, where we planned to go skiing. When we got on the Engelberg train, the conductor came on board, looked at our skiis and told us that the lifts were all closed because of high winds. Doh! After much questioning and screwing around in the Lucerne train station, we determined that skiing was a no-go for the day and decided to catch the next train to Interlaken. The route between Lucerne and Interlaken is called the GoldenPass Panoramic train line, so no too shabby. And, as promised, we did indeed pass through idyllic Swiss villages and picturesque Alpine passes. Once in Interlaken, we stowed our bags at the station, after we determined that we did not want to take the train another 45 minutes to Grindewald for a half day of skiing in what would likely be windy, near white-out conditions. We were a little disappointed to hear that the Junfrau bahn that takes you to the highest viewing platform in Europe doesn't open until early April, so that was out. So, we headed into town. Given that it was Sunday and the middle of the winter, things were pretty dead...and cold! We saw some interesting signage suggesting that the Jungfrau and Tennessee were right next door to each other.

So, we hopped on a bus and decided to spend the rest of the day at the Mystery Park. It's a weirdo place, kind of like a Disneyland dedicated to archeological unsolved mysteries. But the weekend still wasn't over...

Cablecom Arschlochs

2005-02-07T13:31:00.000+01:00

So, it turns out that high-speed internet and phone companies pretty much suck across the whole world, not just in the US. Although we ordered our high-speed cable/phone when we moved in to our permanent apartment on January 1, we didn't get it until last week. Hence, we were behind on our blogging. We're now all up to date, and we hope that you, our loyal readers, will forgive us our lapse in punctuality with our posts!

Now available are posts on:

Italy (Venice, Milan)
New Years
Davos (skiing)
Prague
Bern
Luzern (Fasnacht)

Fasnacht in Luzern

2005-02-07T11:14:00.000+01:00

This weekend we went to Luzern for Fasnacht, which is the Swiss equivalent of Mardi Gras. Other towns also have Fasnacht celebrations, but Luzern's is supposed to be the best. I could try and explain all the specifics, but I'd probably get it wrong, so here are some links if you are interested in what it's all about:

The Luzern Tourism site page

The Lucern Fasnacht Committee

A general all-Swiss site on Fasnacht

The BBC on Fasnacht

From what we observed, the basic idea is that a bunch of roving costumed marching bands (think the Stanford band on a drinking binge) wander through the city playing at top volume from dusk until dawn for several days. As we wandered through the old town, which isn't very big, we probably saw about 15 or so different bands, each with 30-50 members. This is a BIG deal.

There are also floats that make their way through the old town as part of a parade on Dirty Thursday and Fat Tuesday, but also stick around to act as mobile bars on the interim days. We purchased from them this hot punch that basically tasted like one part hot Kool-Aid mixed with two parts 151. These peple are not messing around. Fortunately, we brought a large flask of Bailey's to help wash it down a little easier! One of the best floats was the Kinder Surprise egg, Brian's favorite German confection!

After we'd thoroughly blown out our eardrums, we decided to retreat to the warmer, quieter confines of the Bourbaki Panorama, a cicular painting and audio program that tells the story of a the Bourbaki Army. This army of 0verr 90,000 French soldiers was forced to surrender to the Germans during a particularly brutal winter of the Franco-Prussian war when they were surrounded in a valley near the Valais region of Switzerland. Their general, Bourbaki, committed suicide rather than face defeat, but eventually an asylum deal was reached that would allow the wounded, starving soldiers to disarm and spend the winter in Switzerland. It was the aid of the budding Red Cross during this winter that cemented the importance of the organization.

Next stop was the nearby Löwendekmal, or Lion Monument, which commemorates the lives of the Swiss soliders who died defending Charles XVI in the Palais des Tuleries in Paris. It's much bigger than you expect. It's so noble and sad...we probably shouldn't be smiling in this picture!

Just north of the Löwendekmal is the Gletschergarten, or Glacier Garden. It' s an area of bedrock that bears the distinct potholes and scars of glacial movement that was uncovered during a construction project in the 1870s. Our museum passes got us in for free, but if you find yourselves here and are pondering the 12 CHF entry fee, it's totally worth it!

First, is the actuall "garden," which has detailed explanations of all the formations on the rocks.

Next is a museum explaining the science of glaciers and climate change. We also enjoyed the wooly mammoth you can ride!

Next, there's a hall of mirrors that was originally built over a hundred years ago for an exposition in Geneva that you can walk through.

And last there's a tower you can hike up to with views over the town. It's closed in the winter, but you can hike part way up the hill.

Crossing one of Luzern's famous covered wooden bridges, we ended up at the museum of Natural History, which had a great temporary exhibit on insects and another on cows, Switzerland's mascot. In one room was an exhibit on how to milk cows. Brian gave it a go.

Things got even crazier at night. All along the river, bleachers were set up for the bands to play from, and "beer gardens" had been set up, where drunk, costumed Swiss were dancing on tables. Surprisingly, there seemed to be relatively few foreigners in the city, or at least few non-German speakers.

On Sunday, we spent over four hours at the Museum of Transport, which is a little way out of the city center. You could spend several days there and not actually interact with all the exhibits.

One of the crazy things they have is an exhibit where you get into two Mini Coopers, and then they crash them into each other, each going 13 km per hour. I don't think that would ever happen in the US!! Brian and I did it and it was definitely a real car crash! No waiver forms or anything!

There are also buildings dedicated to transport by rail, car, boat, plane, bike, tram, and space craft.

In another area is a huge satellite map of Switzerland that you can walk on.

After we left Lucerne, we went by train to pick up Baxter in Burhalden, about 45 minutes south of Zürich. We found a British woman who has toy Yorkies who is a dog sitter, so this weekend was a trial-run for March when we go to Italy and need someone to watch Bax for 10 days. We were a little worried that Bax might eat one of the Yorkie puppies, but all was well when we got to her house. Phew!

Berrrrrrrrrrrrrrn

2005-01-31T21:06:00.000+01:00

Just under two months of living in Switzerland, we got our first non-family visitor, our friend from Stanford, Andy Martin, now of NYC. Being from New York, Andy wasn’t daunted by the prospect of visiting Switzerland in the winter! While Andy was in town, we decided to take a day trip to the Swiss capital, Bern. We thought it was cold in Zurich, but we were wrong!! It was even colder in Bern.

Appropriately, the first stop on our walking tour was the Bundeshaus, the Federal Assembly building where the Swiss congress meets to make decisions on a mind-boggling number of national referenda. The Bundeshaus is an impressive building because it sits on a large square in front and on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Aare River in back:

The Münster (Cathedral) in Bern is the tallest in Switzerland, so you can bet that we climbed the tower. They only let you climb the tower for a narrow window of time on Sundays, from 11:30-1:00. While we were waiting for 11:30 to roll around, we had time to notice some of the church’s features besides the tower. One thing to check out is the entrance door (also called tympanum) with the blessed on one side and the damned on the other (click to see a bigger version of the images):

Another thing not to miss are the cool patterns on the ceiling, including a bear, the symbol of Bern:

The view from the middle and top levels of the Münster tower were worth the climb. There’s a good view of the Zytglogge from the tower, which has stood as a central landmark in Bern since 1191. It’s an astronomical clock, like the one we saw in Prague.

From the top, you can also get a partial sense of how Bern is laid out: it’s on a peninsula formed by the Aare River, which was advantageous for building defenses and also makes it quite picturesque.

From the Münster we crossed the eastern most bridge, the Nydeggbrücke, so that we could see the Bärengraben, or bear pits. These are sunken cages where brown bears are kept on either side of the bridge. From there, we walked all the way along the far side of the river to the Swiss Alpine Museum, which mostly had bas-relief maps of various parts of the Alps. After lunch, we went to the Communication Museum, which was very interactive and interesting. The museum’s claim to fame is its huge collection of postage stamps, which, I confess, we did not even endeavor to scratch the surface of…

Prague Day 3: The Jewish Quarter

2005-01-24T09:27:00.000+01:00

When we woke up on Sunday, our last day in Prague, there was a couple of inches of snow covering the city!! Here's a picture of the scene as we left our hotel:

We decided we better return to the viewpoint once more to capture Prague under mask of snow...

To get to the Jewish Quarter, our destination for the day, we took the subway, from our local stop, Malostranská.

The subway in Prague was built in the 1970s and it shows!

The Jewish community in Prague was once one of the largest in Europe, but after WWII the number of Jews in Prague fell by 90% due to the Holocaust. The Jewish Museum in Prague is a group of historical sites, mostly synagogues, that have been converted into exhibition spaces for displays on Jewish culture, life, and history in Prague. Admission to all museum sites is a little steep, about $15 per person, especially when compared to other sites in Prague, but the displays were all attractive and in well-translated English.

The first site we came upon was the Old Jewish Cemetery, which we spotted through a little window in a heavy iron gate. It was like another world on the other side of the gate, totally unlike the street we were standing on, which had a Benetton and a bunch of touristy junk stores. We had two stops to make before walking around the cemetery--the first was the Ceremonial Hall, which now houses an exhibit about Judaic death rituals. The second, mortality-related stop was the Pinkas Synagogue, dating from 1535.

The inside has been stripped bare to its beautiful arched walls, and on the recesses of the arches, the name of every Jew from Bohemia and Moravia that lost his or her life in WWII has been painted. The effect is so sad on such a grand scale that it's almost numbing. Upstairs in the same building is another exhibit that illustrates the Holocaust in a way that eludes self-reflective novelists and film makers. On display were about 200 drawings by children who were held at Terezin, a sort of way-station between Prague and the concentration camps beyond. Looking at the pictures, they look just like those that could have been drawn by any child, anywhere, except these children were murdered a few weeks or months after they drew them.

The Old Jewish Cemetery was established in the 15th century and the oldest identifiable gravestone dates from 1439. Initially, the cemetery was in the outskirts of the city, but as Prague expanded the cemetery couldn't grow any further, so extra layers of earth had to be brought in to accommodate more gravestones and layers were created. There are up to seven layers in some places! The most famous person buried here is Rabbi Loeb, who is associated with the Golem of Prague, a sort of Judaic Frankenstein legend.

The Old-New Synagogue is the oldest surviving synagogue in Europe, built sometime in the 11th century. It's sunken about six or seven feet from street level because the Prague is more elevated than it was centuries ago to better cope with the flooding of the Vltava River.

It snowed on us all the way to our last stop, the Spanish Synagogue, so named due to the blue and white tile work adorning the interior. Then, it snowed on us again the whole way to our lunch spot, a Creole restaurant called Red Hot & Blues.

After picking up some provisions for dinner for our train ride home, we boarded around 6:00 pm. A few minutes before departure, a Czech couple got came into our cabin, followed closely by the pervasive stench of BO!! Yuck!! We struggled mightily for about five minutes to breathe, stay calm, and hope that we'd adjust, but it was no good. Brian went and talked to the conductor, who suggested a moderate bribe in Euros to put us in our cabin for the night. Considering that we still had to eat dinner and that we were going to be up for another four hours at least, it was clearly the only option!

Prague day 2: Charles Square

2005-01-22T20:12:00.000+01:00

The next morning, we still had some work to do at the Castle. We hiked back up the hill, through the gates and past St. Vitus Cathedral.

First stop was another church within the castle walls, the Basilica of St. George. Historically, it was attached to a convent. It was really very nice--not too ornate, peaceful, and nicely restored.

After leaving the Basilica, we strolled down the Golden lane where all the little houses have been turned into claustrophobic junk shops. The picture above is me in front of Kafka's house (number 22).

Most of the other things in the castle were closed--the czech's just don't trust you to go to the top of a tower in the winter. Maybe it's for the best though because we narrowly avoided death when a small japanese woman tripped down the stairs and went barreling into Heather ending up in a heap on the ground. She was okay so I don't feel guilty about making fun of her now.

Heading back over the Charles Bridge, we took a few pictures, dodged the street vendors, except for the old man organ grinder who looked so happy that I gave him a few krona.

Next stop was the town's main square, Charles Square where they have an impressive clock where little figurines act out a morality play every hour. We ascended the clock tower (it's okay because they have an elevator) where you get a great view of the the Tyn Church over Heather's left shoulder above. There are also some pretty nice views of the rest of the city too:

By that time, we were pretty cold so we decided to spend some time in a nice warm museum. The National Museum, at Wenceslas Square, won't win any awards but it's heating system was working properly so it kept us happy for a few hours. The interior is covered with lots of brown-colored marble and felt like a communist impression of ancient Greece. The had a huge temporary exhibit on soccer which would have been really great if I knew anything about the sport (and if it were in English). One highlight for me was the Wooley Mammoth head at the top of the stairs:

By that time, we were pretty tired so we went back to the hotel, and then sought out Joe's Restaurant at Nerudova Namesti. Not exactly traditional Czech fare, but when Heather wants Mexican food, it's really best to accommodate her ;). The food was pretty good, certainly for Mexican in the Czech Republic. It even would have been pretty good in the midwest. I can't say that it would have stayed in business long in California though. Portions were big and we paid about what you'd pay in the US for the same meal. Of course, that feels like a bargain after living in Zurich.

After dinner, we went to a Bazaar Winter Garden, a touristy piano bar in the basement of a building near our hotel. We ordered antifreeze-green Absinthe. What else would you order in Prague? As you can tell by the crazy grin on Heather's face, it had absolutely no effect on her. If you ever decide to drink Absinthe, you might be surprised to find that they deliver to you a spoon, some sugar and matches with your shot. What in the hell are you supposed to do with that? Short of the syringes, it looked like a scene out of Trainspotting. So you don't look as foolish as I did, here's a step-by-step guide to drinking absinthe like a pro:

Put some sugar on the spoon, dip it in the Absinthe without spilling any of the sugar.
Light the wet sugar on fire. Wait for it to carmelize a bit.
When the flame goes out, put it in the shot and stir it up. You need to do all this work because the absinthe is basically pure alcohol (160 proof) so sugar won't disolve in it on it's own.
Brace yourself, and drink the nasty stuff down.

Prague Day 1: The Castle

2005-01-21T23:04:00.000+01:00

After securing Baxter with his Swiss and Austrian keepers, we boarded an overnight train from Zurich bound for Prague om Thursday night. It's not actually all that far, but there aren't any direct or semi-direct trains, so although we left the Zurich HB at 11:00, we didn't get into Prague until 10:30 the next morning. Once in Prague, we went to an ATM and withdrew 2,000 Czech koruna (crowns). There are about 24 koruna to the dollar. When we did this, we got back a single 2,000 dollar note, which was not the best form of currency for purchasing our metro tickets, but we did manage to finally secure two three-day passes the the third window we tried.

The hotel we picked, The Golden Star, was pretty darn swanky (above is the entrance to our room), and located about 150 feet from Prague Castle. This extravagance was made possible by the fact that it is the lowest of the low seasons right now in Prague--mid-January. Cold, cold, cold! Given the location of the hotel, the obvious first order of business was to head up to the castle.

I think the Czech royals knew what they were doing, because they had an amazing view of the city:

Here's the same view with Brian's highly-acclaimed self-portrait photography technique:

At the entrance to the castle, guards stand at watch around the clock, much like Buckingham Palace. But, unlike Buckingham Palace, these guards are allowed to smile at tourists doing goofy things. The first thing that I should say about the castle is that it's not really a castle. It's more like old city walls on a hill that enclose a former Bohemian royal residence (a building, not a castle) and a couple of churches). A bit of a misnomer.

After passing through the first two courtyards, you come to St. Vitus Cathedral. They don't let you climb the tower in the winter, and everybody knows that the promise of towers to climb is the main attraction of any church, so that was a big disappointment. On the outside gate of the cathedral are little vignettes of all the little townspeople at their occupations, behind Brian in this photo:

In the Bohemian royal residence, the most impressive room is the ball room, which sometimes also doubled as a location for indoor jousting matches in cases of inclement weather. Here I am in the ball room pretending to be a Czech princess...which we'll just assume is true since I'm a good part Czech.:

The next stop on the castle tour was a museum of Bohemian history, which was quite extensive in its collection. But, we were getting hungry, as it was 3:00, so we may have rushed through a little. The highlights were armor supposedly belonging to St. Wenceslas (the dude in the Christmas song) and a gallery featuring an artists interpretative portraits of all the rulers of Bohemia with little bios underneath. The bios were pretty fascinating: incest, fratricide, murder, betrayal, etc.

For lunch, we went to a Malaysian Buddhist restaurant. What else would you eat in Prague?

After lunch, we went to the Loreta, which is supposed to be a copy of the Virgin Mary's house (here's Brian in front of Mary's house). Apparently, at one point, it was quite popular for royalty and other aristocrats to commision these to be built, but only a few good examples still survive.

One of the cooler things there is a statue of a woman with a beard. The story goes that she was betrothed to someone she didn't want to marry, so she prayed really hard the night before the wedding. In the morning, she woke up with a beard. Thanks, God!

In the same complex as the Loreta are the Czech crown jewels, which include this crazy star thingy called the Prague Sun with over 6,000 diamonds, but the effect isn't all that pleasing.

On the same square as the Loreta are a communist-era building for the department of the interior and the oldest monestary in Bohemia, dating from the 1400s:

We decided next we needed to get a few refreshments before dinner. The man behind the front desk at our hotel directed us to the Andel (Angel in English) stop on the yellow metro line for a good shopping area that included a Carrefour, which is sort of the European equivalent of Walmart.

Brian particularly enjoyed the beer aisle, but had a hard time limiting his selections but he finally succeeded in limiting himself to just seven different varieties:

Since we had Malaysian for lunch, we figured we better have goulash or something Czech for dinner, but then we thought better of it and decided to have Indian!! We went to this little take-away shop with a few tables that had really great food for super cheap. I haven't had naan for two months and wow did it taste good!!

A Real Alpine Experience

2005-01-10T11:27:00.000+01:00

After over a month in Switzerland with no action, our skis, standing in the corner of our apartment, were starting to look a little abandoned and forlorn. We'd been checking the snow reports pretty regularly throughout December and nothing was looking very good. Apparently the weather in December was more like March usually is in Zurich. (Could have fooled me!)

We finally decided to go skiing, and chose the resort area of Davos, near St. Moritz in the southeast of Switzerland. We found a nice couple that are computer science students at ETHZ to watch Baxter, so that was all taken care of. SBB, the Swiss rail system, offers Snow'n'Rail packages that give you a 30% discount when you buy your train ticket and lift ticket as a bundle, so it's a pretty good deal. We picked Davos because it's one of the premier areas in Switzerland to ski and it's got several big resorts that are easily reachable from the town.

We took the train to Davos early Saturday morning, leaving Zurich at about 6:30 and getting into Davos around 8:30. We decided to ski the first day at Jakobshorn (pronounced Yakobshorn), which is purported to be the locals favorite. The beginning to our Jakobshorn experience was a bit like Disneyland...really long lines to get on the first ride of the day...in this case, a gondola, which was the only was up to the main part of the ski area.

The first thing you notice about true alpine (as in, in the actual Alps) skiing is that there are no trees! This means that the runs are instead demarcated by orange poles and there is a feeling of wide open space. The geography of the mountain peaks is different too. Unlike the US, where each mountain seems to give its neighbors some room to be a monolithic individual, the peaks in the Alps all rise shoulder to shoulder, which creates endless ridges in all directions. I think this must be why avalanches are a much more serious and prevalent problem here...there's just not enough room for all the mountains! Here we are on the slopes:

. After we were worn out by the day's downhill exploits, we headed down to Davos Platz, the town to catch the special funicular up to our hotel, the Schatzalp.

Brian picked the Schatzalp because it has a cool location above the town due to the special funicular and it looked nice in the pictures he saw on the website. However, once we stayed there, we saw that there were about a million other reasons that that hotel totally rocked. Among them:

It looks just like the Overlook Hotel in The Shining...*just like* it. You seriously expect two little girls in pigtails to be waiting for you around the next corner and Scatman Crothers to come out of the kitchen.

They even have a "smoking room" which looks just like the place in the scene where Jack talks to the imaginary bartender.
You can sled from the top all the way down to the town, which must be at least 5 kilometers. Furthermore, you can do this at night, after you've had a few drinks. There's only lighting at the bend, which makes it even more fun/insane.

Our room was super nice.

The view from the hotel over the town and ski resorts is amazing.

It used to be a tuberculosis sanitarium.

It featured in one of Thomas Mann's novels

They serve an awesome five-course dinner that's included in the price of the room. Plus there is always a vegetarian option. The breakfast is also amazing and gets you nice and fueled up for skiing.

On Sunday, we decided to try Parsenn, the biggest of the Davos ski resorts. It was definitely our favorite of the two based on the larger number of high-speed quad lifts. We only had one t-bar mishap, so we considered the day a success. On the train ride home, we had to sit next to some Swiss punks drinking 40s and chain smoking and combination of substances, which wasn't the perfect ending to the weekend, but we realy couldn't complain too much!

Ending 2004 the Right Way: Drunk and Full of Cheese!

2004-12-31T23:59:00.000+01:00

In my humble estimation, the last day of 2004 was about as good as they come. We got up early and got on a train to Basel with my parents. Basel is roughly at the intersection of Switzerland, France, and Germany and is only about an hour away from Zurich by train. From the train station, Brian navigated us to the one place mentioned in the guidebook that had seriously caught his interest: the ZOO! Brian may look like an adult, and most of the time he even manages to act like one, but at the zoo, he's resembles a 4-year-old. (And I mean that in the most complimentary way possible.) They had some great exhibits, particularly the aquatic life sections.

We particularly liked the leafy seahorse. If you are looking for a birthday present for me...I want one of these.

The snow leopard exhibit (behind us) wasn't as great because these little deer thingies that looked like snow-leopard-chow were housed right on the other side of a wire fence. The snow leopard looked quite pissed off by the whole arrangement.

Basel is divided by the Rhine River into Kleinbasel (little Basel) and Grossbasel (large Basel). We crossed over into Kleinbasel after the zoo to have lunch at Fischerstube, a hole-in-the-wall microbrewery with a devoted local following. You can buy huge two liter steins and have them refilled cheaply whenever you bring them back.

After our fill of soft prezels, dark beer, and other filling fare, we headed for the Jean Tinguely Museum. This guy was a Swiss artist, apparently one of the national favorites and it's clear why. The sculptures look like something out of a Dr. Suess book. They are awesome! You aren't allowed to take any pictures inside the museum, so we limited ourselves to just a few:

The cool thing about the sculptures is that almost all of them move. You can press these big red buttons on the floor and they convulse to life and do all these wacky, sputtering movements, accompanied by odd mechanical sounds. The kids love it (and the adults too)!

After that, it was time to head back to Zurich in time for our fondue dinner reservation at Adler's Swiss Chuchi Restaurant. It's rumored to be one of the best resturants for fondue in Zurich and it's right by our apartment. It was yum-mmmmy!

The night was still young, being New Years Eve and all. We had to rush back to the apartment to prepare for a little soiree we were hosting. After everyone had their fill of gluhwein, champagne (I'm not a traditionalist that requires waiting until the stroke of midnight), and tequila (thoughtfully imported for us by my parents), we hit the streets of Zurich.

Supposedly, there were over 100,000 people on the streets of Zurich for New Year's or Sylvester, as they call it here. The main attraction was the fireworks, which started at 12:20, and were shot out over the lake. Here we are almost at the lake. That's me looking only halfway sober on the right, and Tonja in the middle, and Tanja on the left. (Both Tonja and Tanja are German, but they indulge me by speaking perfect English, and translating menus for me when we go out to lunch.)

Another pictureof some of our group, from left to right: Douwe (Tonja's husband), Michael (Tanja's husband), Nikola, Tonja, and some drunk girl.

And here's one of me and Brian.

It was a great finish to 2004!

Christmas in Milano

2004-12-27T14:22:00.000+01:00

Leaving quaint, impractical Venice, we headed for the heart of modern Italy and it's biggest city, Milano. Our train from Venice to Milan was totally deserted, which was a little eerie. We were literally the only ones in our whole compartment. We could have run screaming up and down the aisles if we'd wanted to! Instead, we enjoyed the bounty we'd secured from a little Italian grocery we found, which included a bottle of spumante. Yum.

We arrived in Milan around 9:00 and walked about a four blocks to our hotel, which we'd chosen in part for its strategic location right by the train station and right by a metro stop. Since it was Christmas day (and a little late), we asked at the front desk what restaurants were open, and they recommended a place in the neighborhood. It turned out to be quite excellent...I was particularly a fan of the sparkling house white wine, which came in a 1 litre carafe for only 4 euros. We each got a pasta entree and split a pizza and salad and the total was less than 30 euros! (We're really getting warped by Zurich's ridiculous restaurant prices, but still, that does seem like a good deal.)

The next day, first on the agenda was the Duomo. It's one of the largest cathedrals in the world, and that fact is easy to believe when you see its enormity, either from the inside or the outside. It's a funny church too, because it's got all these astrological signs all over it (in the floor especially), and little gremlin-looking things all over the outside. With all the pointy spires, it looks more like what you'd design for Skeletor's Castle than for a church! The Cathedral is located on a big main square, and if you make a left turn when you're facing the church, you can walk through the Gallerie Vittorio Emmanuele, a glass-ceiling shopping arcade.

On the way to the Pinacoteca di Brera, we stopped to see the Teatro Alla Scala, but if you're not into opera, it's really just a building, and not even all that visually unique or impressive. The Brera Museum had an extremely large collection of paintings that was organized from oldest to most modern, with the most modern being about 250 years old. LOTS of variations on the following themes: crucifixion, Madonna/child, and the annunciation. My favorite paintings were of a woman selling fruit by the side of a road, where the fruit were so perfectly painted they looked real, and a pastoral scene done in a sort of early impressionistic technique of alpine herder and his cows.

In the afternoon, we went to Castello Sforzesco, which was originally a military fortress, but now houses a diverse collection of museums. Although it's quite large and impressive, especially due to its location at the end of a grand boulevard, it has a sad, dilapidated air that is common for Italian landmarks, I think because it hasn't been maintained well (or at all) over the years. We paid a flat fee for entrance to all the museums housed in the castle, although we only visited three of them. The main museum worth visiting in the castle is the Museo delle Atir Decorative. The highlights are a room that was painted to look like an arbor by Leonardo da Vinci, the Sala delle Asse, and what is believed to be Michaelangelo's last sculpture, the unfinished Rodanini Pieta.

On Monday, it was time to head home and see Baxter. We did a little shopping first thing in the morning at La Rinascente, the biggest department store in Milan, then headed back to the main train station to catch our train to Zurich. The train ride isn't that long...it only takes about four hours. It's very scenic too. Here are some pictures of passing through the mountains just north of Lake Como. pciture 1 picture 2

Venice by Overnight Train

2004-12-26T16:49:00.000+01:00

We left the Zurich main station a little after 11:00 pm on 12/23 for Venice. We felt pretty fortunate to be on the train at all considering that we'd gotten the LAST two bunks on the train. Apparently, trains going to Italy around Christmastime book up months in advance because all of the Swiss Italians living in Zurich go home to see their families. Anyway, needless to say, we didn't get a private compartment. Instead, we shared it with an old Swiss couple and a Eurotrashy/hippie couple. Otherwise, the trip was quite pleasant. The bunks were nice and cozy for me:

Which meant that they were way too small for Brian:

With the help of a few Tylenol PM, he slept fine anyway. It was about $135 USD per person for the overnight train ticket from Zurich to Venice and from Milan back to Zurich, and much more pleasant than plane travel, I think.

We got into Venice at 7:30 am, which was perfect, because the city was still asleep and generally deserted. The first order of business was to find the correct vaporetto (water taxi) to take us to Piazzo San Marco, or St. Mark's Square to us gringos. Just as we were pondering this question, we ran into one of Brian's friends from high school! Small world... A single ride on the vaporetto isn't cheap--it's 3.50 euro, or about $5.00 per person for a short ride down the Grand Canal, or Canalezzo to the Venetians, and it's only good for 90 minutes. To add insult to injury, you get the distinct impression that none of the local Venetian actually bother (or are required) to buy a ticket.

St. Mark's Square looked just like it does in the movies (i.e. the opening scene of the Italian job). It was great to have a chance to see it before all the other tourists showed up. St. Mark's Square can easily take the whole day. We opted for the quick tour and spent the morning seeing Palazzo Ducale, the Basilica, the Campanile, and the Museo Correr. Here's my take...

The highlight of the Palazzo Ducale was the maze-like dungeon in the basement:

The basilica is more impressive from the outside than from the inside; where they've made it into a bit of a circus.

The campanile is worth the six euros it costs to ride the elevator to the top because of the amazing view of the whole group of islands that makes up the city:

The best part of the Museo Correr is the old maps (I particularly liked the imaginative one of California.) For 10 euros (student), you can get a ticket that's good for the Palazzo Ducale, Museo Correr, Museo Archeologico, and a bunch of others in Venice for three months even if you're just going to be there for a day, it's still a good deal.

After a lunch of pizza at a little bar/cafe at the foot of the Accademia Bridge, we went to the Peggy Guggenheim Museum, which was awesome. It's a private modern art collection that's displayed in what was once her house. In the garden courtyard, there are also sculptures, in addition to her gravestone, alongside those of her 15 or so shitzu dogs! My favorite pieces in her collection were a waterfall sculpture that had an LED display of a waterfall and waterfall sounds instead of the real thing:

And a big wrough-iron gate with little jewel-colored pieces of glass embedded in it:

It's hard to make sure you've seen it all because it's not laid out like a typical museum since it's in a house. There's about a million Jackson Pollocks, and every time you turn a corner, you wonder if you've already seen that one or not!

After the museum, we headed back to the station to pick up our bag via the shopping district and the Rialto Bridge (one of the main thoroughfares of the city). We bought a bottle of spumante and some Italian munchies on our walk. One of the coolest things about Venice is that there are NO cars! It's a tiny little island city with tiny little alleys and a ton of canals, so there's really no practical reason to have them and there's nowhere to go. Once at the train station, we caught the vaporetto to Lido, the island where our hotel was located. (It's much cheaper to stay in Lido and in summer that's where the beaches are, but if we did it over again, we'd probably pay more to stay in Venice.) Our Hotel, the Villa Edera, was very charming. It had the kind of architechture and ambience that suggested that it may have once been the mansion of a successful Venetian merchant although I think it was quite new, and there was a big Murano glass chandelier on our ceiling that I liked. We reserved ahead of time on hotels.com and everything was super-smooth when we got to the hotel. They didn't ask for a credit card or require any additional paperwork at check-in or check out... very easy. For dinner, we had pizza.

On Christmas Day, everything was closed as far as museums, stores, etc. So, we did a bunch of walking tours. We found a lot of cool out-of-the-way stuff, like the house where Shakespeare's Desdemona (from Othello) may have lived:

A statue of the symbol of Venice:

Illuminati symbology in an old Catholic Church (a la Da Vinci Code):

And an old church with friezes depicting maps of the major cities of the era:

I'm pretty sure there aren't too many streets in Venice that I haven't walked down! We found a pretty darn good Chinese restaurant for lunch in San Polo called Il Giardino di Giada on Calle dei Botteri. It was hot, fast, spicy, cheap, and packed with locals. We walked around more in the afternoon and had the city practically to ourselves.

After it started getting dark, we headed for the train station to catch our train to Milan.

A day in the life of Baxter

2004-12-23T21:16:00.000+01:00

Brian and Heather have been telling you all about what they're doing in Zurich, but I snuck onto the computer so I could tell you about what I do here.

Overall the apartment here is nice, but I still haven't found the dog door. Also, I can't seem to get any traction on the floors. How am I supposed to tear around the place like a fricking maniac?

I must be on vacation from my job of head of household security because I can't see out the windows here. They should really be more concerned about the squirrels. I'm sure they're up to no good out there.

Let me tell you about a typical day...

My work starts bright and early. I have to make sure Heather and Brian don't sleep too late. After they get up, I make sure they get out of the house by pawing at the door and grumbling loudly if they move too slowly.

My favorite park is up the street, in Scotland. At least I think it's in Scotland. There are huge berms for me to scramble up. Reminds me of ye olde sod.

It is this place that I have claimed as my toilet. My foolish owners like to lock themselves in a little room when they use the bathroom. I prefer to have a view:

After using the bathroom, it's important to give thanks with a special ritual dance I learned from my father, who learned it from his father, all the way back to the original Doggfather, Snoop. Brian calls this ritual "the chicken dance" which I resent. It's hard to describe the subtle complexities of this sacred movement so I've included a picture of myself below demonstrating, with perfect form, of course.

After my dance is complete, we typically visit some important monuments.

First, we go to the BRAVO altar which conveniently dispenses little black bags which Heather and Brian use to collect the sacred offering I've left behind just before doing my ritual dance. They then pay homage to the BRAVO gods by gingerly depositing my offering into the slot.

Next stop is the commemorative portrait of Santa's Little Helper, one of the most important figures in canine history.

After making sure everything is in order on the neighboring hill:

We usually head home for a meal of Switzerland's most expensive dog food, BioMill. Heather and Brian must really love me...

Doing the Monastery Circuit...

2004-12-20T13:14:00.000+01:00

On Saturday we went to Einsiedeln, a small town southwest of the Zurichsee in Canton Schwyz and a wee bit in the mountains. We woke up early, walked the dog, and caught the 7:50 train. (And, I would like to point out that I bought the tickets for our trip speaking entirely German, or at least some halfway-intelligible bastardized form thereof.) According to our favorite guidebook (The Rough Guide) the Benedectine monastery (kloster) in Einseideln is the most important religious pilgrimage site in Switzerland. Part of this is due to the fact that the church there houses a famous statue called the Black Madonna. I have to say that I feel like I've seen other black Maddonas before in Italy and Spain that were pretty darn similar, but hey, I'm certainly no expert.

The train ride to Einsiedeln took us along the left shore of the lake, which was cool, because we got to see all the little towns there. We also passed by the famous Lindt chocolate factory in Kilchberg, where I've heard they give free tours that include free samples. Maybe another reason to visit us? We transferred trains in Wadenswil and from there headed away from the lake and up into the forest. It sort of looked like there were some lumber towns up in the area we were passing through, and the train station in Eisiedeln looked more like a pulp mill than a train station. I've read that in all of Europe, Switzerland is second only to Portugal in the percentage of the country that is forested.

Once in Einsiedeln, we decided to go for a walk around in the hills behind the town, because that's obviously what all normal people do when it's 10 degrees below zero outside.
We walked to a cool lookout point behind the monastery that had a statue of a dude and a plaque explaining what he was all about, but it was in German, so obviously I can't pass that along.

Then later we walked down around in a loop around this cute little church and a stinky, stinky, but no doubt authentic, Swiss dairy farm.

Then, it started to snow a bit, so we walked around inside the church/monastery for a while. When we came out, there was a ton of snow on the ground! The whole town looked different. Despite the subzero temperatures, the famous fountain in front of the monastery was still running. For good luck, you are supposed to drink from all thirteen spigots. Brian couldn't resist.

Lichterschwimmen

2004-12-16T20:36:00.000+01:00

Tonight we went down to the Rathaus Bridge to see a traditional Zurich festival that happens every year on December 16th. It's called Lichterschwimmen, which sounds to me like it roughly translates to "swimming lights", which pretty much sums it up. A bunch of little kids (kindergarten age) build these tiny rafts for candles, then they release them all at exactly 6:00 to float down the Limmat River. We were only two or three minutes late, and we had missed the release. Apparently Swiss children have already learned precise punctuality by the time they are five years old. Anyway, I'm not really sure about the significance of the festival and none of the Swiss people I've asked know either.

It's pretty though, and it's fun, and they give out free gingerbread-like cookies and hot punch that Brian though tasted like Theraflu, but I thought it was just fine, although it would have been better with a little brandy or rum.

Here's another picture from our evening--that's the one of Zurich's two famous churches, the Grossmunster behind me. (I need to learn how to type umlauts...)

While I was watching the little candles float in the river, I had the realization that the Limmat does not in fact feed into the Zurichsee (Lake Zurich), to the south. Instead, the lake, which is undoutedly fed by run-off and snowmelt from the mountains to the south, feeds the Limmat, so the Limmat River actually flows north. Here's a little map so you can kind of see what I'm talking about. I looked into it, and it turns out that the Limmat eventually meets the Rhine. Probably much more interesting to me than anyone else, but oh well.

Quick trip to balmy London

2004-12-15T07:14:00.000+01:00

I'm a little late on this post but I spent Tuesday and Wednesday in London. Besides the meeting I had in London, I had two objectives: curry and fish 'n chips. I completed mission one by having dinner at Soho Spice near the office. It was recommended to me by a friend but I found lots of mixed, even negative, reviews online. My food was good (Chicken tikka masala kababs), the price was fair, and I found the service quick and efficient.
Wednesday, I did a little shopping at Harrods of Knightbridge, and completed my second mission at Tattersall Tavern across the street from Harrods. I'd definitely recommend this place. I got the impression it is family run and the owner was very friendly. Most importantly, the fish and chips were good.
Overall, London is great. I really appreciate the fact that everyone speaks a language I can understand, the people are friendly/happy, and it's a lot warmer than Zurich!

Stupid american tourists still love Ikea

2004-12-12T22:57:00.000+01:00

I'll keep it short since Heather's already given you quite a bit to read about...

Ikea was open today (unlike the other stores which are all closed on Sunday) so we decided to check it out and see how things are different in real, European Ikeas (instead of fake American ones).

To prove to ourselves that we are still indeed stupid American tourists, we performed the following act: (1) get on a the right train, (2) convince yourself that it's the wrong train, (3) get off, and then finally, (4) realize your mistake just in time to see the train pulling away. Later in the day, we decided that an encore was in order on the bus in Spreitenbach so we did the same damn thing and then waited outside in the cold for 30 minutes for the bus to come back and pick us up.

I'm sure the suspense is killing you so I'll tell you what you've been waiting to find out: Ikea is the same here as it is there. Prices were almost exactly the same as they are in the US and they had mostly the same stuff. Relatively speaking though, those were darn good prices though so we took home our very own package of napkins, 15 hangers, and a brand new pair of fuzzy slippers for Heather. Exciting, isn't it?

To add to our enjoyment, we also bought a 15 kg (33 lbs) bag of food to carry to the bus and then to the train and then to our apartment. It didn't help that the world-renowned public transit system isn't so world-renowned outside of the big city. The Spreitenbach bus was late every time and didn't even show up at all twice. They also didn't tell us that it was poorly-behaved-awkward-adolescent day on the bus. I guess even the Swiss have obnoxious teenagers.

St. Gallen: a small very cold town

2004-12-12T07:18:00.000+01:00

On Saturday, we decided to go to St. Gallen (Sankt Gallen in German). It's the major population center of ostschweiz (eastern Switzerland) and is also the name of a canton (the Swiss equivalent of a state). From Zurich, the train ride is just a few minutes over an hour and it's direct. Trains run between the two cities about every hour. There were a lot of young guys in military uniform on our train, I think probably going home for the weekend to see their family. Military service here is mandatory, which seems weird given that they are a neutral country. Very odd.

The train ride was very scenic, mostly agricultural areas at first, but then rolling hills. Just before we got to St. Gallen, we went over a bridge, and on the other side was snow! Not quite what I was looking for since it was plenty cold enough for me in Zurich. We headed for the tourist office as soon as we got off the train to grab a map. Sure enough, it was really, really cold. I was glad I'd worn silk long underwear tops and bottoms, but my face was still freezing into a scowl. Even the spiders were affected by the cold!

The old city is roughly circular and is built around the abbey and the cathedral. The town was originally founded by a religious guy, Gallen (you guessed it), who got a sign from God that somehow involved a bear and decided to build a monastery on the spot. As a result there are flags and signs, etc. with bears on them all over the city. Some even have a phallic twist for a little extra pizzazz.

We headed for the cathedral first, which was fairly easy to locate given the spires. However, once we arrived at the cathedral-abbey-monastery-library complex, we were completely baffled about how to get in. So, we wandered around in the fog outside for awhile. ...and we tried some doors...and we took some pictures of the cathedral...and we got really cold. And then this woman walked up to one of the big heavy wooden doors on the side of the cathedral and opened it and just walked in. Apparently we were waiting for some kind of neon "Open" sign. The cathedral was very ornate inside--the polar opposite of Grossmunster. There was someone learning to play the huge organ that day we think, because it sounded horrible and it would start and stop in the middle of songs. There were confession booths, which are always a favorite of mine. Switzerland is not a particularly religious country, and the people that are religious tend to be Protestant I think, so I think that this Catholic church must be something of a rarity.

Next, we went on to the library (Stiftsbibliothek), the real highlight of the town. It's super old and there are some books in it from 750 and some very old bibles and religious manuscripts. There's a cool Greek inscription over the door that translates as "The Pharmacy of the Soul." Besides the books, there is a mummy in the library that has been taken out of its coffin. You aren't supposed to take any pictures in the library, but we did anyway.

We bought a take away lunch at a Chinese food place and drinks at a gargantuan Migros (grocery store) and took it on the train with us. I'd say St. Gallen is probably only worth a long morning or afternoon, but then again, they do apparently have a museum of beer bottles, and we missed that. Maybe next time...

I'm finally legal!!

2004-12-10T23:55:00.000+01:00

On Friday morning, I woke up VERY early to catch the train to Mulhouse, France, where I needed to go to get my Swiss visa. The Swiss will not issue visas inside the country because they don't want people to come and then just happen to decide to stay. I was planning to take a train that left Zurich HB (Hauptbahnhof, which basically means main station in German, I think) at 7:02 to Basel, where I would connect, but I was there early, as I never am one to take a long time getting ready. I saw another train that looked like it might also get me to Mulhouse directly, so I stopped to ask an official-looking dude. He told me that it was the right train, but I better hurry because it was leaving. Then, as if in one of those scenes from the movies, I started running and hopped on as it was moving. A very exciting start to my day.

The ride to Mulhouse was uneventful because it was dark (so I couldn't see the scenery). When I got there, I had to locate the Swiss consulate, and I didn't have an address or directions or anything. I tried to just start walking towards where the town center seemed to be. It was about 8:15 when I got there, so only the bakeries were open. The French, unlike the Swiss, like to sleep in until it's light outside. Just as I was losing hope, I saw a big Swiss flag on the second story of one of the buildings. The office wasn't supposed to open until 9:00, but I guessed that the industrious Swiss people who worked there probably were already open for business, which proved to be correct. There was already a line! Everyone seemed to be speaking French, so I did too, and it worked out fine. It was quite nice to be able to speak the langauage after having been a retard for the last few weeks with only 20 or so words of German. Even though I paid $44 US for my original visa application in the US which had been initially denied, and then at long last approved, I had to pay again, this time 36 euros. So, the total cost for my visa was:
-$44 USD for the first application
-36 euros or $47 USD
-48 CHF for train ticket to Mulhouse or $41 USD
-4 passport photos $12 USD at Kinko's the first time, 9 CHF or 8 USD the second time
...for a grand total of: $152

After my business was complete, I went to a bakery and ordered a croissant and a hot chocolate. Lord almighty French croissants are good!!! Yum yum yum. And it didn't cost me a year's salary just to buy breakfast like it does in Zurich. Yay!

Railway passes and the stomach flu

2004-12-10T06:38:00.000+01:00

Switzerland has one of the most efficient train/tram systems in the world. Everyone takes the tram around Zurich and, from what we've heard, trains are pretty nice here too. If you take the tram a lot though, it can get pretty expensive. A one-way ticket costs CHF 3.60 and lasts for 1 hour! But fear not, we've found that there a million different passes and combinations of passes that will make travel by train more managable. One of the most popular choices with the locals is the half-fare card. It seems like everyone buys this who is going to be around Switzerland for any length of time. To get one, you need a passport photo and CHF 150. This gives you half price fares on the tram in Zurich and other cities as well as half-price train tickets in Switzerland for one whole year. We also decided to get a monthly Zurich Card which costs CHF 90 (70 if you are under 26 at time of purchase). We just found out today that if you have a half-fare card, you can get the 1-month Zurich Card for CHF 35 which is a fantastic deal.

There are also options for monthly/yearly Zurich cards and GA (general abonnement) passes which give the holder free travel in Switzerland. These are pretty expensive though and only make sense if you are going to do a lot of traveling--especially if you already have the discount from the half-fare card. We're planning to get a GA card for one month and pack most of our trips around Switzerland into that month.

Unfortunately, the Zurich Card can't keep you from getting sick which I somehow managed to do. Last night around 8 (20:00 for you Europeans) I started feeling really sick to my stomach. I was up all night doing disgusting things in the bathroom with a ferocity never before felt by our toilet. I still can't figure out if it was food poisoning or just a stomach flu. My money is on stomach flu since none of the people I ate with got sick. At any rate, I felt better this morning and thought I would continue to recover so I dragged my self in to work. After a few hours though, I was pretty miserable and I started to think I might be contagious so I went home and laid in bed for most of the afternoon and evening until Heather dragged me out the to train station to get a passport photo taken for our half-fare card. Conveniently, there's a photo machine (and an ATM) right near the booth to buy the cards. Beware though, the machine doesn't seem to make change. Not so conveniently, the line to actually buy the card was really long so Heather is going to go back tomorrow with our photos and buy the cards.

After we got home, Heather took Baxter out for a walk and came home in tears. After a bit, she explained that a truck driver almost ran Baxter over in a cross walk. Heather saw him coming (talking on his cellphone) and jerked Baxter out of the way by his leash. Good thing she was quick! It would have really ruined our trip to have something happen to Bax, and I'm sure Heather would have blamed herself for years.

Anyway, everything is looking better now. Baxter is intact and I'm starting to recover.

Yesterday, I registered myself at the Kreisburo which amounts to me giving them a couple of papers and CHF 20 and getting a stamp in return. I guess this is important though so I did it. A word to the wise, if you have to do this, deny your religion. They assess an extra tax for the church based on your religion. I suggest you do what I did and say "no religion" when asked.

Gettin' Down to Business

2004-12-08T06:25:00.000+01:00

With Brian at work this week, I've been running errands and trying to take care of some of the basic logistics for our stay here. On Monday, I bought a calling card from the Swisscom store in the main train station (enter from the end of the Bahnhofstrasse and make a left at the fountain). It was 50 CHF and it will be good for 11 hours of US calls. Then, I needed to get rid of our growing mountain of recycling. All I knew was that it had to go back to the grocery store, so I loaded it into a bag and headed to the local Coop. Once there, I found an employee stocking the shelves pointed to one of my empty bottles and said Entschuldigen Sie, wo?" He pointed me to the back of the store. I fed my bottles into this machine that scanned in the bar code. Then, when I was done, it spit out a receipt. I was trying to see what it said, and a bum looking guy behind me looked at my receipt, pointed to the 0.0 on it and muttered something in German that I assume meant "Bummer, dude, but you didn't get any deposit back. Better luck next time."

The next agenda item yesterday was to find some stores where I could find some vegetarian food. I've joined a newsgroup that has given me a couple of places to try. In the main grocery stores, Coop and Migros, a block of tofu half the size of the ones in the US costs $5.00. I went to Mueller Reformhaus (sounds funny!) and did find a bunch of stuff. I got some flavored tofu (basil and curry) and what looks like a tennis ball sized meatball, and another thing that I assumed was tofu but turned out to be some kind of dough. We tried to look online to translate it, but had no luck. My guess is it's gluten-free dough of some variety. I'm going to make a pizza with it. I'll let you know how that goes!

Today, I got a library card from the main library, which is just around the corner from our apartment and checked out some travel books in English. It wasn't too tough. I had to go inside (after I checked my coat and all my bags, including my purse) and fill out a form at one of the computer terminals with my name, email address, mailing address, and phone number. Then, I went to a desk and showed my passport and voila, I had a library card. The bummer is that you can only search the database in German, which may prove to be a bit of a stumbling block.

Then I went to my second yoga class at Air Yoga, which I really like. It's in an upscale suburb of Zurich called Seefeld where all the bankers live. After yoga, I had lunch at Tidbits, which is owned by the same people that own the most famous vegetarian restaurant in Zurich, Hiltl, which is over 100 years old. Then, I cooked risotto for dinner, because arborio rice is pretty much the only thing that's a good deal at the grocery store here, so we'll be having a lot of it!

I can pretty much do whatever I want all day and then come home when it gets dark around 4:00 and do work until Brian gets home at 8:00. And my work will still be done before most people get top work in California. It's a nice schedule!

Pizza and the Zurich Zoo

2004-12-05T18:27:00.000+01:00

Last night we went to Santa Lucia for dinner with Magnus and Mihut from the office. The pizzas were big (about 12") and reasonably priced by Zurich standards (CHF 19-24). Here's the info: Address:
St. Jakobstrasse 6
8004 Zürich
Phone: +41-1-241 83 04

Today, we took the 6 tram up to the Zoo. If you have a student ID, it's only CHF 11, if you aren't a student, it's CHF 22 to get in. We were pretty impressed by this zoo. Most of the exhibits are well done and maintained. We got the feeling that the animals were well cared for but couldn't help thinking about how much their food must cost. We saw the chimpanzees get about one crate of frizze lettuce. The orangutans only got iceberg though. They had lots of cool animals, some of which I hadn't seen in American Zoos. Here are our favorite animals/exhibits:

Emporer penguins- you can get really close and they don't smell as bad as they do in the US zoos
Elephants- always one of my favorites though their enclosure was a bit small
Tiger- I've never gotten so close to a tiger as we were allowed to at the Zurich Zoo
Otters- I didn't know there was such a thing as a Europen otter. Also, there are windows into their dens so you can really get a close look.
Orangutans and Gorillas- they have a giant orangutan and silverback as well as a bunch of infants.
Camels- for some reason, these camels were extra charming.
Electric eels- they've hooked up a voltage meter to the tank so you can see when the eels are doing their thing. I couldnt understand how their behavior impacted the reading on the meter but this was cool anyway.
Red Panda- This guy gave us quite a show--I thought he was going to reach out and grab Heather. I can't believe he couldn't escape from his enclosure if he wanted to.
Golden Lion Tamarins- I don't think I've ever seen one of these before. Here's a picture of one in the wild.

We also spent some time in the Masoala Regenwald which is a huge indoor tropical rainforest complete with thousands of plants and a few animals including lemurs, tortoises, birds, bats, and some lizards. We didn't manage to see the lemurs would would have been the highlight. I wasn't overly impressed since they have something similar at Chicago's Brookfield Zoo except instead of Lemurs they have Gorillas there which you can actually see (though from a long way off).

After we finished up, we got lunch at the main cafeteria. It was typically overpriced but since we saved some money on the entrance fee, we didn't let it bother us. A word to the wise, do without the butter on your bread. A pat of butter will cost you CHF 1.40.

Welcome to Zurich

2004-12-05T03:04:00.000+01:00

I finally got my imac set up here in the corporate apartment so now I have no excuse not to start the blog I've been promising to create.

I plan to document our experience relocating from Menlo Park, California to Zurich, Switzerland. Hopefully, it won't be too boring--at least our friends and family might find it worth reading.

We flew out Wednesday morning, arriving here on Thursday morning. Baxter (our westie) came with us and was mostly cooperative on the plane under the seat in his duffel bag.

Of course, we were quite worried about Baxter making it through immigration. He looks quite dangerous and we've heard the Swiss are very conservative. When it came down to it though, Heather wanted to take him out while I was waiting for our bags (he hadn't had a chance to take a leak for over 8 hours). In her rush to let him out, she walked right through customs with him on a leash presenting no paperwork whatsoever. We still haven't been accosted by the authorities.

I had to get a "step-down" transformer to actually plug in our G5 imac. For some reason, apple decided to ship them without support for 220v. Of course, the ones we saw in the store here work on both 110 and 220v but that won't help us now. Like everything else here, the transformer was really expensive (CHF 95). If had it to do over again, I'd have just bought it from here. Even with exorbitant shipping charges to Switzerland, it would have been half as much.

We decided to buy the Zurich train pass for CHF 70 which gives us unlimited travel on the trams and buses in the city for one month. We spent a few hours trying to figure out what the best deal would be since there are about 25 different combinations of passes you can get. The Swiss pass was tempting since it gives you unlimited travel on any train in Switzerland for 1 year AND you can get a partial refund for the part of the year you don't use if you leave the country before the year is up, which we plan to. We figured out that we'd need to use over CHF 700 each in the next six months for that to be economical though so we decided not to get it. Instead, we'll probably get the half price pass for CHF 150 which gives you 50% off all tickets for one year. If only the exchange rate for US dollars wasn't so crappy right now...

We also went to a place near the mouth of the Limmat where you can make your own candles. Judging from the number of locals there, this is a popular thing to do for Swiss people. It takes a fair amount of patience (which was trying for Heather) and a bit of skill (which was hard for me). Despite all our efforts trying to blend in, our candles made it very obvious that we aren't Swiss.

Queen's Day: The Bitter End

2004-12-01T15:07:00.000+01:00

11:50

11:55

12:30